Spree Lunch

Popeye's singing while he sweeps away the dirt on the sidewalk-entrance of "Popeye's Diner."

As he finishes, he hears an obnoxious horn blasting, signaling the arrival of Bluto who is pulling his brand new "Bluto's Diner" into the parking lot across the street. "Bluto," says Popeye, "that is un-etical!"

"Listen, runt, a little competition never hurt anybody," responds Bluto. Popeye answers, "I says ya gotta move that chow wagon." It gets heated and the war of diners is now officially on when the first customer - "Wimpy" - walks down the street.

The two do everything they can to have Wimpy as the customer and some of the gags are clever, such as the Mexican jumping beans, the underground magnet and the pepper spray. All these are used by one of the combatants to draw Wimpy back to their diner. The ending was clever, too, with both of the hot-tempered macho men winding up losers to the inventive (and always hungry) Wimpy.

This was the final cartoon in a nice two-disc DVD collection of Popeye cartoons from the '30s through the '50s. It was called the "75th Anniversary Collector's Edition" and it wasn't expensive. It was well worth the money.

Spree Lunch is an amusing take-off on Fleischer Popeyes of the Thirties. Popeye and Bluto are, as in Penny Antics (1955) and Cuskomers Wanted(1939), are friendly rivals, this time as proprietors of diners. Popeye opens his diner, and in chef's hat, sweeps and sings, then-- along comes Bluto-- with HIS diner, across the street! Popeye calls Bluto's action unethical; Bluto declares that there is nothing wrong with competition. War of words continues until, along comes J. Wellington Wimpy! (Who else?) the two restauranteurs vie for Wimpy's patronage, using this and that means, until the two diner owners get tee'd off at each other and throw food. Wimpy comes out on top, helping himself to the food. He will repay them Tuesday, I suppose. This cartoon has echos of We Aim to Please(1934) and What-- No Spinach?(1937), as those are cartoons in which Wimpy takes advantage of the brawling between Popeye and Bluto. Quite amusing; too bad that later Famous Studios episodes had overstandardized story formats.

Really like to love a good deal of Popeye cartoons and like the character of Popeye. Love Bluto more and his chemistry with Popeye has always driven their cartoons. Will admit though to preferring the Popeye cartoons from the Dave Fleischer era, the cartoons tend to be funnier and there is more originality and more risk taking in some of them.

'Spree Lunch' is a late Popeye cartoon and made in Famous Studios' roughest and most variable period where budgets were much smaller in particularly the animation and deadlines and time constraints were shorter and tighter. All things considered, while there are infinitely better Popeye cartoons (especially during the Fleischer era) and there are signs of what made this period an inferior one for Famous Studios, 'Spree Lunch' is not a bad late Popeye cartoon at all, actually really very enjoyable and one of the better cartoons in Famous Studios' late output.

As to be expected, the story is standard and formulaic, if one has seen the cartoons with Popeye and Bluto fighting in the diner with Wimpy also featuring it's almost the same story as those minus Olive Oyl, in one of not particularly many cases of her not appearing.

Similarly the animation quality is uneven, never terrible but never fantastic. The colours are fine and there is smoothness and nice detail but there are many moments where the backgrounds are sparse and the drawing rough.

What is fantastic about 'Spree Lunch' is the music score, the best thing for me. 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 gags, ranging from very amusing to hilarious and creative for late Famous Studios/Popeye, are executed very well, especially that deliciously wild food fight, the interplay between the characters is lively and witty if in need of more variety at times and the pace is never dull.

The three main characters do a great job carrying the cartoon, Wimpy being the funniest and most interesting. The entertaining interplay between Popeye and Bluto really sparkles but Wimpy steals the show. Jack Mercer and Jackson Beck give great vocal characterisations, Beck in particular.

Concluding, very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Wimpy is , in all the senses, the real hero of this duel between Bluto and Popye. Two diners, a high competition, one customer as perfect victim of fight for succes and the wisdom of the last . Using the projectils for his healthy appetite. Result, a lot of food, tricks for beat the adversary and few good doses of yamm - yamm.

Popeye and Bluto run competing diners. They fight over Wimpy's custom in the next-to-last of the Fleischer/Famous Studios long-running Popeye cartoons.

Between the decline in revenue from the shrinking number of theaters running full programs -- the 'selected short subjects' that accompanied features -- and the rising cost of producing cartoons, Paramount saw no reason to pay King Features a fee for each new cartoon; the backlog of Popeye cartoons was more than sufficient to satisfy demand. Nonetheless, there were contracts to fulfill, so the last few cartoons were made at a slightly shorter length than usual. That's why this one seems to end a bit abruptly.