Spinach vs Hamburgers

Popeye runs a spinach restaurant. His nephews hate spinach and would rather go to Wimpy's hamburger joint. Popeye tells them about past exploits with some clips from old shows.

It's a clip show and that's bad enough. One of the clips is a story with old style savage natives. It's the ugliness of old cartoons. It's bad enough to have a clip show but it doesn't help for one of the clips to be racist. The general story is relatively fine. Olive Oyl is actually tolerable. It's missing Wimpy. I would give this a pass if not for the ugly racism.

Have always liked the Popeye series, loved even quite a lot of the cartoons from namely Fleischer Studios' late-30s period. Also like the character of Popeye very much especially his mumblings and asides and chemistry with Bluto (the latter of which being a huge part of the series' appeal, apart from the cartoons where Bluto doesn't appear). Am less of a fan of the cartoons, and cartoons in general actually, that are basically clips of previous cartoons with a framing story that isn't as interesting.

Despite really liking two of the three cartoons that are featured in clip form, especially 'The Anvil Chorus Girl', 'Spinach vs Hamburgers' as an overall doesn't do it for me. The clips are better than the rest of the cartoon itself, but the framing story is nowhere near as interesting or entertaining, and like many other "cheater" cartoons it was hard to not question the point of it or find it a little on the lazy side of things. Not a waste of time but not a must see. Of the hit and miss 1948 Popeye cartoons go, 'Spinach vs Hamburgers' is down there among the weakest in my view.

As said, two of the three cartoons featured are very enjoyable. The exception is 'Pop-Pie a La Mode' which actually stuck out like a sore thumb within the context of the cartoon and also because of the stereotypes, also not a particularly good cartoon as an overall whole.

The animation in the framing story, with Popeye and the nephews, and the clips is great, loved the use of colour in the framing story while the meticulousness in the backgrounds and the animation for Popeye's expressions and body language throughout the whole of 'Spinach vs. Hamburgers' are particularly admirable. The music is the outstanding element in the clips and the Popeye/nephews segments, the energy is right on point and the orchestration is typically lush and clever.

In terms of gags and memorable moments in the clips, they are generally amusing, with some of the particularly imaginative and clever material included. It may be formulaic Popeye, but it is enormously entertaining, nostalgic and clever Popeye in 2/3s of the clips. Love the chemistry between Popeye and Bluto, both on top form, and the voice work from some of the studio's finest (re-dubbed here in this cartoon so Bluto is voiced by Jackson Beck here) is reliably strong.

Unfortunately, the Popeye/nephews portions are not near as interesting or entertaining, the huge difference in quality from them and the clips was quite distracting. Apart from Popeye himself and some of his dialogue, the story doesn't have the same amount of energy or invention (very standard, routine stuff here that is not a new concept and little new is done with it, giving it a blandness).

Not much of the material is particularly inspired and didn't care much for the characters of the nephews here, pretty annoying and with not an awful lot of charm either. The chemistry between them and Popeye never really ignites somehow.

Altogether, rather average and to be seen for completest sake. 5/10

Paramount Pictures and Famous Studios came up with a tried-and-true way to make a cheap "new" cartoon - they made it almost entirely from clips of old cartoons, held together by a lame excuse of a plot. The result is a mediocre but passable cartoon.

. . . and I'm not just talking about the lack of a period after the abbreviation for "versus." A better, more accurate heading for the events of SPINACH VS HAMBURGERS would be "Spinach versus Spinach." The rationale for the aptness of the latter summary is that the first 95% of SPINACH concerns Popeye's past history in using the green leafy power source to get his way. Then the final few seconds are devoted to the old salt's eponymous "nephews" turning the tables on their too instructive elder, and gobbling down their plates of green to get what they REALLY yearn for: hamburgers, from Wimpy's adjacent joint, of course.