Jack Mercer

Description

Jack Mercer (January 13, 1909 &ndash; December 4, 1984), was an American animator and voice actor. He is best known as the voice of Popeye. <p>Mercer began his work in cartoons as an "inbetweener", an apprentice animator at Fleischer Studios. When William Costello, the original cartoon voice of Popeye (1933-35), became difficult to work with, he was dismissed. After some difficulty finding a replacement Lou Fleischer heard Mercer singing the Popeye song and gave him the job of doing the Popeye voice. Mercer's first cartoon was "King of the Mardi Gras" (1935). Mercer continued to voice the one-eyed sailor for the Fleischers, for Paramount's Famous Studios cartoons (1942-57), for a series of television cartoons for King Features Syndicate, and for a Saturday morning cartoon show (1978), produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Mercer also did other cartoon voices, including all the voices for a series of Felix the Cat cartoons produced in 1959-60. Mercer also did the voices of Wimpy,...