First, just brief news:
In the world of Thunderbean, we’ve managed to get all the Christmas stuff out as of Tuesday, and it’s nice to be getting back to some of the other things we’re working on this month. Toby the Pup cartoons are getting some TLC here, as are WW2 films, some classic Fleischer and Bunin’s Alice.

I’m taking a few days break at the moment to catch my breath right now since grades are now turned in at the school, and I’m working on figuring out all the things that need to happen before the end of the year in Thunderbeanland. More on all that soon.

In the meantime, here’s a cartoon!

I feel like classic cartoons sometimes used a holiday film for really fun ideas, and, sadly, sometimes not. The classic Popeye cartoon series only tackled Christmas a few times – once near the beginning of the Fleischer Series (Seasin’s Greetinks, 1933) and in the mid-50s Famous Studio’s version, with Mister and Mistletoe (1955).

It looks like Popeye and Olive have finally moved in together, and Olive now helps domesticated Popeye with his fatherly tasks in taking care of his, er, nephews. Funny how Popeye’s brother or sister never shows up to help. Anyway, it’s Christmas and Popeye and Olive, now living in an incredibly sparse but modern house, most likely on Long Island, prepare the boys for bed as usual.

For some reason, Bluto, dressed smartly in navy blues, is stalking around their house at night and decides to dress up as Santa Claus. Popeye and Olive really need to lock their windows – or at least use screens so all the termites don’t keep coming in.

Bluto really must not have anything else to do with his life. It seems like a lot of work just to chase Olive around again with a likely outcome of being pulverized by Popeye since that seems to happen in every picture. I don’t understand why Popeye doesn’t call the Police since they’ve been stalked by this guy before. Moreover, how could Popeye ever mistake Bluto’s often thinly-veiled disguises for the people he’s pretending to be? Popeye even sorts of flirts with Santa when he’s almost mistakenly kissed by Bluto. You’d also think that he’d recognize the slight southern accent that New Yorker Jackson Beck imbibes the character with.

There’s some fun (but violent) well-animated moments with Popeye getting hurt, including being blown out of the roof (leaving a giant hole) and getting frozen in a pond. In the end, the stars around Bluto’s head decorate the tree pretty well. It was a great opportunity for a Paramount star gag, but alas, it doesn’t happen.

In the end, the boys manage to dig into the bag of presents, and Bluto is in his long underwear in the living room. The end.

I really wish this was a better entry in the series since the production and animation are quite good. There’s just so little story substance that the Christmas motifs is just that, nothing more.

I have to thank Tommy Stathes for lending this dandy IB-Tech print with original titles of this cartoon. It’s a little light of a print but very watchable. I can’t help but pine for at least a little more fun with such fun characters. And special thanks to Devon Baxter for preparing it for uploading on to Vimeo.

Have a good week everyone and happy holidays!