Baby Wants a Battle

It's another of those Popeye-versus-Bluto battles. This time they're looking at photo album of when they were infinks -- I mean "infants" -- some time in the Gay Nineties. Again they battle; again Popeye eats spinach.... or perhaps it's the first time. And again Popeye uses the superpowers gained to smash Bluto to pieces. But it's okay, since he started it.

One again, the gags are pretty good, but once again I'm not impressed. Bugs Bunny evolved; Mickey Mouse was capable of playing an ordinary guy, part of a trio, or a put-upon sorceror's apprentice. Even Woody Woodpecker had a variety of opponents. The Famous Studios Popeye cartoons were all the same.

The early 50s Popeye cartoons were somewhat up and down in quality. Some were very good to great, others were decent to pretty good and others were average or close to mediocre. No complete misfires but no classics really either. Which was the case of the Popeye series overall for a while before, but when budgets were smaller and deadlines tighter in the 50s for the series and for all of Famous Studios' output that up and down-ness was more noticeable.

1953 was not the strongest of years for the series, all the cartoons that year were watchable and generally more than that but none of them properly wowed me over. 'Baby Wants a Battle' still doesn't have the wowed me over quality, but as far as that year's batch of Popeye cartoons go it is one of the better ones and conceptually it stands out, being unmistakably Popeye in style while having more of a reflective quality to begin with.

'Baby Wants a Battle' could have been better. There is not an awful lot new, other than the chance to see Popeye and Bluto fighting as infants, and the cartoon for my tastes did start off on a routine and dull note. Olive has very little to do and her limited material is pretty forgettable.

Like a good number of Popeye cartoons from this period, the animation while mostly fine, in namely when Popeye and Bluto are infants, is not always great with the beginning and a couple of the more frenetic moments looking on the rough side.

On the other hand, much of the animation is vibrantly coloured and the backgrounds are nicely detailed. Transitions are fluid enough if not always seamless. The best aspect of 'Baby Wants a Battle' is the music score. It's beautifully orchestrated, rhythmically it's full of energy and there is so much character and atmosphere, it's also brilliant at adding to the action and enhancing it. The humour is never exactly hilarious or original, but it is all amusing, crisply timed and there's plenty. The asides and mumblings are great.

While the story is very standard, it is very lively when Popeye and Bluto are infants and up to their outwitting and fighting each other tricks and the climactic moments are suitably wild. Popeye and Bluto are so much fun together and both are compelling characters. The voice acting is all good.

Concluding, not great but worth watching. 7/10.

Both Popeye and Bluto arrive to take Olive Oyl on a date. Of course, the boys are fighting. Olive instead wants a night home and pulls out the old photo album. In one picture, baby Popeye has a black eye. Bluto claims to be the one to give him the black eye. The two men recount the incident.

This is baby Popeye battling baby Bluto. It's fun to have a change while maintaining the basics of the franchise. It's baby characters. It's an easy change that almost every successful franchise tries out. It's fun to have the baby characters fight. I don't know if that's mean-spirited of me, but I like it.