CBS/Fox Video (under license of MGM/UA) had planned a VHS and Beta release of the Fleischer and Famous Studios cartoons in 1983. However, UA was informed by King Features Syndicate that only King Features had the legal right to release Popeye cartoons on video.^{[citation needed]} United Artists did not challenge King Features' claim, and the release was canceled.^{[citation needed]} While King Features owns the rights to the Popeye characters, and licensed the characters to appear in the Fleischer/Famous cartoons, King Features does not have any ownership in the films themselves.

A clause in the original contract between Paramount Pictures and King Features stated that after ten years, the prints and negatives of the Popeye cartoons were to be destroyed,^[15] a clause the syndicate had for all of its licensed properties. The clause was never enforced for Popeye.

While many of the Paramount Popeye cartoons remained unavailable on video, a handful of those cartoons had fallen into public domain and were found on numerous low budget VHS tapes and later DVDs. Among these cartoons are a handful of the Fleischer black-and-whites, several 1950s Famous shorts (many of which went public domain after the MGM/UA merger), and all three Popeye Color Specials. When Turner Entertainment acquired the cartoons in 1986, a long and laborious legal struggle with King Features kept the majority of the original Popeye shorts from official video releases for more than 20 years. King Features instead opted to release a DVD boxed set of the 1960s made-for-television Popeye cartoons, which it retained the rights to, in 2004. In the meantime, home video rights to the a.a.p. library were transferred fromCBS/Fox Video to MGM/UA Home Video in 1986, and eventually to Warner Home Video in 1999.

In 2006, Warner Bros. finally reached an agreement with King Features Syndicate and its parent company Hearst Corporation. Warner Home Video announced it would release all of the Popeye cartoons produced for theatrical release between 1933 and 1957 on DVD, restored and uncut. The studio also plans to release DVD sets of the Popeye cartoons made for television in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the rights to which are controlled by Hearst Entertainment.^[16] This is similar in most respects to the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets also released by Warner, except the Popeye shorts will be released in chronological order.

The first of Warner's Popeye DVD sets, covering the cartoons released from 1933 until early 1938, was released on July 31, 2007. Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1, a four-disc collector’s edition DVD, contains the first 60 Fleischer Popeye cartoons, including the color specials Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves. Restoration timelines caused Warners to re-imagine the Popeye DVD sets as a series of two-disc sets. This DVD set was included, either erroneously or through fraud, in a batch of boxed sets sold in discount outlets for $3 or less in the summer of 2009.^[1]

A second volume of Popeye cartoons from Warner Home Video, Popeye the Sailor: 1938-1940, Volume 2 was released on June 17, 2008.^[17] It includes the final color Popeye special Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp.^[18] Warner also released Popeye & Friends, Volume One, a single DVD featuring eight color Popeye cartoons from Hanna-Barbera's 1978 TV series The All-New Popeye Hour, on the same day (Hanna-Barbera is also a division of WB).^[19]

Popeye the Sailor: 1941-1943, Volume 3 was released on November 4, 2008.^[20] It includes three seldom shown wartime Popeye cartoons: You're A Sap, Mister Jap (1942), Scrap The Japs (1942), and Seein' Red, White, and Blue (1943). A second single-disc volume of H-B produced Popeye TV cartoons was also scheduled for release titled Popeye & Friends, Volume Two,^[21] but Warner decided to cancel the release of this DVD.^[22]