Wilco Meets Popeye in New Video

Combines song from Blurt cover stars' latest album with a return to classic animation in the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in more than 25 years .

By Blurt Staff

King Features and dBpm Records are combining creative forces for a series of firsts with the release of a new cartoon and animated music video for Wilco's "Dawned On Me" (from The Whole Love) featuring Popeye and you know who. The new video can be viewed in at wilcospinach.com, or right here:

The video is directed by Darren Romanelli, the fashion and pop culture innovator who conceived the collaboration between Wilco and King's flagship character. It's one of the first music videos Wilco has released since 1999 and it presents the band as animated images, side-by-side with Popeye and his friends Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea, Wimpy and Bluto.

Popeye was created in 1933 by Fleischer Studios, and the music video marks the first new Popeye cartoon since "Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy," the 3-D CGI primetime TV special and deluxe DVD release produced by King Features Syndicate for Popeye's 75th Anniversary in 2004. In what has become a primarily digital world, this new video marks the first hand-drawn, frame-by-frame rendering for Popeye cell animation since the Popeye and Son series from 1987. In this new video, Popeye vies for Olive Oyl's affections with his usual nemesis, Bluto, and with a new challenger, Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy.

Wilco, of course, appears on the cover of the latest issue of Blurt.