Safari So Good (1947) User Reviews

good

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 17 July 2021]

Popeye and Olive are on a safari in Africa. She's following a monkey while filming when she is picked up by jungle man Bluto. It's a rather simple cartoon. The color animation style is clean but not my favorite. This is still fun with lots of action. It does miss a good joke when the monkey goes through the dust cloud and emerges with a bunch of fur coats. The camera goes back to the dust cloud but it should find a bunch of cold, shivering, naked animals. That's the joke and this missed it.

This odious picture glorifies the gratuitous . . .

[pixrox1 · 7/10 · 30 March 2023]

. . . slaughter of endangered animals. After wounding a lion, Popeye clobbers a crocodile into oblivion. Later, the murderous sailor graduates to a wholesale massacre on an industrial scale, doing in a zebra, a pair of leopards, an out-of-place tiger, a rhinoceros, a couple more lions, an elephant and countless more rare critters, including probably cheetahs, pumas, panthers and lynx. Popeye appoints himself as a one-man wrecking crew when it comes to Africa. This imperialist attack smacks of colonialism of the worse sort. The message here seems to be "Eat your vegetables, and then kill, kill, kill." This is the sort of thing that gives vegetarians a bad name.

Popeye vs. Bluto

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 5 September 2021]

A pun on the saying "So far, so good!" it's a Popeye short cartoon, made just after WW II at Paramount, with Popeye at the peak of the mountain, tooting his pipe. Popeye and Olive Oyl are out on safari. And while she's following a monkey through the trees, she gets scooped up by Bluto, dressed like Tarzan. Meanwhile, never one to leave the dance with the same guy she came with, is admiring Bluto's muscle, taking pictures, and generally fawning over him. The usual shenanigans between Popeye and Bluto to win back Olive Oyl. It's an Izzy Sparber project, in glorious color. Seven minutes. Clever bit near the end, while Popeye is fighting with all the critters in the jungle.

Safari Popeye

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 5 August 2020]

The Famous Studios, more the earlier ones than the more variable later ones, Popeye cartoons were generally amusing enough and all the 40s efforts were well made (a bit more mixed for the 50s ones). To me though Fleischer's Popeye cartoons were funnier and fresher (even when the stories were formulaic the material was often very inventive) and they looked better, or at least looked better than the later Famous Studios output where time and budget limitations showed.

'Safari So Good' is in my mind one of the best 1947 Popeye outings, among the better late-40s Popeye cartoons and one of the better Famous Studios outings of the series is. It is very nearly up there with the best of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons and not indicative at all of time and budget limitations showing. It showed in the late-50s onwards for the studio but it didn't in the 40s, where the Popeye cartoons were all watchable and more (the weakest efforts still being average) and the studio did some good to great cartoons.

Did feel that Olive's material is not as funny or as interesting as Popeye or Bluto's, but there was hardly anything to fault 'Safari So Good' for to me and that is only in comparison. Popeye is amusing and likeable as ever, but of the three Bluto was the most compelling and had the funniest material. His chemistry with Popeye gives 'Safari So Good' such energy, while great use is made of the safari setting (capturing the spirit of being on one too) and the inhabitants of it.

Although the second half, where things are more wild in classic Popeye fashion, comes off stronger than the still very charming and entertaining first, 'Safari So Good' never felt dull. One is hardly short-changed when it comes to the humour, where all of it works and never less than amusing. The story is not an original one but never felt too predictable as there was enough variety to the material.

Had no qualms with the animation, it is beautifully drawn and with enough visual detail to not make it cluttered or static and lively and smooth movement. The music is outstanding, lots of merry energy and lush orchestration, adding a lot to the action and making the impact even better without being too cartoonish. Voice acting is dynamic and of very good quality, Jack Mercer definitive and Jackson Beck a worthy successor to the difficult to beat Gus Wickie. The Richard Haydn-sounding gorilla was amusing too.

Summarising, one of the best of the late-40s Famous Studios Popeye cartoons. 9/10