Onion Pacific is Popeye's 80th theatrical short, released in 1940 by Fleischer Studios.
Plot
There is a train race for the State franchise. J. Wellington Wimpy announces the competitors, Bluto's Sudden Pacific and Popeye's Onion Pacific. He adds that a beautiful lady (Olive Oyl) has offered to kiss the winner. Olive proceeds to shoot the revolver at the starting line, but finds that it is jammed, which results in her being propelled into Bluto's engine. Popeye loses some time getting rid of a big lump of coal Bluto had jammed into his train, but quickly catches up. As the racers remain even, Bluto notices Olive on board, but says the kiss will have to wait and gets her shoveling coal. She is able to successfully desert to Popeye's engine, not without a tug of war happening with her arms. After losing some ground in a tunnel, Bluto sabotages his competitor's engine by puncturing and deflating it. However, Popeye inflates it again using steam from a kettle.
Later, the rivals must work together to survive across a narrow bridge, until Bluto thanks Popeye with a wrench to the head. When he recovers and catches up again, Bluto takes a piece off Popeye's engine's wheel, only for Popeye to substitute himself for it. Bluto then makes the Onion Pacific take a wrong turn where it crashes into pieces. Popeye declares that he has been derailed from the tracks, so he eats his spinach, which allows him to reassemble his broken, small engine into a much larger, modern one. He and Olive get on board and swiftly catch up with the Sudden Pacific, wrecking it in the process. The race - and the franchise - is won, and a kiss is earned.
Trivia
- The engine on Bluto's train is a 6-4-0 engine while Popeye's is a 4-2-0 engine.
External links
- Onion Pacific at the Internet Movie Database