''Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves'' is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the '' Popeye Color Feature'' series, produced in

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

and released to theatres on November 26, 1937 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by

Max Fleischer Max Fleischer (born Majer Fleischer ; July 19, 1883 – September 25, 1972) was an American animator, inventor, film director and producer, and studio founder and owner. Born in Kraków, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he became ...

for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by

Dave Fleischer Dave Fleischer (; July 14, 1894 – June 25, 1979) was an American film director and producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his older brother Max Fleischer. He was a native of New York City. Biography Fleischer was the ...

Willard Bowsky Willard Gustav Bowsky (September 26, 1907 – November 27, 1944) was an American animator best known for his work at Fleischer Studios in New York City and Miami, Florida, where he worked on cartoons featuring Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, ...

was head animator, with musical supervision by Sammy Timberg. The voice of

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Jack Mercer Winfield B. Mercer (January 31, 1910 – December 7, 1984), professionally known as Jack Mercer, was a prolific American voice actor, animator and TV screenwriter. He is best known as the voice of cartoon characters Popeye the Sailor Man and F ...

, with additional voices by

Mae Questel Mae Questel (born Mae Kwestel, September 13, 1908 – January 4, 1998) was an American actress. She was best known for providing the voices for the animated characters Betty Boop (from 1931) and Olive Oyl (from 1933). She began in vaudeville, ...

Olive Oyl Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar in 1919 for his comic strip ''Thimble Theatre''. The strip was later renamed '' Popeye'' after the sailor character that became the most popular member of the cast; however, Olive Oyl was ...

, Lou Fleischer as J. Wellington Wimpy and

Gus Wickie August Wicke (May 7, 1885 – January 3, 1947), also known as Gus Wicke and Gus Wickie, was an American bass singer, and stage and voice actor. He was one of the voices of Bluto in the animated series, ''Popeye the Sailor'', by Fleischer Studi ...

as Abu Hassan.

Plot

While on guard at a

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

post, Popeye,

and J. Wellington Wimpy hear of Abu Hassan's attack on a town in

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

and fly there in their flying boat to capture him, but they crash as they are flying over a desert in Arabia. After trekking through the desert, the group happens upon the town where the Forty Thieves are routinely attacking. The Thieves arrive in town soon afterwards, and their leader Abu Hassan, who closely resembles Popeye's old nemesis Bluto, gets frustrated after failing to win a battle of one-ups-manship with Popeye (during which, demonstrating a magic trick, Popeye relieves Hassan of his long underwear, remarking "Abu hasn't got 'em any more!"). Hassan finally leaves Popeye hanging from a chandelier, then orders his Thieves to swipe everything they can from the town before fleeing, including Olive and Wimpy. Popeye eventually manages to break free and takes a camel to Abu's secret cave, where, unable to remember the magic word of "open sesame!", he breaks in using his pipe as a blowtorch. Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves

Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves

Inside the cave, Popeye sneaks past the guards and attempts to free Olive and Wimpy. He confronts Abu Hassan and demands that he gives the Forty Thieves' stolen jewels back to the people. However, he is apprehended and thrown into a shark pit. Just before being eaten by a shark, Popeye tangles the shark's teeth together, and the shark goes back down into the water. Popeye eats his spinach and escapes the shark pit to fight Abu Hassan and all forty of the Thieves. He finally defeats the Forty Thieves by constantly punching them (counting every single one as he does so), before throwing and locking Hassan in a treasure chest. The Thieves and Hassan are chained and made to drag a cart filled with the stolen loot, Popeye, Olive, and Wimpy, back to town, where the townspeople, jubilant at their liberation from Hassan's reign of terror, await them with open arms. As Popeye puts it, "I may be a shorty, but I licked the Forty! I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!"

Release and reception

''Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves'' was produced while Fleischer competitor

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

was entering the final months of production on his first animated feature, ''

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as T ...

''. It made full use of Fleischer Studios'

multiplane camera The multiplane camera is a motion-picture camera that was used in the traditional animation process that moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another. This creates a sense of par ...

, which they had been experimenting with for some time. Disney had just released his Academy Award-winning Silly Symphony, ''

The Old Mill ''The Old Mill'' is a 1937 ''Silly Symphonies'' cartoon produced by Walt Disney Productions, directed by Wilfred Jackson, scored by Leigh Harline, and released theatrically to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on November 5, 1937. The film depicts ...

'', their first 3-D cartoon, and were advertising their upcoming ''Snow White'' as multiplanal as well. As such, advertising for "Forty Thieves" accented the fact that it was 3-dimensional. It was released just weeks before the seasonal Los Angeles premiere of ''Snow White'' and was essentially the only animated competition for the feature. The short was the second of the three ''Popeye'' "Color Specials," which were over sixteen minutes each, three times as long as a regular ''Popeye'' cartoon, and were often billed in theatres alongside or above the main feature. Today, this short and the other two ''Popeye Color Specials'', '' Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor'', and '' Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp'' (both of which were also adapted from a story featured in '' One Thousand and One Nights''), are in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

. Poor quality transfers of these three cartoons made from old, faded prints have been released on several previous Popeye collections on VHS tape and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

. The cartoon, fully restored with the original

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

mountain logo opening and closing titles, is available officially on disc four of the DVD collection '' Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Volume 1''.

References

External links

*
''Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves''
at the

Big Cartoon Database The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, Feature film, animated feature films, Animated television series, animated television shows, and cartoon Short film, shorts. The BCDB proj ...

* *
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves
in Flash and iPod formats. {{Popeye 1937 short films 1937 animated films Films based on Ali Baba Films set in deserts Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoons 1930s children's fantasy films Short films directed by Dave Fleischer 1930s American animated films American parody films Fairy tale parody films Animated crossover films Paramount Pictures short films Fleischer Studios short films 1930s English-language films American animated short films Films set in the Middle East American comedy short films