Big Bad Sindbad

Often, animation companies would pillage their vaults and make compilation films that were short on new ideas but long on recycled film. BIG BAD SINDBAD takes a wide array of scenes from POPEYE MEETS SINDBAD THE SAILOR, but cannot match the animation brilliance. However the story line weaves fairly seemlessly throughout, and the addition of Popeye's nephews as a plot device works well. An above-average 1950's POPEYE production, mostly because of the old film use.

The producers of this particularly Popeye cartoon got lazy and decided to spend much of the time using footage of a past episode. "Cheaters," I guess, is what they call that kind of practice. Anyway, I think it's a cop-out and lazy way to present a "new" animated short.

It begins with Popeye bringing three nephews into the "Nautical Hall Of Fame." There, he shows them "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in which the kids then start rowing the boat across the room. Then, it's "Noah's Ark," where Popeye notes that Noah was "the world's first sailor." Then the shows the kids a big statue of "Sindbad, the Greatest Sailor In History.

The kids ask Popeye, "We thought YOU were the greatest sailor in the world." Popeye answers, "I am," and then relates the story of his adventures with Sinbad - in which we get footage of the earlier cartoon "Popeye Meets Sindbad The Sailor."

There is a cute ending when the story is over and the nephews are convinced Popeye is still number one.

One thing to note about the old Fleischer footage is that it has a new soundtrack recorded by Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, Jackson Beck and music director Winston Sharples.

I would have been nice if the late Willard Bowsky got animation credit for the old footage. In case you didn't know, Bowsky was the head animator for the original "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor" footage. Bowsky joined the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor and was killed in action in France.

Besides the number of nephews reduced to three (which one fell victim to budget cuts?), it's noteworthy that this cartoon features Popeye in his original sailor outfit before he joined the U.S. Navy at the end of the Fleischer era.

Remembering, too much, Popeye meeting Sindbad , it has the only two virtues - the naughty nephews in the visit to the naval museum and the statue of their uncle , conclusion of story, hommage to their hero.

Big Bad Sinbad (1952)

*** (out of 4)

Popeye takes his three nephews to a museum that shows off the greatest sailors in history. They come across Sinbad and Popeye tells the story of how the two of them had a major fight over Olive Oyl.

If you're a fan of the Popeye series then you'll certainly enjoy this entry because there are plenty of nice laughs as well as some great violence (action). Obviously Sinbad is played by Bluto and there's no doubt that he and Popeye get to have a really good fight here that includes all sorts of punches. There are some good laughs and especially during a sequence where Popeye scares a couple lions that are chained up. The animation is good as you'd expect and this is certainly one of the better films in the series.