WWTD 116 - Popeye: A Masterpiece and a Catastrophe

As we've established (many times) before, the 1980s were a weird time for Disney, as the flailing and ailing company tried to outgrow their family-first approach with a more mature and gritty series of films. Most of the time, that didn't go over so well. At least once, however, they managed to harness a perfect storm of creatives and performers to make one of the most fascinating, ugly, dense and well-realized movies our hosts have any seen. Robert Altman's POPEYE takes the heightened look and reality of the comic strip and cartoon and puts it right up on the screen in live action. The result is discomforting and kind of gross, but also very appealing and charming? You can't help but admire his commitment to his vision, nor his brilliance in casting Robin Williams in his first leading film role or Shelley Duvall in the role she was born to play. Vicky, Nolan and Jill are at once completely confounded and incredibly impressed, though we hope you won't be with this episode of We Want The D.