Popeye

Another classic cartoon I have looked at is Popeye. If you look at what I would call the proper cartoons, you can see that most of it is made up of violence. Each episode has the same basic story line being Popeye’s rivalry with Bluto to try and win over Olive Oil, who isn’t the most attractive woman in the world. In the first episode Popeye destroys an entire train line probably killing hundreds of people, just to save Olive, and in the 7^th episode in order to keep silence for a baby to sleep, he goes on a sort of killing spree. He punches a harp player to death, massacres a whole music school, sinks an entire cruse ship, knocks out a man on the wireless, destroys a construction site full of people, flattens, every car in a traffic jam, and above all this, he gives his pipe to the baby to smoke.

Popeye and Bluto constantly have to prove their manhood. This is illustrated the most in probably my favourite episode entitled, can you take it? This one is all about Popeye trying to join a club of men who just beat each other up. There is also a smoking competition, something you would never get away with in kids cartoons today. That is one of Popeye train marks as well, his pipe that never leaves his mouth. The whole of Popeye is so un-PC, but I love it. I never view it as anything other that just good plain fun. It’s not setting out to offend anyone.

 

Something else that makes me love Popeye is just the clever use of animation and how anything can happen. Things that do make sense, but still are completely absurd. There is a great bit in eat my spinach where Popeye punches a bull and when the bull lands on the ground it has turned into a meat market. In another episode Bluto is about to hit Popeye with a tree, but Popeye knocks him into the air. The tree comes down with Bluto and forms a coffin round him. Those sorts of silly things just don’t happen now, cartoons are just not fun.

Another thing you can see in Popeye which I love is the clever use of animation that I don’t think is used enough today. The overall shape of each character is so odd for a start. Whenever Olive is in trouble her arms wave in the most unnatural way as if she had about thirty separate bones in them.

There is a bit in family guy that illustrates the bazaar look of Popeye brilliantly.