We Aim to Please

Popeye and Olive Oyl open a restaurant. Unfortunately, their first customer is Bluto, who eats a bunch of food and then stiffs them on the bill. This leads to the usual fisticuffs with Popeye getting pummeled until you know what. Not too much suspense here.

We Aim to Please (1934)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Popeye and Olive Oyl open a new diner but things get a little rough when Bluto walks in and refuses to pay. This short contains all the greatness that the series had to offer in that it's fast, hilarious and action packed. There are countless laughs to be found here with the biggest coming from a trick Popeye plays a Bluto, which involves a napkins around his eyes. The action scenes are also very well done with some great fights and a hilarious ending. Wimpy is once again featured here and I believe this was the first short where he asked for a hamburger only to pay next Tuesday.

This starts out like a Betty Boop cartoon, meaning with a song. Popeye and Olive have opened a diner and they are seen outside of it on opening day, singing and dancing "We Aim To Please."

After that, we see Wimpy and Bluto standing on the other side of the street, observing. "Watch me obtain a hamburger without the necessary fee," says Wimpy. He goes inside and says, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." That line went on to be used by him for the next 30 years. It became his trademark, along with the hamburger-eating, of course.

There's not much of a story to this, but it was very entertaining. We only see two customers, but they are Customers From Hell, mainly Bluto. Wimpy won't pay, of course, but Bluto's aim is to demolish the place! He does everything he can to disrupt the the diner and act like some moronic vandal, just for the sake of being a no-good you-know-what.

If you have this cartoon on DVD, freeze-frame she shot where Popeye shows the menu and read it - it's pretty corny and funny.

Popeye and Olive Oyl open a diner. Their first customer is Wimpy, who bums a hamburger and leaves, promising, as always, to pay on Tuesday. This encourages Bluto also order and try to stiff the proprietors. As usual, a fight ensues.

There are no bad Popeye cartoons in this period, when the Fleischers and their staff were figuring out what they could do with the character, as long as they obeyed Dave Fleischer's rule to put as many gags into a cartoon as possible. That's what goes on here. There are big gags, like how Popeye changes the location of the diner, and there are medium gags, like how Olive makes sandwiches, and tiny gags like the menu.

We aim to please is one of my favorite Popeye cartoons, the concept isn't too exciting, Popeye and Olive running a diner, but everything works out well. First off, Popeye and Olive's musical act of "We Aim to Please" is very well rendered. Then Wimpy and Bluto try their hand at freeloading in Popeye and Olive's diner. I always like the bit where Bluto orders sandwiches and then Popeye and Bluto do a bit of magic. Beware of poorly retraced colorized versions. This is Wimpy's first appearance in a Popeye cartoon and his debut was very good. There is a goof in the original made more obvious in the colored version where Bluto's hair and beard becomes gray in one scene.