Tooned In: Popeye does Star Wars (1978)

Happy Saturday Morning!

But first, my Obsessed With TV portion of the column. The last few weeks, I’ve been heavily into Benidorm, the 2000s-2010s British comedy/soap opera. It was the usual deal where I came in as a big Siobhan Finneran fan, and left liking everybody on the show. Love Madge and especially Donald and Jacqueline, OH YES! Going back to Finneran, returning to Harlan Coben’s The Stranger now that I know of her other signature program, it’s wild that part of that series involves Janice Garvey avenging Edina Monsoon’s death.

In MeTV Toons news, who is finally debuting June 20th? Sarge? Rosemary the Telephone Operator? Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? COULD BE…

So today’s quickie review is a TIL. That Popeye has a Star Wars parody to his credit. Now, we’ve looked at Fleischer, Famous, and the KFS made-for-TV versions. All that’s left is…sigh…the Hanna-Barbera Popeye. In the late ’70s, CBS received a new Saturday morning version of the sailor man and his friends. Only ’70s SatAM TV being what it was, certain changes had to be made. Namely, don’t expect to see Bluto getting clobbered after Popeye eats his spinach; remember, we’ve been talking about how the Superfriends could barely make physical contact against their enemies.

That being said, this was a relatively timely and fresh spoof, since we were just a bit over a year removed from Star Wars’ theatrical release. Speaking of, let me check something really quick…

…yikes.

This episode was seen ONE DAY after the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. It’s a wonder that no one gave up instantly on Star Wars parodies after that weekend.

Not even Popeye’s toot-toot in the intro is trying anymore.

The episode title is “Close Encounters of the Third Spinach.” First, wrong movie. Second, they’re not even trying here, just randomly sticking “spinach” in the original title. If they had to, “…of the Spinach Kind” would be more appropriate. I guess most of the theatrical short namers were probably retired by now, so they had no puns to suggest. So, what sounds like Don Messick introduces the story, which actually gets the Star Wars basics right. The villain “Dark Bluto” is introduced, and he takes off his accurate Vader helmet to let us know who it is like he was a hero in a Marvel movie. I guess it beats the theatricals where Bluto was Bluto, just with different names. And the writers make the same mistake numerous parents did trying to relate to their kids when they use “Dark” instead of “Darth.” Anyway, he has a giant, planet-like space station, and the princess sends a droid out with its plans. Said princess of course is Olive Oyl, and the attention to detail ends because she is just in her usual Olive getup. Also, she’s called “Princess Olive Pit,” which I have no clue on how it’s supposed to be a play on Princess Leia. If she was going to still be Olive essentially, why replace one punny name with another? We also veer off from the original here, because we see that Olive accidentally sent the droid out the trash chute. Fortunately, passing by is the space trashman, “Pop Star.” Ye gods, now we’re ripping off the short-lived sitcom Quark? At least Popeye’s character’s name is kind of sci-fi, with the added bonus of having the pun. You know the drill, Not Artoo beams the message from the Princess, and requests that Popeye bring him to their oldest and wisest leader. By the way, the further Jack Mercer got into his career, the more he made Popeye incompetent with the English language, adding more unneeded pluralizations and “-sk” sounds.

In a matter of seconds, Popeye goes to Not The Cantina and finds an old man (no spoilers yet) dressed as a wizard with a broom. I know they’re all going to be under the same umbrella in decades, but a Fantasia reference in a Star Wars knockoff? They then commandeer the space burger stand for their Not Millennium Falcon ship, so this makes Wimpy Han Solo then? That…actually works when you think of it, because I’m sure Roughhouse would by now have put a bounty on his head for all those unpaid Tuesdays. They missed the boat by not having Wimpy have a sidekick monster named Chewburger, though. They approach the Not Death Star, and Dark Bluto flies out on the attack. Despite the wizard’s suggestion to “use the broom,” Popeye goes out for our space fight portion, making a goof when he calls the bad guy “Dark Brutus”. Bluto abandons ship and sends it careening towards the heroes’ craft, and Popeye punches it back towards the villain. Punches?!? But what about the children?!!?

Dark Bluto tries to camouflage his base with fog, but the old man uses his broom to zap it away. He promises to teach Popeye the secrets of The Broom, but no time for that as they’ve arrived for the rescue. Bluto sees his “old enemy,” identified as Alta-Poppa (NO idea what this is a reference to!) and prepares for revenge. Popeye bends the bars in Olive’s prison to free her. That seems to be another thing Hanna-Barbera did get right here; undoing the Famous Studios trope of Popeye being useless/impotent until he eats spinach. The heroes are chased by hench-robots, and Popeye demands to “let me at ’em,” but instead Alta-Poppa flies him out of the way with his broom, leading the robots to destroy themselves. If you watch this in HD, you can hear Poppa tell him, “Nope, the soccer moms won’t allow that…”

We finish with the Dark Bluto vs. Alta-Poppa confrontation, but Popeye cuts in before anything else resembling a fight can happen on this show. Bluto trap-doors his enemies, and it’s then that we learn the secret of The Broom: its bristles are really made of spinach. First, how does that work with a working broom? Second, considering Poppa used it for cleaning all the same…ew. Anyway, you know the rest. I probably have to tell you what non-punching method the spinach caused; well, Popeye drills his way out of the trap, and launches Bluto into his trash can. The day is saved, Olive declares so with 1979 Velma-like delivery…oh yeah, that reminds me: like Wonder Woman on Legendary Super Powers, we got a new Olive voice despite the best-known voice actress auditioning (AUDITIONING!) for the role. And we also learn that POPEYE, ALTA-POPPA…IS YOUR FATHER. Yep, it was Poopdeck Pappy all along. And wow, this was 2 years before Empire Strikes Back, hmmmmm….

Interesting here and there, but it’s basically a H-B Popeye. A curiosity for being one of the original Star Wars send-ups, however.