Let's Celebrake (1938) User Reviews

Popeye's Saturday Night Fever - Good, but not incredible

[ninjaalexs · 7/10 · 5 January 2023]

This is a rare Popeye cartoon in that he doesn't fight Bluto and they don't compete for needy, damsel in distress, Olive Oyl.

Popeye and Bluto visit Olive Oyl on a horse-drawn sleigh. Olive says they are going for a dance on New Year's Eve. Popeye sees Olive's hard of hearing grandma sat all alone looking miserable and offers to take her dancing. It's bizarre to see Popeye acting charming by helping her with her coat and giving compliments.

The couples go to a dance off. There's a funny scene were Popeye tickles Grandma's chin with a whistle and Bluto looks on with gritted teeth. Grandma can barely move when Popeye tries dancing with her. Luckily a waiter has a can of spinach on a serving tray. Popeye asks her to open wide and drops the spinach into her mouth. You can probably guess what happens next.

It's a very charming, but not one of the best Popeye shorts. It certainly doesn't compare to the colourful glory of "Popeye The Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves" or "Sinbad the Sailor". The dance scenes also take up about half the film and lack the visual flair and Brechtian creativity of Tex Avery cartoons from around this time. It still comes recommended for animation fans.

Most everyone is familiar with the term "cradle robber" . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 27 June 2019]

. . . but in Real Life, incidents of "granny grabbing" occur with AT LEAST equal frequency. Though there's no known connection as of this writing, LET'S CELEBRAKE was programmed the very morning after the heinous "Tenuta's Market" assault, robbery, and car-jacking, in which an 81-year-old granny was man-handled, stripped of her governmental pittance, and had her wheels stolen by a thoughtless young thug. Similarly, LET'S CELEBRAKE shines the harsh spotlight of the media upon a serial rabble rouser named "Popeye," who jerks an elderly, infirm grand parent from the comfort of her hearth into the teeth of a wintry blizzard without so much as packing an extra adult diaper bag. Worse yet, this reprobate seaman plies granny with some sort of fast-acting leafy drug and proceeds to put every fragile, osteoporosis-prone bone in her creaky body at grave risk in order to stroke his own ego by exhibiting her like some sort of geriatric trained seal in a midnight "dance contest." In a nation infamous for its elder abuse, LET'S CELEBRAKE seems to throw gasoline on Granny's funeral pyre.

Popeye Shows His Good Heart, And Grandma Turns Into Ginger Rogers!

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 20 October 2007]

Popeye and Bluto all dressed up, side by side riding a horse drawn sleigh and singing? Something isn't right. Am I seeing things? These guys are supposed to be fighting. They aren't friends, so what's the deal? Well, it's New Year's Eve and the boys are taking out Olive...and not fighting over it.

Kindhearted Popeye feels sorry for "Grandma," an almost-deaf old lady who lives with Olive, so he escorts her to the "Happy Hour Club," too.

Bluto, who has very little in the way of compassion for anyone, sneers as Popeye asks Grandma to dance, thinking our hero is some sort of sap. He snatches Olive and hits the dance floor. Grandma is a little slow on her feet so when the emcee, Wimpy - of course, announces they are going to award a loving cup to the winners of the dance contest, Popeye gets an idea: feed grandma some spinach!

Well, granny gets her spinach and - wham! - she turns into Ginger Rogers! Watching her and Popeye spin around the floor is a real hoot.

No, there is no fighting, no violence, only a warmhearted story that may not evoke a lot of laughs but is guaranteed to give you a lot of smiles as you watch.

Atypical Popeye, with no fisticuffs ad showing the essential natures of the three principal characters.

[llltdesq · 10/10 · 31 December 2002]

This Popeye, set on New Year's Eve, doesn't feature a brawl over Olive, or over anything else, for that matter. Popeye. a good-natured sort, decides it's not right that Olive's grandma be left at home while they go out, so he invites her along. Bluto escorts Olive and they both find it amusing that Popeye asked out grandma. Popeye is the soul of courtesy to grandma. A perfect example of the type of small kindnesses the world can never have enough of, then or now.

Wimpy puts in a cameo (with a different voice) and the ending is quite funny. Listen for some of Jack Mercer's asides. This is a wonderful cartoon altogether different in mood and tone from the standard Popeye shorts, appropriately so, for the New Year's Eve setting. I wish all who read this a happy and healthy year. This short is well worth seeking out. Most recommended.

Dancing with Grandma

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 22 November 2018]

Dave Fleischer and Fleischer Studios did a lot of cartoons that are good to great, the best of them gems. Over-cuteness did creep in at times, but there was always a lot of amusement and charm and they were always incredibly well made (some of the techniques used being innovative) and scored with nice easy to like characters if one doesn't mind the lack of depth.

Their Popeye cartoons are/were pretty much all good to brilliant, haven't seen a bad one. Do like most of the Famous Studios Popeye cartoons too and the best of their Popeye cartoons were among the better cartoons in their overall output, but Fleischer's are funnier, have more imagination and are better made, never once having the issue of hasty time constraints and lower budgets that the later Famous Studios cartoons did. Fleischer's Popeye cartoons were always well animated, even better scored and had a lot of entertainment value and wit as well as great chemistry and characterisation of the characters.

Enough of all that, lets talk about 'Let's Celebrake'. 'Let's Celebrake' is one of my favourites from this particular period of the Fleischer output. Everything that is so good about the Popeye series at its best is here and there is next to nothing to criticise, other than Olive having little to do and the story occasionally could have done with more surprises.

Popeye however is very likeable and amusing, while Bluto is even funnier. Their chemistry, as ever, drives the cartoon so it was essential for it to work, and it sparkles. Wimpy makes a fun short appearance while Grandma nearly steals the show once she is fed the spinach. The voice acting is adept as always, with Jack Mercer relishing Popeye's asides in particular.

In 'Let's Celebrake', the non-stop gags are beautifully timed and never less than very funny and a riot at its best. The dance setting, particularly the sight of Popeye and Grandma spinning around the floor, is used to full advantage and imaginatively so. The story is slight and occasionally formulaic, but so full of energy and filled to the brim with heart and warmth that it doesn't matter.

As to be expected, the animation is excellent, beautifully drawn, lively, smooth and meticulously detailed, never too elaborate or cluttered neither too static or simplistic. Every bit as good, and even better perhaps, is the music, with its lush orchestrated, merry energy and character, it adds to every expression, gesture and action and at its best it enhances the impact. Fleischer's direction is as accomplished as ever.

Overall, truly great and as said one of my favourite Popeye cartoons from this relatively late Fleischer studios period. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Popeye and the Old Lady

[Michael_Elliott · 5 April 2016]

Let's Celebrake (1938)

*** (out of 4)

It's a snowy New Year's Eve as Popeye and Bluto show up to Olive Oyl's house to take her out. The three are about to leave when Popeye feels bad leaving her elderly grandmother home alone so he brings her along. Even though she can hardly move or hear Popeye enters them in the dancing contest.

This Popeye short doesn't have any violence and it's actually pretty laid back when you compare it to just about every other short in the series. There's a big dance sequence at the end, which is mildly charming but I'd be lying to say it was anything too special. What makes this short so great is the fact that the animation itself is so wonderful. I've said this throughout watching all of these shorts but the Popeye series had some of the greatest animation from this era. This is especially true in regards to the attention to details. Just take a look at the overall view of the dance floor and see how much detail is there to enjoy.

Wonderful Dance Scene

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 17 July 2019]

Popeye is kind enough to invite Olive's grandma to a New Year's Eve party. But when the dance contest starts, she can barely move. Until Popeye uses his favorite drug, Spinach, to solve the problem. This is a very good Popeye cartoon, avoiding a series of fistfights with Bluto.