Ancient Fistory (1953)
Article 5615 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-29-2018
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Jackson Beck, Jack Mercer, Mae Questel
Country: USA
What it is: Popeye Cartoon

Popeye wants to go to the ball to meet the princess, but evil stepfather Bluto won’t let him. Can Popeye’s fairy godfather fix things for him?

For the record, it looks like Popeye beat Jerry Lewis to the Cinderfella name by a decade. As you may have figured, this is a gender-reverse telling of the Cinderella story, which is easily the most clever thing about the cartoon. But once you get beyond that, this is pretty much the usual Popeye cartoon of the fifties with a few extra trappings, such as the archaic phrasing jokes. But by imitating a fairy tale, it does add to the fantastic content with a fair amount of magical happenings. Still, despite the gimmick, this one isn’t really all that special.