Popeye the Sailor

Popeye the Sailor is an American animated series of comedy short films based on the comic strip character created by E. C. Segar. In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer‘s Fleischer Studios adapted Segar’s characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. The plotlines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler than those presented in the comic strips, and the characters slightly different. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye’s “sweetie,” Olive Oyl. The villain clobbers Popeye until he eats spinach, giving him superhuman strength. Thus empowered, Popeye the sailor makes short work of the villain.

This short has gained some infamy for its use of a sped-up voice clip used for the mouse, which includes swearing. Directed by Isadore Sparber. Original air date: October 03, 1952.

Popeye snores loudly as he sleeps at night. The noise and accompanying wind is causing a small mouse to lose sleep, until it takes action and moves the sound asleep sailor halfway out his window. He does not wake until his own snoring propels him fully outside the window, to rebound and crash back inside, yet he goes back to sleep. The mouse’s ordeal continues until it decides to confront Popeye directly, kicking his nose to wake him and complaining about its sleep. Popeye merely carries the mouse to be left outside the front door – through which the rodent proceeds to stick the garden hose via mail hole, soon flooding the house and causing Popeye’s bed to float out, until he gets a ticket for parking it beside a fire hydrant. Popeye turns to using his wall bed to continue sleeping, but is soon slammed against the wall thanks to the mouse. Not without regret, he resorts to putting a mousetrap into the rodent’s wall hole. Inside, the animal causes the trap to spring then fakes cries of pain. As Popeye sticks his head in to look, the trap is sprung upon his nose, leading to him breaking the wall and water pipes. Declaring “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”, he chases the mouse around until he traps it in an empty spinach can, to be left outside. The can, however, is not entirely empty, giving the animal the chance to eat away and become strong, bringing the door down and carrying the sleeping sailor to be shoved into the wall behind the mouse hole. With the rodent noisily snoring in Popeye’s bed, the roles are now reversed as the badly-accomodated sailor is unable to sleep from the noise.

Genres: Cartoon Series, Series, 1950's, Popeye the Sailor COLOR, Cartoons, ALL Series