Margie Hines

Set sail for fun and excitement with Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto and the rest of the gang in this amazing collection of 31 early cartoons from the legendary Fleischer Studios, starring the world's strongest sailor man. In addition to the many entertaining demonstrations of the incredible powers of canned spinach, the set includes bonus "Popumentary" featurettes, the retrospective documentary "Out of the Inkwell: The Fleischer Story" and much more.

From the A&E "Biography" series, a review of the birth, development and cinematic history of Betty Boop, the flapper cartoon character who has been a popular icon since the 1930s.

Actually, Popeye and Bluto are already there. They visit a nightclub, where the featured singer/dancer is, of course, Olive Oyl.

Popeye sits down to make a cartoon. He shows the results to Olive and his nephews: it's a damsel-in-distress scenario, starring him and Olive, with live music and sound effects by Popeye.

Popeye's birthday, and Olive managed to get enough rationed sugar to bake him a cake, so she invites him over. Shorty is suicidal because he never gets any mail; Popeye invites him, too. But Shorty is also accident prone. He goes to wash his hands, and manages to flood Popeye right into the sewer.

Popeye is doing a great job of sinking Japanese ships (complete with toilet-flush sound effect). A carrier pigeon brings him notice that he's been granted a month furlough, which he plans to spend with Olive and his nephews. But on arrival, he's run over by Olive, who immediately leaves him alone with his nephews, who are practicing home defense.

Popeye and Bluto are on leave in the South Seas when Princess Alona (Olive) comes surfing by in her Sarong, a bird perched on her knee. The boys are smitten, and chase after her. The bird warns our boys that any harm to the princess will result in death from the local volcano.

Olive is going shopping and drops Swee'pea off for Popeye to watch. Popeye carves a sailboat for him, but the tyke spots Popeye's battleship, and the puny toy boat will no longer do. He climbs aboard, and there's the expected mayhem. Notable sequences include a stint on the ship's cannon's control board, with Popeye caught on the barrel, then in the gears; also, at the end, Swee'Pea hitches a ride atop a torpedo just as Olive is returning and Popeye's out cold.

Bluto's in the Army; he tries to sneak off base, but can't. Popeye passes by, Bluto invites him in, then swaps uniforms. Popeye ends up in a tank drill.

Popeye and Bluto agree that women are too much trouble, so they agree to swear off them, which lasts about five seconds, until Olive comes on board ship for a tour. The boys vie for her attention.

Shore leave in South America; Bluto muscles in on Popeye's girl, Olivia Oyla. Popeye muscles him out, but when they get to the conga club, he doesn't care to dance, so Bluto wins again.

The villain: Professor I. Stare, hypnotist, frustrated by not having anyone to practice on. He cold-calls Olive at random while Popeye is pitching woo and hypnotizes her over the phone into coming to his office.

Olive's garden is being raided by some very persistent crows; she calls Popeye for help, and it takes him the rest of the cartoon to hit on the solution.

Popeye and Poopdeck Pappy are trying to play poker, but Swee'Pea's crying keeps interrupting them. Pappy wants to smack the tot, but Popeye persuades him to try psychology instead. Popeye tells the story of how "George Washlincoln" chopped down the cherry tree. Inspired, Swee'Pea chops a hole in the floor, then tells the truth. Popeye rushes out to buy him a reward, leaving Pappy in charge, but Pappy believes in a rather dangerous style of parenting, introducing him to William Tell (from both ends of the gun). Pappy lies about it to Popeye.

Olive gets a phone call that she has won first prize in a sweepstake. After a frantic search, she locates her ticket, only to have it blow out the window. Help, Popeye!

Olive rushes over to show Popeye the headline: Vaudeville is coming back. They agree to rehearse their old act. After a brief song-and-dance intro, the act begins: Popeye demonstrating his strength while Olive displays her flexibility and balance; impersonations of Jimmy Durante, Stan Laurel and Groucho Marx; and the last act, more feats of strength and agility.

Popeye has a new car; Olive wants a driving lesson. Things don't go well.

Mystery Pictures is looking for a stunt man. Swee'pea tags along with Popeye, but he sends the tot home. Popeye shows clips of his stunts to the director, who is impressed; when he goes to put on the last reel, Swee'pea, who snuck back in, hands him Lost and Foundry (1937), which features Swee'pea saving the day. The director signs Swee'pea.

When Popeye tells Olive Oyl that he will propose to her the next morning, she has a dream that their four boys will run roughshod over their house.

The race is on for the state railroad franchise. It's the Sudden Pacific (Bluto) against the Onion Pacific (Popeye). Oh, and there's also a kiss from Olive for the winner.

Olive writes a letter to Popeye: she's through with sailors; it's cowboys for her. Popeye immediately sails off to the West, where he finds, who else, Bluto as the head of the ranch where Olive is enthralled. Bluto gives Popeye a wild horse to ride, and, after a few humiliating defeats, Popeye conquers it (and wins back Olive's heart). Bluto punches Popeye out, and into the clutches of what can best be described as a rattlesnake constrictor.

Olive has a secret treasure map, but while she's showing it to Popeye, Bluto photographs it and gets there first.

Olive brings her new goldfish onto Popeye's ship, but the fish jumps out of its bowl and into the sea. Olive convinces Popeye to go after it, but the fish wants to play and manages to avoid Popeye until both get trapped inside a jellyfish. After taking a severe pounding from the jellyfish, Popeye eats his spinach, takes on various other marine life, and returns the goldfish to its bowl. But Olive can see the fish is unhappy in the bowl, and sets it free again, which is more than Popeye can stand.

Popeye has replaced Bluto in the Spinach Theatre's production of Romeo and Juliet (Olive, of course), much to Bluto's surprise and dismay. Bluto does what he can to sabotage the production, like cranking up the snow and wind machines, and eventually coming onstage, even though Olive wants no part of him.

Popeye spanks Swee'pea and sends him to bed without supper. He wrestles with his conscience over this, while Swee'pea packs a bundle and runs away from home. They apparently live in the wilderness, since Swee'pea crosses a rope bridge that collapses, narrowly misses a landslide, and is soon on a narrow mountain path. Popeye finds him and rescues him from a waterfall but his spinach can is empty. Fortunately, this was all a bad dream from Popeye's conscience.

Popeye's fan club sends a telegram asking them to tone down the violence and act civilized. So everyone dresses up and acts formal - for a while, at least.

Olive invites Popeye over for a hamburger dinner. His roommate Wimpy hears this and disguises himself as Popeye. Wimpy fast-talks himself into the dinner, but eventually falls victim to spinach.

Olive reads a ghost story to Popeye and Bluto. Bluto leaves and rigs a haunted house and lures them to it. But they quickly discover him and, even better, a can of invisible paint, and they get the better of him.

Betty Boop and Pudgy, doing the spring planting, are plagued by crows.

Popeye is having a dream. In it, Bluto interupts his and Olive's flirtations with one another and keeps having the upper hand.

Popeye, feeling sorry for the puppies in the window of Olive's pet shop, buys all the animals (mostly dogs) and sets them all free. All except for one bird, who refuses to go, singing the title song to explain why he likes it just fine in the shop. And sure enough, we see the dogs not faring particularly well, and getting rounded up by the dogcatcher and taken to the dog pound.

Olive Oyl's screenplay for an Aladdin movie comes to life and Popeye battles for control of a genie in this, the last of the three Popeye color films.

A hurdy-gurdy man goes by Betty Boop's house; she wants to buy his monkey, which causes plenty of trouble for Pudgy the Pup.

Popeye and Bluto are running competing penny arcades, trying to bring in customer Wimpy. Of course, he would gladly pay Tuesday for a penny today. And of course, their competing arcades show clips featuring each of them, with well over half of this short thus recycled.

Popeye is heading over to see Olive when he hits a traffic island where a cop is directing traffic; when he gets there, he manages to get more tickets for blowing his horn and parking illegally. The cop rings the bell, and Popeye manages to wreck Olive's apartment by dropping what he's doing, each time he writes a ticket.

Betty Boop and Pudgy take the train to a ski resort and enjoy the winter sports while Betty evades a masher.

Betty Boop, auditioning bandleaders for a college swing dance, "discovers" a cleaning woman who resembles Betty Grable

A couple goes to the World's Fair.

Popeye visits the bullfight only because of lovely Senorita Olive. He finds himself accidentally in the toreador box, even though he doesn't want to fight because it's cruelty to animals. Popeye rides the bull like a bronco, then gets tossed around a bit. The bull plants Popeye in the ground and attacks; the crowd turns on Popeye. Olive comes down to help and the bull chases her. The crowd throws vegetables at Popeye, including (fortunately) spinach.

Popeye brings his magical dog, The Jeep, over to see Olive and Swee'pea, just as the tyke has escaped from his crib. The Jeep leads Popeye on a merry chase looking for Swee'pea.

Olive has a small leak in a pipe; she makes the mistake of calling Wimpy to fix it, and the even bigger mistake of asking Popeye to help her do something until Wimpy can arrive. Meanwhile, Wimpy keeps realizing he's forgotten his tools, his gloves, etc. and going back. Popeye finally eats his spinach and manages some fixes to the system.

Bugs of all kinds convene on a jazz club for an evening of fun.

Honeymooning couples of various animal species take a rocket ship excursion to the moon. Spectacular lunar scenery.

Songwriter Harry Warren performs several of his own compositions, including "I Found a Million Dollar Baby" and "Shadow Waltz."

Utensils and food dance, sing, and play in the kitchen, until a lump of dough turns into a monster and they all unite to stop it.

Dancing animals in a depression-era shanty town.

The story fines a black cat transported to Egypt. There, there is a a LOT of singing and shenannigans involving mummies, the Spinx and crypts. One thing it doesn't seem to have much of are jokes....and the emphasis is more on cuteness and music.

A catfish living in a submarine in a lake, lures a cat to pursue her. Their playful antics are interrupted by an octopus, and a fight ensues.

In this Van Beuren cartoon, various animals are singing "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" before we go to a couple of cats-one male, one female-looking for the gold pot at the end of the rainbow.

The Fleischer's Talkartoon short that debuted the now infamous Betty Boop.