Sock-a-Bye, Baby

Popeye has been given the task of looking after a baby. Because his environment is so noisy, he sets about destroying, with his fists, everything that comes in his path. This includes destroying buildings, cars, musical instruments, and other obstacles. He also kills Harpo Marx and probably others working on construction.

This is a highly disturbing installment of Popeye. You see Sweetpea for the first time and Popeye is caring for the kid. He is taking him for a walk and wants the baby to sleep so he pretty much beats up or kills EVERYONE who makes noise in the town! Because of this, it's as if he's being worse in this one strange cartoon than ALL of Bluto's bad deeds combined! For example, a ship sounds its horn--and Popeye sinks it-- presumably killing everyone aboard. He also knocks down a building under construction--again, probably killing all the workers! What an unstoppable nut case!! Eventually, however reprehensible a swath of murder and destruction Popeye creates, the little brat awakens anyway. I was half expecting to see Popeye kill the kid as well! Aside from seeing a completely unreasonable and homicidal side of our hero, we also get to see him beat up Harpo Marx--though why Harpo was outside playing his harp, I have no idea!

This is a somewhat well made film but one that cannot help but disturb. Back in the 1930s, out of about every 20 or 30 cartoons they made, the Fleischer Brothers made one that was just insane--and this is one of them. Other inappropriate but entertaining films they made would include a Betty Boop's "Be Human" and "Bimbo's Initiation". Enjoyable but disturbing!

Popeye begins this with his familiar song but an unfamiliar role: rocking a baby to sleep in its carriage on a sidewalk outside. When nearby Harpo Marx's harp playing wakes up the baby, Popeye kills him with one sock, and poor Harpo is now playing his harp with a halo over his head.

More crazy scenes occur, like Popeye singing and playing a banjo; the baby taking his pipe, smoking it and blowing smoke rings. From that point, the whole story is Popeye doing whatever he can to stop noise, so the baby will go back to sleep and stay that way.

Outrageous scenes follow. Popeye's solution to everything, at least in these first-year cartoons, is to sock it - whether it's people or an inanimate object. You cannot believe the damage - and the number of people he killed - our "sailor man" does in this story. In real life, he would spent his entire life in jail, if the jail could hold him!

This is a really funny early Popeye, with some really excellent visual effects. Swee' Pea is making life most unhappy for all concerned-himself, Popeye and all the poor souls Popeye silences in order for the little noisemaker to stay asleep (a consummation devoutly to be wished) and thus to be silent. Costello is okay as Popeye here, though he never really did very well in my view. I'm not sure he understood the character terribly well. All in all, a fairly good cartoon largely consisting of sight gags of a fairly violent nature. Good early effort and worth seeing. Recommended.

You just have to be a certain type to appreciate the humor in cartoons like this. It takes a certain sick sense of humor, something not everyone has. Cartoons like "Boom Boom", one of the first Porky Pig cartoons with his co-star, Beans the cat, in which the two spend the whole film dodging malicious bombs with minds of their own. And the present film, in which Popeye proves even more of a bully than Bluto himself ever was. This was the REALLY early days, when Popeye would beat the living crap out of anyone and anything in his path. The cartoon is stuffed with gags, including the theme song which here is, naturally, the lullaby "Rock-A-Bye Baby", which is punctuated with all kinds of violent sound effects.

Like I said, it takes a certain type to savor this.