Seasin's Greetinks!

In this fifth Popeye cartoon, our hero takes his incredibly extremely uncoordinated girlfriend, Olive, ice skating. Popeye is a natural--Olive is a mess. Eventually, Bluto shows up and tries to kidnap Olive-- presumably to rape her or something. Popeye eats his spinach, kicks butt and saves the day.

As usual, the cartoon features great animation and backgrounds--even if they are only in black & white. Also, while this formula seems very repetitive and a bit dull, it is only the fifth cartoon and only later would they become so predictable with the repetition of this theme again and again. Worth seeing and well made.

Seasin's Greetinks! (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Popeye takes Olive Oyl ice skating and sure enough Bluto shows up to start trouble. The highlight of this short is when Popeye turns Bluto in ice and then ice cubes but some of the humor doesn't work including most of the ice skating scenes.

I Eats My Spinach (1933)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Popeye takes Olive Oyl to the rodeo where he gets into a competition with Bluto and a wild bull. This fourth short is a tad bit of a step down but it's still a lot of fun with numerous laughs including one scene where Popeye and Bluto both try and fight a bull, which gets out of control.

That's what Bluto asks Olive, who is stuck on the ice with giant ice cube for a butt. Well, she fell in the water and instantly froze that part of her body. Popeye had been teaching her how to ice skate and Bluto kept popping in to make waves with her. She isn't interested.

Bluto gets revenge for being snubbed by the skinny Olive and slices the ice, forcing her downstream on a little ice floe and headed down a waterfalls that might doom her. The customary "Help, Popeye, help!" yells are there - expect in the deeper Bonnie Poe's voice - and you can guess the rest as Bluto tries to stop our sailor man from rescuing her.

The sight gags before that scene were good as well as after and, although not anything special, still an entertaining early Popeye effort.

Popeye brings Olive Oyl a pair of skates for Christmas and teaches her how to use them. Bluto shows up, grabs her, and they fight.

Bonnie Poe voices Olive in this one, and she does all right, although she's no Mae Questal. We also have the fun of the shoddy and shabby world of Segar's Thimble Theater, and the usual large variety of sight gags that Dave Fleischer insisted on in the cartoons, like the sign insisting "No swimming" in the icy and snowy water. Things like that make the Fleischer Popeyes so much better than the expertly timed large gags that Famous Studios' staff would produce twenty years down the road.

I just couldn't help but laugh at this silly little Popeye short. In this one, Popeye buys Olive some ice skates for Christmas. Of course, Bluto tries to cut in on their winter wonderland. How can you not laugh at this. I mean, it's Christmas day, yet Popeye and Bluto can still find it in their hearts to beat each other to a pulp.