Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves

He always-innovative Fleischer Studios had its own version of the multiplane camera called the 'Stereoptical Process,' 'The Slide,' or better known as the 'setback' camera. Its system was further refined in the studio's second 'Popeye Color Special,' the two-reeler cartoon November 1937 "Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves." Popeye is in the Coast Guard. The sailorman, Olive Oyl and J. Wellington Wimpy respond to a call in Arabia to thwart the Forty Thieves while their attacking a desert town. Throughout all the chaos, Popeye confronts Abu Hassan in an effort to stop his band's destructive actions. A can of spinach enables Popeye to take on the gang.

The Fleischers departed from the vertical camera Disney had designed and built an horizontal one instead. Theirs was situated on a stage, with miniature sets and artwork placed in layers on a huge turntable to capture both background and foreground images. The drawn cels complete with characters were filmed within this framework, with the camera moving forward and backward. In "Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves" its final scene shows Popeye and Olive riding in a wagon illustrated by a three-dimensional effect. Miraculously, the camera pans to Abu and his companions in the normal two-dimensional setting while pulling the wagon. By this time in late 1937 the designers of animated cartoons were pressing the latest technological advancements, most which would still be in use until computers entered the scene in the late 20th century.