Popeye - Pirate Treasure (Record Guild of America, 1948)

 

Here is a Thanksgiving treat that, like many, many items on this site, doesn't seem to exist anywhere else.  This is a 6 & 1/2 inch cardboard record from 1948 that is also a two-sided picture disc! According to Discogs, Record Guild of America issued tons of these 78 rpm, full-color beauties, some based on comic strips of the day (there also exists one for Flash Gordon and Terry and the Pirates, for example).  It's pretty amazing that this one, which I found in a flea market out of town for five bucks, has survived. But how well?

Extremely well, for a 75-year-old record made of carboard that's coated with a fragile, thin plastic layer.  I really wasn't sure it was going even to play.  The biggest problem I had with it was that--as you would completely expect--the record was bowed from time and temperature.  One side approximated a dome, and the other, a bowl.  It wasn't extreme, from the perspective of a collectible, but on the other hand, from the viewpoint of a stylus, less than trackable.  What to do?

I puzzled over this one for a while, trying to invent some complicated invention that would be low-profile enough for the arm of the turntable to clear...until the epiphany finally came.  It's usually the simplest ideas that work the best.  I bought a corkboard at a thrift store, cut it into a circle, and used thumbtacks to hold the record flat, so that it could be digitized.  And it worked like a charm.

Amazingly, the entire adventure, which adds up to about 3 minutes, plays without skips or mistracking.  It was extremely noisy, as you would think (this is a problem with picture discs anyhow, but in this case, wear and age play a huge part).  At first it was a struggle to hear the words.  I worked on it a long time and was able to greatly reduce the surface noise and make it completely listenable.  It's now akin to an AM radio broadcast, when before it was like having your head down in a running clothes dryer.

The record is very well-done, and seems to be emulating the early Fleischer cartoons (or possibly even one of the radio series).  Basically, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Swee'Pea stop on an island to have a picnic, run into pirates, who Popeye trounces, and then they leave with the pirate's treasure (which Popeye probably added to his enormous wealth)! It's worth pointing out that there is no spinach to be found in this story, which points more toward the comic strip than the cartoons.

Enjoy!

Popeye - Pirate Treasure (1948)

Don't want to download? I have also shared this on YouTube, which I honestly need to be doing more of with this sort of thing: