Sock-a-Bye, Baby

Popeye wheels a sleeping Sweepea through the tow, where various noises wake the infant. The sailor man responds by biffing the noise makers.

Popeye's voice actor offers some of her real singing voice in this cartoon. It's still in the Fleischer era, so the gags flow freely under the direction of Dave Fleischer, and although the background work is simplified to remove the slovenliness that amuses fans of Segar's Thimble Theater comic strip, there are plenty of mildly askew details.

For some reason Mae Questal is credited in the IMDb listing as the voice of Olive Oyl, even though she never appears.

Sock-A-Bye, Baby (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Weaker but still entertaining Popeye vehicle has him babysitting and beating up anyone or anything that dares to wake the kid up. There's plenty of action in this short but there aren't as many laughs as normal. The highlight is a great sequence where Popeye punches a radio, which sends his fist across the country to the actual guy singing and knocks him out. There's another rather funny moment where the baby steals Popeye's pipe and begins smoking it. The baby falls asleep right after his few hits so I'm guessing Popeye was smoking something other than tobacco.

You just have to be a certain type to appreciate the humor in cartoons like this. It takes a certain sick sense of humor, something not everyone has. Cartoons like "Boom Boom", one of the first Porky Pig cartoons with his co-star, Beans the cat, in which the two spend the whole film dodging malicious bombs with minds of their own. And the present film, in which Popeye proves even more of a bully than Bluto himself ever was. This was the REALLY early days, when Popeye would beat the living crap out of anyone and anything in his path. The cartoon is stuffed with gags, including the theme song which here is, naturally, the lullaby "Rock-A-Bye Baby", which is punctuated with all kinds of violent sound effects.

Like I said, it takes a certain type to savor this.

Popeye begins this with his familiar song but an unfamiliar role: rocking a baby to sleep in its carriage on a sidewalk outside. When nearby Harpo Marx's harp playing wakes up the baby, Popeye kills him with one sock, and poor Harpo is now playing his harp with a halo over his head.

More crazy scenes occur, like Popeye singing and playing a banjo; the baby taking his pipe, smoking it and blowing smoke rings. From that point, the whole story is Popeye doing whatever he can to stop noise, so the baby will go back to sleep and stay that way.

Outrageous scenes follow. Popeye's solution to everything, at least in these first-year cartoons, is to sock it - whether it's people or an inanimate object. You cannot believe the damage - and the number of people he killed - our "sailor man" does in this story. In real life, he would spent his entire life in jail, if the jail could hold him!

"Action speaks louder than words." At least, that is what some people say. This short proves that the quote is associated with Popeye the Sailor.

This short is about a simple situation: Popeye is babysitting, and no, it is not Swee'Pea but Betty Boop's baby brother Billy; that's what I heard. Anyway, Popeye tries to make sure he takes his nap. But with the sounds of old New York, it isn't easy. If Popeye heard the honk of a horn or the whistle of an ocean liner, he would go and smash the noisemaker to bits. That is what I meant when I chose that precise quote.

My favorite scene is when Popeye tries to sing Billy to put him to sleep. In the first verse of the song, the voice wasn't the familiar "croaky" one. It was the natural singing voice of his voice actor, Billy Costello. I also love the scene when Popeye sends a punch by wire to a radio station and slugs the singer. So anyway, I really love this Popeye short.