The Jeep

I enjoyed this particular cartoon, but Popeye's magical dog, "The Jeep," never did much for me. I never quite understood why he was inserted in this popular, long-running cartoon. Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy and Swee' Pea were good enough to provide tons of entertainment over the decades. What was the purpose of adding a "magical" dog that could disappear? It didn't seem to fit in with the human characters, but that's just my opinion. I see fellow reviewer "The Wolf 101" here agrees. I, too, prefer the ones (90 percent of them) in which Popeye and Bluto go at each other, or Popeye just entertains us by himself.

Nonetheless, this was a fun cartoon - not laugh-out-loud funny, but humorous and entertaining enough. Basically, we follow Jeep and Popeye on a scent, trying to find whatever happened to Swee' Pea. It appears the little tyke can't stay in his crib, and sneaks out the window of the high rise and likes to crawl along the telephone wires! Popeye, as usual, provides the humor as he mumbles his way following the dog and wondering if the Jeep will ever discover where Swee' Pea went on his latest trip.

Swee'pea climbs out the window and away from Olive Oyl. She tries locking Swee'pea in the crib but even that doesn't work. Popeye brings over his magical dog, The Jeep. The Jeep does plenty of tricks including turning invisible. Popeye offers The Jeep an orchid to eat if it finds Swee'pea.

I remember The Jeep from something else, but I had forgotten that it's such a weird outlandish dog. I don't know why it eats orchids. It would make more sense for the franchise to have the dog eat spinach. Looking back, The Jeep could have been a long running additional character in the franchise which could spin off into its own thing.

Swee'pea has escaped his crib and disappeared. Olive Oyl is unconsolable. Fortunately, Popeye has brought along Eugene the Jeep, which he describes as his magical dog, to play with Swee'pea. Offered an orchid, the Jeep agrees to track down the missing child, leading Popeye on a peculiar route.

This attempt to introduce the Jeep from Segar's Thimble Theater to Popeye's theatrical audience, was not terribly successful. Like most of the inhabitants of the Theater, the Jeep was very strange, and either the movie audience had reached their limit for strangeness, or the folks at the Fleischer studio couldn't figure out what else to do with it.

This is a Popeye-short without any spinach. It was funny though. Olive is taking care of Swee'pea but he keeps getting out of his crib. Popeye comes over and he brings The Jeep, his magical dog. Swee'pea is gone again so the dog must find him, taking Popeye on a little journey.

This was a pretty funny short. I especially liked the beginning, but the other parts of it are pretty funny as well.

The Jeep (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Olive is babysitting Swee'pea and having a hard time with him. Around that time Popeye shows up with "The Jeep," which is a magical dog that can disappear and then re-appear. It's the perfect time because the baby has disappeared so Popeye and the dog go out looking for him.

This here is another winning short in the series that has a couple good laughs, some nice action and a certainly bizarre supporting character. I'm not sure who came up with the disappearing dog but it makes for a good character and the film also benefits from some nice laughs. The highlight is a cheap joke that works but it's when Popeye is knocking on the door and Olive answers but the poor sap keeps knocking.