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If you ever want to see an Our Gang/ Little rascals short, this is the one to see. A big-budget musical short that features a floor show in snazzy Club Spanky (thanks to the convenient plot device of having Alfalfa dream the whole thing), "Our Gang Follies of 1938" was the last truly great film in the Our Gang series and the last two-reel comedy Hal Roach would ever produce. This short is incredibly enjoyable, it's dialogue and gags instantly quotable, its songs are insanely catchy...and Buckwheat (excuse me, "CAB" Buckwheat) is the band leader. A winner by all accounts.

Interestingly enough, when MGM bought Our Gang from Hal Roach not six months after this short was produced, they tried a number of time to produce a short to match this one ("Ye Old Minstrels," "Melodies Old and New," "Calling All Kids," etc.) but it never happened.

Happy Birthdaze (1943) During shore leave, Popeye takes his suicidal (yes, suicidal) friend Shorty over to Olive's house for Popeye's birthday party. Shorty, who alternates between overenthusiastically trying to help out and moping about feeling down (and pulling out a gun to blow his brains out) manages to completely destroy the party and Popeye and Olive's relationship. This cartoon has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The best gag: the conversation between Popeye and Shorty at the beginning ("Ya looks like Bob Hope!")

The last of the triple-length Technicolor Popeye featurettes, this one is a retelling of the story of Aladdin, written by Olive Oyl as a screenplay for Surprise Pictures. "Aladdin" has less accomplished animation than the other two featurettes, but it features a better-moving and more balanced storyline. Popeye's best ad-lib, while being pressured into romance by a love-struck Princess (played by Olive): "I never made love in Technicolor before!"