First, just brief news:
In the world of Thunderbean, we’ve managed to get all the Christmas stuff out as of Tuesday, and it’s nice to be getting back to some of the other things we’re working on this month. Toby the Pup cartoons are getting some TLC here, as are WW2 films, some classic Fleischer and Bunin’s Alice.
I’m taking a few days break at the moment to catch my breath right now since grades are now turned in at the school, and I’m working on figuring out all the things that need to happen before the end of the year in Thunderbeanland. More on all that soon.
In the meantime, here’s a cartoon!
I feel like classic cartoons sometimes used a holiday film for really fun ideas, and, sadly, sometimes not. The classic Popeye cartoon series only tackled Christmas a few times – once near the beginning of the Fleischer Series (Seasin’s Greetinks, 1933) and in the mid-50s Famous Studio’s version, with Mister and Mistletoe (1955).
It looks like Popeye and Olive have finally moved in together, and Olive now helps domesticated Popeye with his fatherly tasks in taking care of his, er, nephews. Funny how Popeye’s brother or sister never shows up to help. Anyway, it’s Christmas and Popeye and Olive, now living in an incredibly sparse but modern house, most likely on Long Island, prepare the boys for bed as usual.
For some reason, Bluto, dressed smartly in navy blues, is stalking around their house at night and decides to dress up as Santa Claus. Popeye and Olive really need to lock their windows – or at least use screens so all the termites don’t keep coming in.
Bluto really must not have anything else to do with his life. It seems like a lot of work just to chase Olive around again with a likely outcome of being pulverized by Popeye since that seems to happen in every picture. I don’t understand why Popeye doesn’t call the Police since they’ve been stalked by this guy before. Moreover, how could Popeye ever mistake Bluto’s often thinly-veiled disguises for the people he’s pretending to be? Popeye even sorts of flirts with Santa when he’s almost mistakenly kissed by Bluto. You’d also think that he’d recognize the slight southern accent that New Yorker Jackson Beck imbibes the character with.
There’s some fun (but violent) well-animated moments with Popeye getting hurt, including being blown out of the roof (leaving a giant hole) and getting frozen in a pond. In the end, the stars around Bluto’s head decorate the tree pretty well. It was a great opportunity for a Paramount star gag, but alas, it doesn’t happen.
In the end, the boys manage to dig into the bag of presents, and Bluto is in his long underwear in the living room. The end.
I really wish this was a better entry in the series since the production and animation are quite good. There’s just so little story substance that the Christmas motifs is just that, nothing more.
I have to thank Tommy Stathes for lending this dandy IB-Tech print with original titles of this cartoon. It’s a little light of a print but very watchable. I can’t help but pine for at least a little more fun with such fun characters. And special thanks to Devon Baxter for preparing it for uploading on to Vimeo.
Have a good week everyone and happy holidays!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Thank you for the Christmas themed cartoon. It’s nice to notice these with original titles and original closings. Have a wonderful holiday season, and here’s hoping 2026 allows us some more goodies either under the tree or in the summertime or, hey, we have a whole new year to look forward to.
You’ll appreciate this toon more if you read the book “Stronger Than Spinach: the Secret Appeal of Famous Popeye Cartoons” and if you were lucky enough to read Pastor Steve’s Popeye page.
I don’t remember this cartoon. It’s a charming entry in the series. I do wonder, however, what happened to the fourth nephew.
Thanks for the share Steve! One thing that always got me about this short…the end of the electric train scene. They made it look like Popeye’s mouth was underneath his chin!
Someone should have electrocuted Famous Studios, like it did to Katnip at Christmas, to put it out of its misery. Their cartoons by this time were tired.
Tommy and Devon are quality people. Bravo for them for sharing, rather appropriate for this time of year. Seasin’s Greetinks to them. And to Thunderbean for its accomplishments. And to Jerry for this forum.
I’m happy to hear about Toby. The series is Fleischer Light but there are fun, creative moments in the cartoons I’ve seen. As for Fleischers, I’d sure like to see the sound Screen Songs and Talkartoons in pristine form some day.
No offense, but I feel like you may have crossed a line with that opinion of the studio. That was as dark as some of the ending of their most violent shorts. I admit Famous wasn’t that spectacular of a studio, but wanted the studio to be killed? Yikes.
I agree, the later famous Popeyes are goddawful but still funny in some ways with Popeye’s character having character derailment by being a lot weaker and the pointless remakes of older and better cartoons. In my opinion the 50’s Popeye is one of the worse seasonal rot moments in cartoon media comparable to Filmation’s Tom And Jerry And Season 6 and 7 SpongeBob. On the bright side at least Famous or Paramount Cartoon Studios in it’s final years did get a bit creative in the end.
I agree with the other posters here, you’re a bit TOO blunt about your opinion of Famous Studios. Though I guess it’s just your no-frillsish writing style of single-sentence paragraphs and serious and snarky style (never been a big fan of your weak usage of words and phrases like “do-gooders” and “fanboys” and “a shopping list of credits”). Though I guess that it’s mainly a result of you being more older than most of the people here (I mean that in a good way, not really a bad way).
Anyway I’m sorry but I can only somewhat agree with your opinion of Famous Studios. I agree with Nicholas Kramer that your description of Famous wasn’t really the fairest. Personally, I think half of Famous Studios (both before and after 1955) is weak but the other half is enjoyable and fun at times. Also, I think that you should watch some of the 1967 Famous Studios and the Irv Spector written Famous Studios shorts. I don’t really think that it was out of ideas.
Now most of 1962 to 1965 on the other hand….yeech.
Haven’t seen this short since it was included on ‘The Popeye Show’. It was nice to revisit it.
I suppose it doesn’t explain why the nephews are there and have their own bedroom, but Bluto’s line at the window (which unfortunately is clipped in this particular print) ‘That rat Popeye got here ahead of me!’ suggests that this is indeed just Olive’s house and ‘the boys’ were simply visitors coming over to spend Christmas eve.
Famous used the exact same setup (even having Jackson Beck say the exact same line!) in the following year’s ‘Parlez-Vous Woo’.
It’s sad the print of this airing now is the sped up version from the days of Turner Broadcasting. This was the first Popeye cartoon I recorded with my 1st tape recorder way back in the early 1970’s. Good Christmas memory.
To explain the missing fourth nephew, it became cheaper to animate just three of them. Eventually, only two nephews appeared in these shorts.
It always seemed to me that the reason cartoon characters have so many nephews, as opposed to children, was as a way of introducing kid-friendly juvenile characters without any suggestion of sex.
Will the Toby set include the long-lost cartoon “The Fiddler”? That’s one I’d really like to see!
And a big Christmas Cracker to all.
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Theatrical cartoons, like live action two-reelers, rarely if ever bother with continuity. Swee’Pea appeared a few times, ultimately redesigned as a generic infant. As with the nephews (Fleischer creations) it was unclear who had custody, and pretty sure Swee’Pea and the nephews never appeared in the same toon. Poopdeck Pappy faded out before the Famous years. The Goons had exactly one appearance. Likewise Olive’s mother Nana Oyl, unidentified early in “Man on the Flying Trapeze” (Olive has a very non-Segar grandmother in “Let’s Celebrate”). Supposedly Paramount’s contract with King Features controlled use of characters from the strip.
There’s one (perhaps unintentionally) funny moment in this rather routine entry in what had become a rather routine series. It comes when Bluto sticks his head in the window and discovers a complete Santa suit and a full bag of toys, just waiting for him to show up so that he can grab them and get up to some of his usual mischief.
How did these items get there? There’s no explanation, it’s just that they’re needed so that the story can continue. If deliberate, this is sort of like a surreal Tex Avery gag where a character needs a prop of some kind, so it’s suddenly just THERE. Or it might be just a desperate move by someone in a desperate story department…
I think the toys and the Santa suit were there for the exact purpose that they were used for at the end, so that Popeye could dress up as Santa and give the toys to the boys! Now… why were they sitting out in the open like that is a bit wonky. I’m guessing since they were in another room, (I think), then the boys couldn’t see them? But, yeah, it is, as you say, pretty much a way too simple set up for the action of the cartoon. Couldn’t they at least have been hidden a bit, like behind a couch, or chair, or a Japanese screen?
A Popeye short from the 1950s. It wasn’t the best era for the sailor, but they did occasionally release a decent short, and the animation was generally good. And again, another great job by Steve with this copy (with its original titles), much better than the Boomerang app version (which wasn’t too bad either, to be honest). I hope they release these restored shorts on Blu-ray someday, because they really need it.