Popeye: The Final Punch
What can be said about Popeye the Sailor Man that hasn't been said before? It's one of the greatest cartoons ever made. The stories of the spinach-eating mariner have entertained millions. But nobody knows about the disturbing piece of lost media about Popeye that was recovered recently. Nobody except me.
Before I explain the content I watched, I have to say, the animation is really crisp and clear for being such an old cartoon. A former executive from Famous Studios had this locked away in a safe in their California home, and they had transferred the original copy to a DVD for convenient viewing. Keep in mind, this was the 1950's Popeye cartoon, that usually looked lower quality compared to the 1930s Fleischer Studios black and white Popeye show. For some reason, it was incredibly clear and easily watchable.
Let me put it to you this way... at first, the cartoon started off normally, and I was smiling a bit as the Popeye character came onto the screen tooting his pipe to the music in the intro. Oh, the memories!
Anyway, the title card appeared and it said "The Final Punch", and showed Popeye's battered body. I should've thought something was up when that appeared, but I kept going. I thought to myself "Is this supposed to be the very last episode?"
I held my breath, waiting. The episode finally began.
It showed Olive Oyl walking along, humming a tune to the music. She was packing up things in the trunk of her car, without a care in the world. All of the sudden, Popeye ran over in a comical fashion and collided with Olive, sending her luggage into the sky, and it landed on her head. I chuckled when I saw this, but my smile disappeared when I saw Popeye's face.
His remaining eye was blackened, as if someone had punched him hard. He also had blood on his face. Olive screamed and threw her luggage back into the air.
"Popeye!" Olive cried, grabbing him and looking him over. "Someone hurt you!"
"Oh my garsh..." Popeye started, rubbing his eye. "I don't have time to explain, it was..."
"...Bluto?" Olive said with a frown, predicting what Popeye was about to say. "Why did he do this to you?"
"Olive, there's no time...." Popeye said back, shoving her into the car in a cartoony way. "...He's... He's..."
And then, it happened. Bluto kicked the back door of Olive's house open, and when he did, a bunch of colors flashed on the screen and scary music started playing. It slowly panned the camera up to his face, and he, too, had blood all over him. But, to my amazement, Bluto's face looked even worse than Popeye's. It was like a pulpy tomato that got squashed by someone's asscheeks. If that makes sense.
Bluto smiled. "No spinach today, Popeye?" he growled, coming closer. Olive screamed out, and climbed into the front of her car.
Popeye held his fists up, and tried digging into his clothes, but I knew as well as he did that he didn't have any spinach on him. Bluto was getting closer, and closer. Popeye charged at him, and Bluto merely reeled back, and punched Popeye as hard as he could. As he did, I saw teeth and blood splattering outward, as everything went quiet. It looked as if REAL blood was staining the cartoon on the bottom right corner, but how?
Popeye didn't move. He only laid there, out cold. Or so I thought.
Bluto felt Popeye's pulse. His smile slowly turned into a deep grimace. I understood immediately what the cartoon was trying to tell me here, as Bluto took Popeye's hat off, and laid it over his face. Popeye was dead.
I felt a cold chill over my body as Bluto approached Olive's car. By then, I realized she had been screaming in the background the whole time, but it was muffled by the car windows.
"...And now, Olive Oyl... you're finally mine... and we can be together... alone at last..." Bluto said creepily, blood still running down his face.
Olive screamed, and jumped into the front seat of the car, stepping on the pedal and reversing it into Bluto. Bluto was run over instantly. Olive Oyl began to cry as she backed over his body repeatedly, going forward and reverse to ensure he was as dead as Popeye. What the fuck was I watching?
Olive Oyl laid her head down on the steering wheel, not moving. It went on like this for 20 seconds or so, just nothing. The film started glitching out slightly, like it was a bad tape. Then it cut to a spinach truck driving by the house.
"Hey o! Hey o! Spinach here! Get your spinach here!" the delivery man said, holding a can out the window. In typical cartoony fashion, the spinach was knocked out of his hand by a flying bird, and it went shooting off with a goofy slide whistle sound towards Olive's house.
Down the street the can of spinach went, until it finally landed on Popeye's face. I saw Popeye's body twitch. But how was this happening?
Popeye's pipe started twirling around. I squinted my eyes, wondering what was about to happen.
DUN DUN, DUN DUN, DUN, DUN! The iconic Popeye melody started playing, and he sucked the spinach from the can into his pipe, standing up back to his feet.
"I just had a near death eckeysperience!" Popeye said out loud. "Agagagagaga!"
The tape glitched out again, and it showed Popeye burying Bluto's bloody body with black eyes, and an evil smile. It showed a split second of Bluto's nasty corpse. It then cut off and a long, loud beep played for two whole minutes until the DVD stopped.
My mouth hung open like I just watched Jesus come back from heaven. What the shit was that? How could they have even thought about showing that to children? It was a good thing that this media was lost, because I don't ever want to watch it again.
I melted the DVD that night over a roaring fire. I can never see Popeye the same way again. Every time I see him on spinach cans now, I just think of the episode, and how fucked up it was...
Written by Meaty
Content is available under CC BY-SA
| Comments • 1 |
Loading comments...
|
