Popeye New Year!

Damn, but do I have great timing!  This kind of thing is about all it's been good for up til now, however.  This week's Popeye cartoon is called Let's Celebrake, and it's about a New Year's celebration in the land of the Thimble Theatre.  Not often do Bluto and Popeye keep their fighting civil, but New Year's is one time when even they can let bygones be bygones.  They go to pick up Olive to go out a'celebratin', and they're going by horse-drawn carriage!  Terribly fancy, in an old-fashioned sorta way.  No horseless carriages on this night, especially with the snow and all.  They gave the 3D turntable a rest that week and went for the endless loop of houses instead, half taking the easy way out.
Grandma answers the door for the two strapping young lads and goes back to her knitting.  Olive runs down the stairs and almost slips and falls on the strip of carpet in the living area.  I guess Disney didn't sue to have the whistle sound effect of that removed; they've made cases out of less against the Fleischers.  Brutus!  SHEESH!
Anyhow, just before our three favorite movie stars of all time go out to celebrate New Year's, Popeye takes a stand.  "I can't stand to see your Grandma sit home alone on New Year's Eve!" he sez.  Yeah, we used to go out and do stuff in Tacoma on New Year's Eve, but that was near the approach of the new millennium, and we used to feel like going out and doing stuff like that.  Alas, but Tacoma's going to be the next Detroit at this rate.  As someone on the YouTube pointed out, Popeye's gesture was sweet and heart-breaking, and kinda makes you want to do more charitable acts.  Still, there's always room for improvement, isn't there?  I submit into evidence Exhibit A: the big dance contest.  Popeye invites Grandma to dance, but she's kinda slow, you see.  Olive and Bluto are already dancing, and there's a nice moment when Olive asks Bluto why he didn't invite Grandma to dance.  Bluto weasels his way out of that one quite nicely, of course.  It's what he does!  And then... the big announcement.  Wimpy says that there's going to be a dance contest, with a prize and everything.  Not quite like in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, but still.  And there's a cup and everything!  And for once, Wimpy's not stuffing his fat face with hamburgers!  That may be the one and only, folks.
There's a double twist this time on the spinach!  Popeye gets a can not from his shirt, but from a waiter's tray, and he doesn't eat any himself, but feeds it to Grandma.  Can you even doubt they'll win the dance contest?  ...oh, wait, Popeye ate the other half of the can himself.  I missed that the first time I saw this.  It would've been funnier if Grandma tired out Popeye, but I guess that's just me.  Wimpy hands the cup to Popeye and Grandma... and he's STILL not stuffing his face with the demon beef!  Where is Wimpy and who's the evil fiend that took his place?
And so, let me end this review by saying, Happy New Year, and let's all resolve to eat more spinach!  And maybe win more dance contests, I guess.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan