Nurse-Mates

Both Popeye and Bluto arrive at Olive Oyl's home at the same time. Neither is willing to give an inch. Both want to take her to the movies. She has to go to the beauty parlor and leaves the guys to take care of Swee'Pea. First, they fight over washing the baby and it goes downhill from there.

This is the classic trio with Swee'Pea. I like this combination and it also suggests that Olive Oyl is a single mother. The audience of that era probably didn't connect those dots in a cartoon. I would like Swee'Pea to cause more havoc. He eventually gets there. Finally, I would like to show the passing time. Olive Oyl didn't go to the beauty parlor for five minutes.

Here's a familiar scene: Popeye and Bluto arriving at Olive Oyl's front door at the exact same time. As Popeye said many times: "Whoa!!!" The cartoon turns out to be a baby-sitting contest, of sorts. After both of the guys ask her out to the movies, her only answer is "I have to go to the beauty parlor. You'll have to look after Swee' Pea until I come back. Here's the list of what to do."

So Popeye and Bluto attempt to give the baby a bath and then dress him. Bluto takes charge, as always and his skit showing how to wash a baby is pretty funny. It probably wouldn't make a cartoon today, deemed child abuse, but Swee' Pea didn't seem to mind! Other gags ensue after Swee' Pea slips out of the small tub and gets ink all over himself. Popeye's solution of "spot remover" works a little too well.

Anyway, slapstick rules this cartoon as one misadventure after another happens with the little guy and the two big lugs trying to help but getting in each other's way. There may not be many laugh-out-loud jokes but it's entertaining to enough to rate a "7."

One note: there is no spinach in this one, which is unusual.

Like to love a vast majority of the Fleischer Studios Popeye output, the late-30s cartoons being particularly good and where the high quality was the most consistent. 1940 saw Fleischer Studios starting to decline significantly, the cartoons were mostly well made and scored but they tended to not be very funny, too cute with un-compelling stories and characters. The Popeye cartoons though were among the better ones from this period, in its best theatrical series in the early 40s bar none.

'Nurse Mates' may not one of the best Popeye cartoons overall though or one of the best of the 1940 output. Considering that Fleischer Studios' pre-40s output was mostly decent to brilliant, it is a little disappointing. At the same time though, despite a couple of major problems there are a lot of well done things. 'Nurse Mates' actually compares favourably amongst the 40s Fleischer Studios output in general, when the studio was undergoing bar none its worst ever period (with 1940 being its worst year perhaps).

Yes it is nothing new in terms of story and material, which does take away from any freshness or surprises somewhat. There has been a little more energy in other Popeye cartoons before and even since, coming from someone who consider the earlier Popeye cartoons generally better than the later ones.

And sorry to say it again, but despite Jack Mercer as always being brilliant as Popeye (the only Popeye voice actor for me), Margie Hines and Pinto Colvig never really gelled as Olive, who has little to do here again, and Bluto. Of Bluto's voice actors especially, Colvig is easily the least sinister, robust or formidable and he didn't seem to have as much fun as the others, also couldn't get Goofy (Colvig being Goofy's original voice actor and he was still voicing him when also voicing Bluto) out of my head somehow.

However, the animation is neatly and expressively drawn (especially with Popeye) and still very much like the work that goes into the backgrounds. The music, appropriately like its own character, is as beautifully orchestrated and characterful as ever.

The gags are also a lot of fun despite the lack of originality, the fighting over the baby washing was very funny to watch and didn't get old. The story is not much new but still a lot of energy, with a wonderfully wild final third that is the case for most Popeye cartoons. All three major characters are handled very well (Olive is too underused to be in the same class), especially Popeye, Bluto is also a suitably formidable adversary and Swee'Pea is very cute.

In conclusion, good but falls short of being great. 7/10

There's nothing awful about this one, just nothing really remarkable, save for Pinto Colvig (the voice of Goofy) as Bluto. I've seen it all in other (better) Popeye shorts. Fleischer almost always did visually fantastic cartoons and this one isn't bad. But I see signs of burnout here. They seem to have lost a bit of steam with this one. Oh, well, they can't all be great. Jack Mercer is fine as usual. Recommended for completeists.

Popeye and Bluto show up at Olive Oyl's cottage to take her to the movies. She, however, needs to get her hair done. So she leaves both of them there, with instructions on how to take care of Swee'pea.

It's a very nice set-up of gags as the two men compete over who gets to do what with the infink -- sorry, infant -- while trying to sock each other. I have some issues with Swe'pea's character design. It seems to be modeled more on Eugene the Jeep than the child in other Popeye cartoons. There's also one very creepy gag, where Swe'pea has ink on his face and Popeye uses spot remover to get it off, taking away the baby's eyes, nose and mouth with it.