Patriotic Popeye

Patriotic Popeye (1957)

*** (out of 4)

It's the Fourth of July and Popeye is wanting to have some fun with his nephews but they're more interested in their fireworks. Popeye fears for their safety so he takes the dangerous items away and plans to show them a safe time but the nephews just cause more destruction as they try to get to the fireworks.

PATRIOTIC POPEYE was one of the last Popeye cartoons to ever be made and it's a winner. What I liked most about the nephews and their use throughout the series is how big of jerks they actually are. They never listen and they always treat Popeye like he's an idiot yet he never loses his cool and instead just loves them and does what is right. Popeye gets put through quite a bit of abuse here and this leads to quite a few good laughs. The animation is of high quality as you'd expect and there are some creative ways the sailor gets abused.

I saw this pretty amusing Popeye cartoon after Vengeance Valley, the Burt Lancaster western that aired on Family Theater on FamilyNet. Since a commercial was inserted in the middle of this cartoon, I don't know if I saw the whole thing since Popeye didn't have too much trouble handling his two nephews as they try to light fireworks for the 4th of July. Loved the scene of Popeye bumping into the bull while playing baseball with his nephews and then getting bumped back by him as the nephews try to unlock the shed that has the fireworks! Like I said, pretty amusing but that commercial interruption and possible limited time after the movie may have made it a shortened cartoon when I saw it. So with that in mind, I'm giving Patriotic Popeye a 5.

Made much later than most of Popeye's canon, this one just sort of goes through the motions. Popeye is celebrating the Fourth of July. HIs nephews (two of them) start shooting off fireworks. Popeye tries to get them to stop, but they engage drastic measure to get Popeye out of the picture so they can continue to blow things up. The problem is that there is nothing new here and it just fizzles.

This is a very late Popeye cartoon--done long after the Fleischer era at Paramount was gone. Because of that, the cartoon is different in two main ways--it is in color but, being from the late 50s, it features extremely simple backgrounds--something all the studios began to do to save money and because UPA was so successful after they pioneered the use of crappy animation. While this certainly is not a pretty Popeye cartoon, it is better quality animation than the average short cartoon of the day.

The story begins with two of Popeye's nephews* trying to play with dangerous fireworks for the 4th of July. However, Popeye isn't about to let them and spends much of the cartoon nearly getting killed by these little juvenile delinquents. However, after nearly killing themselves, the film ends with the two kids now enjoying very safe (albeit very LAME) fun without the fireworks.

This cartoon, to me, seemed a bit preachy and very socially responsible. Hence, I hated it.

*By the way, in earlier cartoons, Popeye had FOUR nephews (Peepeye, Pipeye, Poopeye and Pupeye) but there are inexplicably only two here. My guess is that the others had already blown themselves up with the fireworks or, more likely, the studio eliminated two in order to make the cartoon simpler to animate and thus save a few bucks.

Popeye is cheerfully preparing for the 4th of July holiday. His nephews try to set off a firework. Popeye stops them just in time and confiscates all their fireworks. The boys intend to take back their explosive fun.

This is a fine late Famous Studios Popeye. The production looks a bit cheap. There are only three characters. The place feels empty. It's fine. One assumes that they're out in remote countryside. The other thing that I don't like is the Atomic Sky Rocket. Everything was atomic back in the day. I get that, but I don't like the rocket look and I don't like the figures from the explosion. It looks like ants crawling all over them. Why not make some atomic symbols? All in all, this is fine for late Famous Studios Popeye.