Popeye the Sailor Man: Musical Nephews
- reflection -
During our double block, the class was tasked to watch three animation films, all of them being old enough to be our parents. Out of the three musical films, the Popeye one stuck out to me the most. Something about that iconic sailor and his extremely talented nephews really resonates with me. Before I start sharing my own thoughts and observations from the video, it's best to understand what the film is about first.
It begins with Popeye minding his own business while his four nephews, Pipeye, Peepeye, Poopeye and Pupeye, are up and at 'em, playing their hearts out on various instruments. Being the old man he is, Popeye gets sleepy and tells the nephews that it is bedtime. To get them to bed, he promises them a bedtime story and the Quadruplets race to clean themselves and get into their appropriate nighttime attire. Popeye dupes them and tells them one of the most quickest bedtime story ever and tucks them in. He then quickly gets ready to bed and gets his much wanted slumber. Meanwhile, his nephews refuse to pass out, instead they create a musical, rhythm-filled ruckus. Their uncle wakes up from the loud noise and attempts to find the culprit. After destroying various household items, he suspects that his nephews are responsible for the uproar and struggles catch the four in the act. Admitting defeat in catching them redhanded since they were too quick for them, Popeye tries to avoid the loud noise like a plague. However, it is impossible for him to hide from the chaos so he decides to escape through the 4th wall. In the end, the nephews manage to follow their poor uncle and Popeye is shown running away as the four proudly perform on the theatre screen.
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Now that you got the whole gist of the film, we can continue on! According to Popeye the SailorPedia, the one-shot film was released in 1942, which explains the nostalgic art style. Due to the lack of advanced technology back then, the animation seems more scratchy and choppy compared to more modern animations. However, instead of ruining the story in the short film, it adds more personality to it because of the exaggerated, unrealistic movements between the characters. Also since the film is pretty old, it's in black and white. One thing I've noticed about older pieces of animation, including this once, is that some actions are looped. It's not a bad thing at all since it helps highlight the points of their actions. For example, some of the movements of the nephews are repetitive to empathize that they're really, really into making music with random things. Usually, I'm not a fan of random and amplified actions in animations because they seem too unrealistic and bizarre, but this film did a great job at using its bizarre-ness to properly convey expressions. Like near the end, when Popeye was going crazy from all the noise, you can really see him lose him insanity.