Popeye, el marino (Fleischer Studios)

Spinach? Yuck. But not to the most famous, fearless comic strip sailor in the world: Popeye. Here are reunited some classic cartoons from the golden era of this beloved character, covering the years 1933 to 1938. Comedy. Animation.

Spinach? Yuck. But not to the most famous, fearless comic strip sailor in the world: Popeye. In the second volume are reunited some classic cartoons from the golden era of this beloved character, covering the pre-WWII years, 1938 to 1940.

Spinach? Yuck. But not to the most famous, fearless comic strip sailor in the world: Popeye. Here, in the third volume, are reunited some classic cartoons from the golden era of this beloved character, covering the years 1941 to 1943.

Popeye begins his movie career by singing his theme song, demonstrating his strength at a carnival, dancing the hula with Betty Boop, pummeling Bluto, eating his spinach and saving Olive Oyl from certain doom on the railroad tracks.

Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy land in America thanks to her rowing. Popeye quickly turns some trees into a log cabin. He hunts for ducks and encounters some pesky Indians while another band of natives surround his two friends in the cabin.

Popeye sails into Mexico, where Olive is a dancer and Bluto is a bandit.

Popeye and Olive Oyl go to the rodeo where Bluto performs and impresses Olive. Popeye outdoes him with some fancy riding and steer wrestling. Meanwhile, Bluto makes off with Olive, so Popeye eats his spinach to save her and to stop a bull.

Popeye skates over to Olive's house to give her a Christmas present: ice skates of her own. While he's teaching her, Bluto skates up and gets fresh; of course, Popeye fights him. When she rejects Bluto again, he sends her careening on an ice floe towards a waterfall.

Floating on a raft, Popeye and Olive Oyl land on a jungle island and immediately battle wild elephants, gorillas, and other animals.

Popeye pushes a baby pram down city sidewalks and lots of noise keeps the kid awake and crying. In typically brutal manner, Popeye deals with the noise makers including a busking Harpo Marx, music school, construction site, and car horns.

Bluto is the boxing champ; Popeye is his challenger; Wimpy the timekeeper. Popeye is pounded mercilessly until Olive comes by with a can of spinach.

Popeye comes to ask Olive out, but finds she's gone off with the title character. Popeye goes to the circus (ringmaster Wimpy) looking for her, to find she's part of the act; an aerial battle ensues.

Popeye wants to join a club of fighters. But can he take their grueling initiation test... and can the club take his rough-housing?

Wimpy is such a terrible helper that blacksmith Olive fires him. Both Popeye and Bluto see the help wanted sign; they compete for the position. Of course, their competition wrecks the shop.

Olive runs some kind of boarding school. She serves her charges a huge bowl of spinach, but they are less than enthusiastic about it. Popeye comes by and demonstrates the values of spinach: he feeds some to a tree, which grows huge and sprouts a variety of fruit; he feeds a hen, which lays a dozen eggs, and he eats some himself to resist a prizefighter passing by. The children, inspired, feed some to a couple of sorry looking cows, which grow into vicious bulls, sending them up a tree. Popeye saves them, and they finally dig in.

Popeye, Olive, and Wimpy stumble across a ghost ship. They climb aboard, and it proceeds to scare them in various ways.

Pierre Bluto, running a logging camp, has thrown Olive into the river because he didn't like her spinach. Popeye rescues her and proceeds to beat Bluto in a lumberjack contest.

Popeye and Bluto each wants to save Olive as she sleepwalks onto a construction site. But most of their efforts go into preventing each other from being the hero.

When rival firefighters Popeye and Bluto respond to Olive Oyl's house fire, they find themselves fighting each other more than the fire.

Popeye and Olive visit a dance hall, where a contest is in progress (though judge Wimpy seems far more interested in his hamburgers than the dancers). He dances terribly. Bluto cuts in, and Popeye sulks in a corner next to a convenient bowl of spinach. Popeye dances impressively; Bluto comes back and manhandles Olive.

Olive and Popeye open up a diner, but have to deal with Wimpy and Bluto being deadbeat customers.

To the classic tune of "Barnacle Bill the Sailor", Olive explains that she can't marry Popeye because she's in love with Barnacle Bill (an unusually large Bluto), who then comes by and proceeds to pound Popeye (until he eats his spinach, of course).

Popeye and Olive can't ignore it when produce vendor Bluto comes by with his terribly overloaded cart, whipping his horse and denying it water. They intervene and, while Bluto fights them off for a while, ultimately prevail.

The boys arrive at Olive's house at the same time, but at different doors. They both come in, and whenever Olive isn't looking, they start fighting. She catches them, and tells them one will have to leave. Bluto tells Popey that whoever does the best trick can stay. As a result, they find ever more creative ways to abuse each other, much to Olive's merriment. Eventually, though, they start destroying her house, and Olive throws them both out, for a little while, anyhow.

Popeye takes Olive to a stage show of a hypnotist (Bluto), who also levitates objects. While he's doing this, Popeye makes him lose his concentration, so in retaliation, the hypnotist pulls Olive on stage and turns her into a chicken. Popeye comes down to fight and the hypnotist tries to turn him into a monkey, but Popeye pulls a mirror into place. He recovers, and turns Popeye into a donkey, then smacks him around a bit, but spinach comes to the rescue.