Far West Post

Content

‘Popeye in the Wild West’ might have been a better title for this Oranjeboom beer commercial (1953). As a seller of ideas, Joop Geesink was not afraid to resell a successful concept to other advertisers. In this context, the Popeye concept is an example.

In this film, the narrator explains that Popeye gets his strength from eating spinach, but this sherif from drinking Oranjeboom beer. In today's times, people may look a bit differently at the propagated combination of booze and violence, but still a fun film.

Trivia

The idea of having puppet film characters perform ‘cartoon jokes’ is turning out to be unsuccessful. Whereas the cartoon character Popeye regularly shook houses to their foundations and hurled villains through the air, such imagery in puppet animation communicates less. This is partly due to the lesser elasticity of the puppets.
Furthermore, the narrative voice has an almost superfluous function. The voice almost literally narrates what is shown. Nowadays, the tacit rule is: ‘Don't tell “em, show ”em!’ It is possible that the intention of the spoken text was precisely to suggest even more action. No information on this has been preserved.
Oranjeboomb beer was also sold in the United States as Queens Beer.