Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor

This cartoon is visually astounding even after 65 years. Longer than the typical Popeye being done at the time (by quite a bit), it justifiably received a great deal of fanfare and notice on its release and is considered one of the finest animated shorts ever made by a great many people (including me). This runs on Cartoon Network occasionally and is well worth getting a look at. I believe it has at least once or twice been available on VHS. Most highly recommended.

This as well as "Popeye and the 40 thieves" is a classic.

The story begins with an uncharted island filled with beasts and monsters. The ruler is Sinbad the Sailor(aka Bluto) who considers himself to be the greatest Sailor of the seven seas. But out of the blue Popeye, Wimpy, and Olive came sailing into Sinbad's territory. Sinbad sends a Rohk Bird to destroy their ship and kidnap Olive Oil.

After the shipwreck, Popeye and Wimpy went to shore, to rescue Olive. When he finds her he meets face to face with Sinbad. He says that he's the greatest sailor of the 7 seas, but Popeye tells him that he's wrong about that. Sinbad sends his beasts on Popeye, who were easy to defeat. Outraged and full of anger, Sinbad challenges Popeye to a fight to determine who really is the Greatest Sailor of the 7 seas.

This was the very first Popeye cartoon to be done in Technicolor and has some scenes done in 3-D scenery to give it a stand out look. It's also one of the few Popeye cartoons to be more than 15 minutes long.

In my opinion it's one of the best Popeye cartoons that ever existed. And a must see for the Popeye fans.

Using the Fleischer Brothers' special 3-d backgrounds, Paramount's "Sindbad" is an impressive animation feat, as well as an entertaining and funny cartoon. It has made virtually every "greatest cartoon" list, with no apologies.

Along with the Ali Baba one this is my favourite Popeye cartoon, I must admit partly because it's 3 times as long as most of the cartoons in the Canon. It gave much more scope to the Fleischer's to ...fleish it out a bit, less frenetic movement - some of the time!

All you should love about these Paramount Popeye's - if you're reading this - is here in spades (with Technicolour), from the marvellous panning 3d opening displaying Bluto's island and denizens to the incessant rambling mutterings of Popeye, Bluto, Olive and Wimpy. The storyline and animation are both amusing and inventive in the usual unusual Fleischer manner, and not a second is wasted. Although it's definitely not for the pc and over zealous animal rights activists!

Best bit: The savage looking giant two-headed caveman crooning a sweet lullaby to Popeye lying dazed in his lap.

Of course, most of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons were pretty much the same. In this one, a setting is created where Bluto can hold forth as Sindbad the Sailor. He is the master of a bunch of creatures from the Arabian Nights mythology, lions, the Roc, a fire breathing dragon, and some others. Of course, sometimes lust gets you in trouble. When he spots Olive Oyl, he can't resist her. If he had not intervened, he would have been fine. But, then, it wouldn't be a Popeye cartoon. One of the odd sidelights is Wimpy, chasing a duck with a meat grinder (the duck had stolen his last hamburger). There are a host of special punches used by our sailor. Anyway, lot's of interesting characters for us to enjoy.