It's the Natural Thing to Do

A telegram from fans changing the rules in the relation between popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyle. But to be polite is far to be an easy stuff. So, the games to wars resurrected.

This episode in the Fleischer's Popeye series doesn't waste any time. It starts with Popeye and Bluto fighting in the yard when Olive receives a telegram asking them to cut out the rough stuff. So the three of them abandon their usual clothes and awkwardly join Olive for afternoon tea.

It's a very meta episode of the series, and becomes something of a comedy of embarrassment, far from the usual range of the series, with a maid serving piles of food and t everyone talking about conversing, while Olive breaks in occasionally to note that it's the natural thing to do.

It's a commentary about the then-current fad of claiming that good manners were merely being natural. It might be for some people, but for Popeye and Bluto, the natural thing to do is to beat the tar out of each other.

Here's a different twist from the normal Popeye cartoon: we see a telegram delivered to Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl after the first minute of the cartoon. It reads: "We like your pictures but wish you'd cut out the rough stuff once in a while and act more refined. Be ladies and gentlemen. That's the natural thing to do. Signed, The Popeye Fan Club. P.S. Now go on with the picture."

Bluto and Popeye had been beating the you-know-what out of each other while Olive was inside in the kitchen when the telegram arrived. All three of them read it outside in the backyard where the boys were going at it tooth-and-nail.

Olive tells the boys to come back later as gentlemen. From that point, the cartoon is hilarious, a real hoot. I begin to mention all the sight gags in here, right from the opening scene with the two boys, dressed in tuxes and top hats strutting up the walkway to the insane, wild finish. Olive is dressed to the hilt, too, and actually looks good!

How long everyone can stay on their good behavior is the big question here and you just know they are all going to snap any minute. This is a very good cartoon....the Fleischer brothers at their zaniest. It even incorporates the title as a song as all three people sing a verse or two of it!

1939 was a very solid year for the mostly very enjoyable Popeye series, if not quite the best (1936-1938 were great years for the series) in for me a contender for its best and most consistent period. Not just for Popeye but it was on the most part one of Fleischer Studios', whose Popeye cartoons were of better quality than those for Famous Studios, better periods too, pre-code Betty Boop and the Koko series were good periods similarly.

'It's a Natural Thing to Do' is very nearly one of the best 1939 outings if not one of my favourites of the period. Do agree that it was nice to have something a little different from the usual formula, a little more restrained than usual to match the attempts at sophistication that forms a large part of the story, the premise was a very promising one from the very start and gets better and better as 'It's a Natural Thing to Do' goes on. Sure, there are recognisable elements but there is nothing recycled-feeling here.

The first portion is a bit slow, though the very opening, which is another thing that was different from usual, sets things up for what's to come very promisingly.

Do think too that Pinto Colvig and Margie Hines don't fit Bluto and Olive's character designs and personalities as much as Gus Wickie and Mae Questel, Wickie is far more menacing as the character and it has always felt odd hearing Olive being voiced by somebody else other than Questel.

Once it gets going, which it does very quickly, 'It's a Natural Thing to Do' is enormous fun and keeps delivering on the hilarity and charm. Popeye and Bluto's attempts at sophistication and how badly they fail makes for a plentiful number of gags that are often hilarious. The energy gets wilder leading to a riot of a final third. The whole complaints from fans angle was interesting and like the cartoon was poking fun at any reservations anybody watching the Popeye cartoon had about them.

Popeye and Bluto are both on top form in equal measure and this is among Olive's better appearances. The animation is especially impressive in the backgrounds, previously described as meticulous and that sums them up very well (my way of summing them up too) and the expressions and body language of Popeye. The music is playful and beautifully orchestrated, fitting perfectly with the action. The title song is a highlight. Jack Mercer as always nails it as Popeye, the character's best voice actor by default as nobody else brought to life Popeye's asides and mumblings in the way he did.

In conclusion, very good and nearly great despite a slightly slow start and Hines and Colvig not quite doing it for me. 8/10

With this episode, the Fleischers were, in effect, flipping the bird at those saying their pictures were "too violent." When Popeye, Bluto and Olive receive a pointed telegram, then comically show up as "proper" society types, they're saying, very sarcastically, "Maybe you'd rather have THIS, you sissies?" As the three realize they're making idiots of themselves, give in and hilariously revert to the violence, the viewer understands that without some fisticuffs tossed in when needed, the Fleischer tunes might as well have gone down the Disney path and sacrificed humor for beauty.

Make no mistake, both humor and beauty have always had their place in animation, but the Fleischer 'toons and, later, those of Warner Brothers (to whom many of Max and Dave Fleischer's best writers went after Paramount took over and ruined Popeye), were far funnier than Disney's. And yet, with their meticulously crafted backgrounds, Fleischer pictures had a unique beauty of their own. I love both the Fleischer and Disney creations from the 1930s, but given the choice of either, I'd take the Fleischer creations in a heartbeat.

All this installment lacks is the far-better voices of Gus Wickie as Bluto and Mae Questal as Olive, but Max lost both when he moved his studio to Florida. Such is life.