Friday, July 04, 2014

Two Men and a Baby... AGAIN

I know, I know.  You're probably asking... I mean, ack-sking yourself, but The Movie Hooligan!  Haven't Popeye and Bluto already taken care of a kid?  And wasn't it Swee-Pea once?  And you'd be right, of course... probably.  I just can't be bothered with these little details right now.  And besides!  As any parent will tell you, every day of the first five years or so is just like our next Popeye cartoon, Nurse-Mates.  Now sure, Popeye and Bluto are terrible stepfathers, and there are things in this cartoon that must never be done to babies and infinks... but isn't that what movies are all about?  Escapism?  I mean, excapism?
Oh well.  The Creepy Police probably don't like this one for just those reasons.  They seem to be everywhere these days, ready to jump on the smallest detail and say "Wow!  That's kinda creepy."  So let's just dive right in to the plot anyway.  As Wikipedia will probably point out about this one, there's no spinach at all this time... I knew it!  Sorry, there's no way to jump right down to the part; you'll just have to type Ctrl+F yourself and type in "nurse-mates".  Don't forget the dash!  The dash is most important.  Anyway, Popeye and Bluto show up at Olive's place at the same time.  They want to take her to the movies.  Excellent choice, but she has to go to the beauty parlor first so she can get a bow put in her hair.  Why don't they look after Swee-Pea while she's gone?  While you're at it, why not throw Swee-Pea to the wolves?
To guide their journey of discovery, Olive leaves Bluto and Popeye with a to-do list.  Bluto takes an early, keen interest in this list and grabs it from Popeye's burly hands.  Bluto starts in on the bath portion of the list.  Alas, Bluto treats Swee-Pea like a piece of laundry and scrubs him on a washboard and everything.  Popeye intervenes, while Swee-Pea plays with a bar of soap.  Popeye ends up swallowing the bar of soap, which sort of brings the film to a halt.  It's kinda creepy... damn it!  Now I'm doing it!
Now that the bath's over, time to dress the little brat.  Bluto's apparently never heard of unbuttoning the top button of a shirt, and thank God too, because it leads to a lot of delightful comic mischief.  The orchestra throws in an homage to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for good measure... God, I love bad puns.
Popeye and Bluto have a bad habit of setting Swee-Pea down where he shouldn't be: at the top of the stairs on the railing, on a second story windowsill, what have you.  Swee-Pea's insatiable curiosity gets him into trouble, and combined with Popeye's and Bluto's lack of curiosity, well... isn't that what comedies are all about, folks?  I just hate to spoil the punchline of the whole thing, but I will say that it involves Swee-Pea's nap time.  You can probably guess how it all turns out.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

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