What Happens When a Tree Eats Spinach

Spinach doesn’t just work on “hu-mings” in the Popeye cartoons. In Strong to the Finich (1934), the sailor demonstrates to the sick-of-eating-spinachk kids living at Olive Oyl’s Health Farm for Children that it gives vitaliky to just about anything.

In one scene, Popeye pours it into a hole of an anaemic-looking tree.



Being a Fleischer cartoon, the tree sprouts a mouth (and teeth) and begins chewing.



The tree begins to grow.



It sprouts leaves. And since “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” is playing in the background, apples begin to grow.



Wait a minute! The apples become pears.



The pears become pineapples.



Finally, some of the pears become bananas.



It’s on to the next gag.

This is one of the cartoons with a low-voiced Olive played by Bonnie Poe. Red Pepper Sam (aka William Costello) is Popeye.



Much like an Our Gang comedy, there’s a black kid. This is likely meant to be inclusive; all the children are equal in this. He doesn’t talk like Amos ‘n’ Andy, and he’s not the subject of ridicule (like being slow or afraid of ghosts).

Seymour Kneitel was the de facto director of the short, with Doc Crandall also getting an animation credit.