Assault and Flattery

All rise for Judge Wimpy and he has given an order for a hamburger.

Bluto has bought a claim of being beaten black and blue by Popeye for no reason.

Popeye in his defence gives an account of how Bluto humiliated him in a hypnotist act and then Bluto went after Olive Oyl.

Popeye just had to fight back to save Olive and he needed a dollop of spinach.

A moderately amusing cartoon short. It looks a bit cheap as it splices footage from other Popeye cartoons.

When Bluto sues Popeye, the creators simply put a bunch of footage from past cartoons together. In every one, Bluto gets his, but, of course, Popeye was provoked. It's the same old stuff because it's the same old stuff.

In Judge Wimpy's court, Bluto charges Popeye with attacking him and tossing him into a pig pen. In response, Popeye offers as testimony long clips of 1949's A BALMY SWAMI.

It's one of several techniques to produce a ''cheater', a cartoon that holds production costs down by cannibalizing an earlier movie. Here, as in many of the Popeye cartoons, it simply serves to show how much better the earlier cartoon was. Character designs are fuller in the earlier movie, and the background work is more detailed. True, this permits better work on the new sections, but the issues with the artwork are still not as good as they had been a mere four years earlier.

Bluto takes Popeye to court for all the beatings. Wimpy is somehow the Judge. This is another clip show but at least, this one has a fun premise. It's funny to see Bluto wrapped in bandages. I want more from this premise. As always, clip shows are basically cheating the viewer of original content. I wouldn't mind Popeye being found guilty. Wimpy should definitely be Popeye's lawyer. This would be better if it gets rid of the clips.

Assault and Flattery (1956)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Judge Wimpy is hearing a case brought on by Bluto who claims that he was beaten by Popeye for no reason. We then see flashbacks to three previous films in the series.

The Popeye series has several films during the 1950s where very little new footage was made and instead stories were just built around previous films. This here is another case of that because this borrows footage from three different movie and builds them around the court story. For the most part this here is mildly entertaining but I always think it's better to watch the original shorts in their full glory. There are some minor laughs here but nothing too funny.