Scrap the Japs

Popeye finds himself in a perilous wartime scenario after leaping from a plane without a parachute. He’s assigned a peculiar punishment: to perform a series of chores that will keep the ship clean and orderly. With a practical, if unconventional, approach he attaches mops to propellers to scrub the decks and even takes to painting camouflage on the hulls to show his willingness to aid the war effort. The sequence blends humor with a stubborn sense of duty as he tackles the tasks at hand, improvising tools and routines to keep things shipshape while under the clock.

Before his tasks can be completed, a strange “cloud” appears and begins dropping bombs onto the vessel. At first he’s confused, but the joke turns dark when the cloud is revealed to be connected to a Japanese plane, its tail bearing the words “Made in Japan” to clearly mark the enemy. A Japanese soldier emerges, drawn with exaggerated features—thick glasses and prominent teeth—that reflect the era’s cartoonish stereotypes. The scene leans on typical wartime caricature, with terms like “Jap” and “stormtrooper” appearing in reference to the foe. Popeye responds with action, firing missiles from a nearby aircraft as the enemy pilot frantically pedals to stay aloft. The clash culminates in the Japanese plane exploding, leaving the enemy figure clutching a battered umbrella as he crashes toward a ship labeled the “Jap Scrap Repair Ship.” The depictions emphasize a clear, villainous other and set the stage for a brutal, fast-paced confrontation.

On the scrap ship, the Japanese sailors appear visually identical, reinforcing a propagandistic image of a unified enemy force as they drill and repair in unison. Popeye lands on the tilting craft and is soon overwhelmed by the crowd, receiving a pounding from the crew. Courage, appetite, and a burst of spinach power him up: after chomping down, he spits out his spinach can into the water to distract the attackers, who dive after it. In a striking moment, the spinach-fueled energy coincides with a symbolic transformation: Popeye becomes the Statue of Liberty, a figure long used in anti-Nazi propaganda, a visual echo that recalls the era’s animated messaging and even parallels imagery found in Disney’s Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943).

Facing a greater threat, a large Japanese battleship opens fire, but our hero isn’t deterred. He rides the scrap ship toward the looming threat and fights off the sailors who defend it. Once aboard the battleship, he disposes of them by tossing them into the vessel’s interior, their imprints forming a victorious “V” shape as a nod to Allied triumph. Using a fragment of the ship’s railing like a can opener, he hacks the vessel apart and then settles down to enjoy an ice cream, waiting for the ship to crumble beneath him. The cartoon closes with Popeye flying home, the Japanese sailors imprisoned in a cage behind him. They sting with complaints, then abruptly transform into rats and scatter, leaving a chaotic, propagandistic image that caps the wartime fantasy.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:47