Spinach Is Fer Heroes

Well, I don't know who the hell that is (in the picture to the left), but our next cartoon is a Popeye cartoon.  That must be one of his cousins from the deep South or something.  Or maybe it's Mr. Bogus!  Love that guy.
Anyway... as you can tell from the pic, this one's titled Spinach Fer Britain.  Now, when you think of Britain and World War II, you're more likely to get the damn dirty Nazis rather than the damn dirty... Japanese fighting forces.  But if a Japanese regiment did attack Britain at some point, don't worry... Spielberg's on it.  Probably.  In this case, however, Popeye grows weary of constantly defeating the Japanese.  Time to move on to the next enemy!  Now it's time to make the Nazis look like bumbling oafs.  Well, if the Stooges can do it, why not Popeye as well, I say!
I swear I saw this on television a long time ago, because I remember the Nazis talking as though it were yesterday.  Alas, the closed captioning on the DVD is no help, as it just says "(Speaking German)."  They say something like "Schoe schoe..." and then "Heil Hitler!"  I just remember the "Schoe schoe" part as though it were... anyway, so we get a brief intro of a teeny Nazi sub causing serious damage in the water.  We start with what looks like one of the boats from You're a Sap, Mr. ... you know.  I think it was the boat that Popeye was on.  Anyway, the Nazis are so dumb, they blast one of their own out of the water!  If only that happened for real...
And so, we get to Popeye on a big boat, heading for Britain with spinach, thereby aligning his mission with the film's title all too perfectly.  BUT THEN... the previously introduced Nazi sub runs afoul of Popeye's ship.  Now, Popeye can't defeat the Nazis right away, apparently... this isn't that kind of a Popeye cartoon, for some reason.  We gotta pad this out a bit to the length of one reel.  So, we get a long bit where Popeye confuses machine gun fire for a woodpecker... and he seems to take way way too long to figure out what's going on.  Now he's no Nazi sympathizer, but still... SHEESH!!!  One misstep after another and BOOM.  To cut to the chase, Popeye runs afoul of some sea mines.  But he's just a cartoon character, so he can get blown up by sea mines all day and all night!  He'll shake it off... but break his heart?  He goes to pieces just like you and me... sorry, wrong film.
But we do come to that proverbial last straw, and Popeye's boat has become naught but more detritus in the sea, and this was before all that plastic!  Popeye has lost his payload of spinach fer Britain and is getting his own ass drowned'd under the sea, with no Disney mermaid in sight to save him.  Now, Popeye ends up with a dunce cap on his head, but it's got the Nazi sub propeller on it, if memory serves.  Hmm!  Guess I need one of those too.  But when life hands Popeye lemons... it's time for spinach, and he opens that can with his propeller dunce cap, engulfs the spinach (WITHOUT the same old gulp noise!  Niiiiiiiiiice.....) flies back up to the surface, much like in Axe Me Another, but this time it's to whoop some Nazi ass, and not Bluto's big fat one.  And yes, Popeye says "Heil Hitler" over and over again, but every time he does, he gives one of those Nazi bastards wings, by punching them up into the sky.
Of course, the big question is... doesn't Britain already have spinach seeds?  Well, of course, but the point is American Imperialism, probably.  Sure, it has its drawbacks, but we're still better than Nazi Germany, right?  That argument's long been settled, hasn't it?  Surely the Internet will settle the matter once and for all... oh, skip it.

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