This version of "The Popeye Show" premiered in fall 2001 in an effort to present the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios theatrical Popeye cartoons from 1933 - 1957 on television in their original form. Prior to this show's premier, most television airings of the Popeye theatrical cartoons bore the logos of Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.), the company that bought the films from Paramount Pictures for television distribution. This is due to the shorts having been sold in the 1950s, when most film studios did not want to be associated with television. As a result, a.a.p. was required to replace the original Paramount logo's with their own. Also, later on the black and white Popeye shorts were colorized. This is how the Popeye shorts aired on Cartoon Network from 1992 - 2001 on a prior version of "The Popeye Show" and were always shown on that form on Acme Radio Hour (1995). However, for this new revamped version of "The Popeye Show", efforts were made to present these films as close to their original theatrical form as possible: some of the cartoons shown were copies that actually had their original Paramount titles intact, while others needed to have their titles simulated through the process of digital video editing.
This version of "The Popeye Show" was narrated by Bill Murray, who would tell the audience facts about the history of the cartoons as filler between each short. This gave this anthology show a similar feel as ToonHeads (1992) where a greater emphasis was placed on the catering to the adult cartoon fans who'd like to know more about the material. Cartoon Network's prior version of "The Popeye Show" only featured the standard bumpers between cartoons in the checkerboard era and none after that era.
This show focused mostly on Fleischer Studios Popeye shorts and early Famous Studios shorts that were filmed in black-and-white. For all episodes, the first two shorts were from this era with the first short shown always being one from Fleischer Studios. Most times the third short would be a color cartoon from Famous Studios, but on many occasions an episode would entirely be made of black-and-white cartoons.
When selecting color entries that air as the third cartoon, the only ones that were initially chosen were those that existed in the Turner vaults with their original titles.
Animation historian Jerry Beck served as a consultant for the show with "Jerry Beck and Cartoon Research" getting a special thanks at the end credits of each episode.