Popeye e o Limpador de Janelas

Popeye and Bluto are running competing, side-by-side penny arcades, with no customers. Wimpy wanders by and enters first one, then the other, to use the peep show machines to watch clips from old Popeye cartoons, paid for by Popeye and Bluto.

If you think the clip show was invented by television, think again. While this was not the first use of the technique by the Fleischers, it is an early one. As such, it suffers from the same flaw that they all do. Although about half of it is new material, most of the gags and fights are stuff you've seen before.

The economies in building a cartoon this way are obvious. But it certainly has a limited amount of fun.

Customers Wanted (1939)

** (out of 4)

This Popeye short is fairly lazy as it features footage from LET'S GET MOVING and THE TWISKER PITCHER. Basically the "story" here is that Popeye and Bluto are working rival movie houses at a carnival. Soon the two of them are fighting over Wimpy and whose movies he will be watching.

Of course, the movies that he watches are the two titles that I mentioned so basically you've got a short that shows several clips from those two movies with a few scenes worth of new material. The two shorts are very good on their own but just watching the clips here is rather pointless and on the whole this isn't a very good short. It certainly doesn't help that the new footage doesn't contain any laughs.

Not surprising , Wimpy is the star of this short animation. Poor arcade machines and welcome to the good American business man , beginning with 10 cents the fight show.

Popeye and Bluto are barkers desperate to lure customers to their neighboring penny arcades. Nobody is coming in. Wimpy walks by and the boys battle to get him. The arcades play clips of other Popeye shorts. When the boys' battle turns physical, Wimpy is able to collect a hatful for customers rushing in to see them fight. This is essentially a clip show. The premise is better than most clip shows. Turning into a fight is brilliant but it is nevertheless a clip show.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the right honorable J. Wellington Wimpy, raconteur, bon vivant and noted consumer of that delicacy known as the hamburger. This is one of Wimpy's shining hours. This is truly his cartoon. He walks away with this one without breaking a sweat. I have a soft spot for Wimpy-some would argue that soft spot is in my head, but I digress-because he is obviously a man aware of the value of leisure and thus the possessor of great wisdom. He was all too rarely used.

This short is the best cheater I've seen. The use of old clips is minimal-at most two minutes or so from a seven minute cartoon-with a framing device that makes the use of clips integral to the plot. It's also one of the better showcases for Jack Mercer, the most familiar and successful voice behind Popeye, because not only the framing device, but the clips as well, have Mercer making remarks as Popeye sort of half-muttered, almost as asides, that are hilarious. A large part of the charm of the Fleischer Studios Popeyes arises out of Mercer's work at the microphone and he fleshed out the character's personality with his often ad-libbed remarks. Well worth seeking out. Most highly recommended.