Out to Punch

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.

'Out to Punch' is another 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, 'Out to Punch' 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, all it is basically is Popeye and Bluto fighting, while not being as repetitive as feared.

Inevitably there is the odd lack of finesse in some of the transitions and drawing.

What is fantastic about 'Out to Punch' 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 animation is also surprisingly good for late Famous Studios, colourful, nicely detailed and generally fluid on the most part, not perfect but better than most late Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.

The gags are amusing for late Famous Studios/Popeye, hilarious even, the interplay between the characters is lively and witty if in need of more variety at times and the pace is never dull. Although the fighting sequences are quite creative for this period, the highlight of the cartoon is the climactic boxing match, for me it is one of the top 3 funniest and most imaginative endings of a late Famous Studios Popeye cartoon.

The characters do a great job carrying the cartoon, Bluto being the funniest and most interesting. It is the entertaining interplay between Popeye and Bluto that really sparkles. Jack Mercer and Jackson Beck give great vocal characterisations, Beck in particular and Mercer is the voice actor that springs to mind generally for me for Popeye's voice, do like William Costello but Mercer gives the character more energy.

Concluding, very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The expected confrontation because the boxing match can be the top of the rivalry between Popeye and Bluto. But the virtue remains the refreshing atmosphere of the last minutes , because the animation propose more than the ordinary chain of traps and punches but a good effect of spinach, Olive as great coach and fine trip to hospital of poor Bluto.

Bluto and Popeye apparently have a big boxing match set up.Their training headquarters are right across from each other, something, of course, you would only see in a cartoon. In one building, Bluto is in a hammock, hitting the punching bag with his feet. He's overly confident, thinking he doesn't need to train to beat Popeye.

Popeye, with Olive Oyl barking out the one-two, one-two in the exercises, is doing his jump rope work with a heavy chain of iron. Man, this guy is in shape and ready! Bluto goes to check up on "Little Muscles" and looks through the window. He sees Popeye and says to himself, "Wow, I better slow down that monster or he will murder me."

That sets up the normal Bluto-trying to sabotage-Popeye story, such as emptying his heavy bag of sand and replacing it with rocks to break our sailor hero's hands. Then he tries a few more tricks, none of which are all that funny. The real fun part is the boxing match. That last minute-and-a-half is absolutely hilarious with some of the things that happen in the ring. It's vintage Popeye humor!

Out to Punch (1956)

*** (out of 4)

Another fast and funny short has Popeye in training to box Bluto later in the night. After Bluto sees what great shape Popeye is in he plans to sabotage the training sessions.

OUT TO PUNCH is a good entry in the series, which was slowly coming to an end. These 50's shorts were never quite as good as the originals back in the 1930s but this one here is certainly one of the series highlights. There are many funny gags here including the various abuse that Popeye takes once he's in the ring. There are some rather creative fighting sequences where the poor Popeye is beaten to a pulp. Fans of the series will certainly enjoy this one since there are some nice laughs and plenty of action.

Popeye and Bluto are scheduled to box each other. While Popeye trains hard, Bluto puts his energy into sabotaging Popeye.

Because the end result of just about every Popeye cartoon in which Bluto appears is that they fight each other, this time they figured why bother with the preliminaries? Instead they relied on their gag construction, which is good. However, given that well over 90% of the Popeye cartoons have exactly the same construction, my reaction is the same boredom that accompanied my original viewing of them on TV when I was four or five: are the Little Rascals on WPIX now, or is Diver Dan still playing in the fish tank?