Studio: Famous Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Seymour Kneitel, Isadore Sparber
Short Synopsis
Bluto has had enough of being beaten up and takes Popeye to court, suing him for assault and battery. In the witness box Bluto presents himself as a gentle soul set upon by a violent sailor, and the judge calls for evidence. Each side tells its story in flashback, and the flashbacks are clips from three earlier cartoons, The Farmer and the Belle, How Green Is My Spinach and A Balmy Swami, in which Bluto's conduct toward Olive Oyl and Popeye's response are shown in full. Olive testifies for Popeye. The judge, having seen enough, dismisses the case, and Bluto, who cannot help himself, makes a grab for Olive in the courtroom and is dealt with in the usual way, spinach and all, with the court's approval.
Why It Matters
- It is the last of the Famous Studios "cheater" Popeyes, the compilation cartoons built from old footage with a new frame, and the courtroom device is the most ingenious of the frames, since the clips are literally evidence; it is also a rare Popeye in which the law is on the sailor's side.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States, listed in Film Superlist's renewal research as unrenewed, and it is one of the 1956 Popeyes most often found in public-domain packages; the Popeye character himself, as drawn in the strip from 1929, has been public domain since 2025, though King Features owns the trademark.
Notes and Trivia
- A Balmy Swami, one of the source cartoons, dates from 1949; the clips are therefore a decade older than the frame.
- I. Klein wrote several of the courtroom and flashback Popeyes of the 1950s.
- See also: Big Bad Sindbad (1952), Popeye's 20th Anniversary (1954), Spooky Swabs (1957).