Sock-a-Bye, Baby

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.

"Action speaks louder than words." At least, that is what some people say. This short proves that the quote is associated with Popeye the Sailor.

This short is about a simple situation: Popeye is babysitting, and no, it is not Swee'Pea but Betty Boop's baby brother Billy; that's what I heard. Anyway, Popeye tries to make sure he takes his nap. But with the sounds of old New York, it isn't easy. If Popeye heard the honk of a horn or the whistle of an ocean liner, he would go and smash the noisemaker to bits. That is what I meant when I chose that precise quote.

My favorite scene is when Popeye tries to sing Billy to put him to sleep. In the first verse of the song, the voice wasn't the familiar "croaky" one. It was the natural singing voice of his voice actor, Billy Costello. I also love the scene when Popeye sends a punch by wire to a radio station and slugs the singer. So anyway, I really love this Popeye short.

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!

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.

Sock-A-Bye, Baby (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Weaker but still entertaining Popeye vehicle has him babysitting and beating up anyone or anything that dares to wake the kid up. There's plenty of action in this short but there aren't as many laughs as normal. The highlight is a great sequence where Popeye punches a radio, which sends his fist across the country to the actual guy singing and knocks him out. There's another rather funny moment where the baby steals Popeye's pipe and begins smoking it. The baby falls asleep right after his few hits so I'm guessing Popeye was smoking something other than tobacco.