Rocket to Mars

When Olive sits on a lever which launches a rocket, Popeye finds himself on the way to Mars through a series of tired old gags (the Milky Way is made up of milk bottles). When he arrives, a Bluto kind of Martian is leading the launch of an army to destroy earth. Popeye is disintegrated with a ray gun but Spinach is always an answer. The happens to the Martians and their weaponry is what gives this a bit of uniqueness.

Popeye and Olive Oly are in a museum looking at a rocket exhibit. She accidentally sets it off and falls to the ground. Popeye is left onboard rocketing to the planet Mars where they are staging an impending invasion of Earth.

I'm not sure about the Japanese soldier behind the 8-ball. The war ended a year ago. I definitely have never seen this one. I wonder if this has been kept in storage due to its insensitivity. It's also a bit apocalyptic for a Popeye cartoon. I do like the design of the Martians which is a little Seuss-like. It's the start of the atomic age and that's the feel of this cartoon. It's alien invasion. It's interesting.

1946 started off the post-war Popeye period quite well. None of the cartoons from the series that year were classics and they had pretty much similar strengths and flaws. They did suffer from not being particularly original, with some previous Popeye cartoons being remade and somewhat too faithfully and Popeye had a temporary voice change that never quite clicked with me, plus Olive was wasted. They were though well made, scored and were entertaining enough.

That is the case with 'Rocket to Mars'. Notable for being the first animated cartoon to depict alien invaders and the theme of alien invasion, it is an enjoyable Popeye cartoon but there is not an awful lot mind-blowing. Loved the setting and the premise which sounded different, but an opportunity was missed to do something more with them and do something more origjnal. Promising set-up but becomes too standard Popeye territory, don't get me wrong standard Popeye is not a bad thing but one does wish for something fresher once in a while.

'Rocket to Mars' is very well animated, do think it is one of the best-looking 1946 Popeye cartoons. The landscapes especially are so vibrant and atmospheric and the shots help make them even more impressive, especially in the first half. Every bit as good is the music, lots of merry energy and lush orchestration, adding a lot to the action and making the impact even better without being too cartoonish.

Popeye himself is easy to like and has good comic timing. Bluto, in martian form (another reason to see the cartoon for, am not kidding) is a funny and formidable adversary and the two sparkle in their chemistry together. The martians have the right amount of amusement and creepiness. 'Rocket to Mars' is amusing, Popeye and Olive's chemistry is charming and the set up is promising. Jackson Beck voices robustly.

Unfortunately, didn't find that everything worked here in 'Rocket to Mars' here. The conflict tends to be too predictable and easy, basically Popeye vs Bluto in space with martians, with the outcome never in doubt and things resolve too on the convenient side. Olive has next to nothing to do.

While Harry Welch gives Popeye a good go and did so for all the cartoons he voiced the character while Jack Mercer was serving in the military, it always felt strange without Mercer having so closely associated the role with his voice. Mercer fits the character design much better and has more energy. Mercer though does return here for some of the voice work and his contribution is great, though when comparing the two the difference in quality is quite big and jars a bit somewhat. It would have been better if one or the other voiced.

In summation, decent but nothing exceptional. 7/10

Two years before Warner Bros. sent Bugs Bunny to Mars for "Haredevil Hare" (1948), Paramount sent Popeye there for "Rocket to Mars" (1946), in which Popeye accidentally takes off in a rocket at a technical museum and winds up on Mars where he encounters a green-skinned Martian Bluto and his army of "little green men," all intent on invading Earth. Armed with spinach, of course, our hero fights to stop the fleet before it can launch. There are a few impressive shots of the Martian landscape and the relentless march of Martians and their armored vehicles as they prepare to load up a massive spaceship for the invasion. The gags employed in Popeye's subsequent fight scenes with the Martians are, however, less impressive. The whole threat is handled a little too easily and one wonders what a longer, two-reel cartoon with this theme, with added action and suspense, would be like, especially when compared to the spectacular two-reel Technicolor cartoons made in 1936-39 which placed Popeye in Arabian Nights settings (Sindbad, Ali Baba, and Aladdin).

This is, I believe, the first Hollywood cartoon to feature a theme of alien invasion and it came eight years after Orson Welles' famous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. There were, of course, earlier cartoons with depictions of travels to Mars (e.g. Max Fleischer's Koko the Clown cartoon, "A Trip to Mars," from 1924) and the moon (e.g. Fleischer's "Dancing on the Moon," from 1935) and at least one cartoon I know of that referenced Welles' broadcast (Bob Clampett's "Kitty Kornered," also 1946), but I don't know of any others before this one that actually depicted alien invaders, either on another planet or on Earth. (In Fleischer's earlier Superman cartoons, the threats were always earthbound.) There was renewed interest in this theme after the war as reports of UFOs, or "flying saucers" as they came to be known after 1947, began to increase.

The director here is Bill Tytla, a former top animator with the Disney Studio who was renowned for his work on SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA and DUMBO, and one can see his considerable talent in the overall design of this above-average postwar Popeye entry. The color process used here is the two-color process, Cinecolor, and not Technicolor.