1953's 'Shaving Muggs' is another example of Famous Studios' various colour remakes of early Popeye cartoons from Fleischer Studios. These quality-wise varied, with the original cartoons being all between good and excellent and the remakes being mostly a mix of good and scraping average. A couple of them though were excellent, were as good as their originals and not indicative of the studio having run out of ideas (unlike other later Popeye cartoons) or lost quality.
'Shaving Muggs', also a milestone with it being the series' 200th cartoon, fits in that category. It's a remake of 1936's 'The Clean Shaven Man', to me a truly wonderful entry and one of my personal favourites of the series, but not only is it just as good and respectful it fares wonderfully as a standalone in its own right. One of the better Famous Studios Popeye cartoons, one of the best of its 50s output and one of only two great Popeye cartoons from a mixed year for the series, the other being 'Popeye Ace of Space'.
It may not be original story-wise and it is always frustrating when you see Olive underused again and only there for plot device reasons.
Other than that, 'Shaving Muggs' has very little wrong with it. It is one of the best looking 50s cartoons from the 50s, in a period where the animation in the Popeye cartoons and for the studio overall varied and not as good, and is great a vast majority of the time. Some occasional rushing in the drawing aside, the character designs do not look too primitive while the colours are beautifully vibrant and with lovely detail in the backgrounds. Some nice inventive little touches too.
The music is equally outstanding as one expects from Famous Studios regular composer Winston Sharples in a way that is immediately distinctive of him, beautiful on the ears and its character is infectious. The story is full of energy and is always coherent and interesting, never being dull. It's formulaic, with not an awful lot of surprises going on, but that was common in Popeye.
Humour and gags are beautifully timed with not a misfire in the lot when it came to being funny, avoiding the trap of repetition. The asides and one liners are a delight as well and Jack Mercer's delivery makes them even better. The action is suitably wild, especially in the final third with a real surprise at the end, and didn't get too over the top, the chemistry between Popeye and Bluto driving 'Shaving Muggs' beautifully, lots of inspired tension and fun between the two. Both are extremely entertaining to watch too as individual characters, especially Bluto. The voice acting is great.
Excellent cartoon overall. 9/10.
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