So I've been watching the Popeye DVD set again that I got a while ago. It's all the Fleischer Black and White Popeye cartoons from 1933-1938, along with two of the lengthier color cartoons from the period. It's a great set, and I'm having a blast chipping away at it a few cartoons at the time (you really shouldn't watch more than two or three Popeye cartoons in one sitting, because they all tend to blend together). I have a few observations, and a few questions:
Popeye is kind of an asshole in these early shorts. Almost every cartoon I've seen so far opens with him sailing somewhere, riding on a boat or a whale or a shark or whatever, singing his theme song. The dude has a theme song which he sings himself. I should do that, just make up my own theme song and sing it wherever I go. Usually Popeye is standing at the bow of a boat, with Olive Oyl in the rear doing all the rowing. So, giant ego and abusive boyfriend. He also walks right past a cop being held up by a robber in one cartoon.
He's also ugly. I don't mean that "Cute-Ugly" that he is in the 1950s cartoons, with his twinkling eye and spotless white sailor suit. No, this Popeye looks like someone backed over his face with a garbage truck, and then dumped the garbage on it.
He's quick to scrap in these. It doesn't take much for Popeye to start swinging those bloated forearms at some hapless schmuck. And the spinach is always a last resort. Popeye fights until he starts losing, then he eats the spinach, so he's sort of an early steroid case who cheats whenever he's in a slump. And he sometimes starts the fights himself. When he was trying to keep it quiet so this baby (Swee Pea, I believe, although not named in the cartoon) would sleep and not bust out bawling, he pretty much beat the shit out of the entire town he was in. He even sent a punch through the radio lines and out of the microphone into the face of a guy singing.
You know what? Fuck Olive Oyl. She's clearly Popeye's gal in these first cartoons (later cartoons would almost always center around Popeye and Bluto/Brutus competing for her anorexic charms), but she's quick to dump him for some other dude. Or she'll lead on that stumblebum Bluto for a while, and then when he gives in to his natural impulses she'll start screaming for Popeye, who like an idiot always comes running even though she basically just told him to go fuck himself not two minutes before.
Am I the only one who feels a little bit sorry for Bluto? I mean, he always - ALWAYS - gets the living crap kicked out of him by Popeye, and most of the time it's because Olive Oyl was just using him to make Popeye jealous. He takes it too far, sure, and he never knows when to just leave shit alone, but he's not totally at fault here. Maybe Popeye should be eating some spinach and beating the crap out of Olive Oyl instead for causing all that trouble.
And why is every dude so attracted to Olive Oyl? She's vain, and mean, and jealous, and conniving, and petty, and pretty much a total bitch to everyone she meets - oh, okay, I get it now.
Never mind. So Olive Oyl can suck a dick. Although...considering Popeye makes her row the boat everywhere, maybe I am being too harsh.
Okay, so Popeye eats the spinach and then he gets strong enough to black the world's eyes. Why doesn't he just eat the spinach all the time? I know that if I found out spinach gave me superpowers I'd be chewing a mouthful every waking moment.
"Look, there's that weird chick with the spinach always stuck in her teeth. No, wait, don't look. If she sees us staring she'll come over here and knock our faces through the back of our heads." At the very least, why doesn't Popeye eat the spinach at the start of the fight and just get it over with? All Popeye paths lead to the spinach eventually, so why not take the shortcut?
And what the hell is up with Wimpy? Where did he come from? Why is he always hungry? Does he have a tapeworm or some alien parasite in there which can only feed on hamburgers and is constantly leeching away all the nutrients deposited in Wimpy's bulging stomach? I would totally watch that cartoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment