Brotherly Love

Inspired by Olive Oyl's singing, Popeye sets out with a skip and a jump to help his fellow man. When he encounters a riot, however, he finds himself suffering for his beliefs.

There are a lot of small, hidden gags in this Fleischer cartoon lurking in the background, from a reference to Chaplin's EASY STREET to the signs that proclaim what business is conducted in a shop. Although the dirt of Segar's THIMBLE THEATER comic strip is lacking, there is always the amusingly run-down and twisted urban landscape to amuse the observant audience, and the "I Yam What I Yam" attitude of the Sailor Man. It's a solid and funny episode in the cartoon series.

Olive Oyl is speaking to the Women's Brotherly Love Society Mass meeting. The crowd at Patterson Square Garden is overflowing. Popeye listens to her over the radio. He is inspired and tries to put that advise to work in the world.

This cartoon plays this really straight. I thought that they might have Popeye do all the good deeds but have it all go wrong. I think that would be much funnier. The punch line would be Popeye eating spinach and fixing all the problems he caused. That's just funnier. As it stands, this short is rather square. I can accept that, but there is a more inventive way to do this.

You know, when it comes to Popeye and his often amazing feats of fantastic super-strength - I find that I'm always really astounded by what this hardy, old sailor-man can actually achieve long before he's even gotten around to eating any spinach.

Anyway - When it comes to trying to persuade the antagonistic guys from the Boiler Makers Union to gladly embrace brotherly love (like Popeye has) - It seems that the only way for them to actually get it is for Popeye to, literally, beat it into them (which, in a sense, kinda defeats the whole point of brotherly love in the long run - Don't you think?).

This is my favorite Popeye cartoon. Made on the 1930's, it captures the humor and style of its time. In my opinion, the cartoon is sarcastic at the highest degree. In those days, Europe was at the dawn of the Second World War, and "brotherly love" was spoken of but never really practiced. The music is very good too. Watching today's cartoons, I get a bit disappointed at the lack of simplicity of the material watched by our children. Perhaps Popeye is not as influential upon children today as it was in my childhood, and this is a pity, because he is a unique character - I ate spinach mainly because of him. Many people say that Popeye is politically incorrect, because he smokes and uses violence to solve problems, and also because spinach is not so good to health as we used to think. But ... does this really matter? The cartoon is funny, interesting and sticks to our memory. So "all we need is brotherly love".

Somehow, I doubt that Gandhi would recognize the conclusion of this short as a good example of brotherly love! A very funny cartoon, well executed and true to the character's nature. Olive is in her typically "fine" voice, as is Popeye, in the singing of the title song. Very good cartoon, if a tad obvious in spots. Well worth watching. Recommended.