The Mighty Navy

This is the first of the wartime-themed Popeye cartoons, even though some of these weren't done when the U.S. was involved with World War II. That came at the end of this (1941) year.

Speaking of that, I did laugh when actual war starts in this cartoon. Popeye looks through a porthole and sees a flag on a firing ship which reads, "Enemy (name your own)." Anyway, Popeye is on board a big Navy destroyer out in the ocean. How he got there, and why, is never explained. Popeye says doesn't know himself! All we know, as viewers, is that he has to show the captain he knows what he's doing. Of course, Popeye isn't used to all this fancy equipment and wartime stuff like cannons and airplanes.

However, when action starts, the cartoon gets very good and Popeye is just amazing.....with his spinach or without! The ending also was very cool. It wasn't funny but it was good and quite a tribute to Popeye's heroics.

This is the first Popeye to show him in navy whites as Popeye enlists in the navy and discovers that there are four ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, my way and the Navy way, with the Navy way being the way the Navy wants things done, naturally. Popeye has trouble with this at first, but gradually comes to loathe it in time! Great fun and well worth watching. Recommended.

Popeye is new on a naval training ship. He takes offence to being taught how to be a sailor and aims to prove his seamanship. A modern fighting ship turns out to be more complicated than a sailing ship. He is relegated to peeling onions when enemy ships show up to attack. It's interesting that this came out a month before Pearl Harbor. If it had waited a month, it could have named the enemy. It just shows that some people were already expecting a fight. This is a solid propaganda service from Popeye the Sailor Man.

Like the character of Popeye very much, have said this more than once. Some of his cartoons are disappointing, namely the late-40s and late-50s periods, but when the Popeye theatrical series was at its best (the late-30s) the cartoons were truly great. Overall, the theatrical series is well worth watching with many very good cartoons and the only theatrical series of Fleischer Studios when the studios declined, if more the more imaginative and funnier Fleischer efforts than the less consistent Famous Studios ones.

Was rather mixed on the wartime Popeye cartoons (so the ones from the early 40s and especially when Popeye is in war and navy action), but there are some very good ones. 'The Mighty Navy' is one of them. Not one of my favorites from the overall series, but very impressive for past-prime Fleischer. On top of being well made and funny, 'The Mighty Navy' doesn't veer into heavy-handedness and having stereotyping as some other wartime Popeye cartoons did.

'The Mighty Navy' may be a bit of a slow starter and the character animation at times doesn't have the same amount of attention to detail and care that went into the backgrounds.

However, a lot is great here. Most of the animation is fine, simple but has some nice detail in the backgrounds, the shading is crisp and the character designs are far from ugly or off. The inventive shots are striking. Even better is the music (always important for me to talk about and Popeye cartoons always fared very well in this respect), again lush and cleverly orchestrated and doing so well adding to and enhancing the action. The dialogue amuses mostly and even more so the increasingly wild action.

Popeye is amusing and likeable, with the captain (a strong foil if not in the same league as Bluto, Swee'Pea or Pappy), and Jack Mercer as always does a great job voicing him. It is one of the funnier wartime Popeye cartoons, the action and gags are far from scant, they are well timed and most importantly they are funny. It refrains from preaching too, it is so easy for something to make a point about something important and relevant and lay it on too thick.'The Mighty Navy' may not say much new, but it does educate and to me it didn't go overboard making its point.

Very good on the whole. 8/10.

The Mighty Navy (1941)

*** (out of 4)

Popeye joins the Navy and is questioned by his leading officer who doesn't think he's a real sailor. Soon a battle breaks out and Popeye shows them whose the real man.

THE MIGHTY NAVY is another entry in the series that has some fun with the idea of a military. WWII was in full bloom so some good humor and action was certainly wanted by the public and who better than POpeye to deliver it? There's a lot of fun action on display here and this is certainly the highlight. Once Popeye goes into the full action mode the film really takes off as he battles several ships and planes. These scenes certainly make this worth watching for fans of the series.