A Dream Walking

Sometimes a theme song, so to speak, accompanies these early Popeye cartoons, and that's the case here as we listen to "Have You Ever Seen A Dream Walking?"

Well, Popeye does here with Olive Oyl. So does Bluto. These two spot Olive outside walking on a flagpole and on the roof of their high-rise building and both vow "to save her." In this episode, both guys have rooms on the second-to-the-top floors and Olive lives on the top floor. Both guys have Olive's picture above their bed and Olive has both guys' photos above hers! Yes, this is the first of instance of many years of fickleness by Olive. Prior to this, the first 14 cartoons had Olive strictly interested in Popeye only. As the years went on, she played the two guys against each other all the time.

Tons of sight gags make this an excellent Popeye cartoon. Olive taking giant strides from rooftop to rooftop to a construction sight are very good; the shots the two guys trying to save her are clever....very clever with all three of them sleepwalking on the high beams at one point. You really have to see this as a description doesn't quite do it justice. The ending, though, isn't justice for poor Popeye.

This was a hoot to watch and looked fantastic on that restored DVD package of cartoons featuring Popeye from 1933 to 1938. They did great job from the master prints of these theatrical releases.