In 1960, King Features Syndicate brought forth “Popeye the Sailor,” an animated television series featuring new misadventures of the beloved spinach-chomping hero and his wacky circle of friends and foes. A total of 220 short cartoons were created for the series by multiple animation studios, and most them were forgettable. But there was one short that stood out for being an extraordinary detour from the usual Popeye-fueled knockabout.
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BOOTLEG FILES 676: “Nimbus Libéré” (1944 propaganda animated short).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: It was included in the 1993 Claude Chabrol documentary “The Eye of Vichy.”
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unauthorized use of copyright-protected animated characters.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It is in “The Eye of Vichy,” but it is also posted online without authorization.
By early 1944, Nazi Germany saw its control over Europe weaken dramatically due to Soviet advances from the East and the arrival of Allied forces into Italy. An invasion of France was expected, and the Germans were not eager to see their brutal control over the French removed.
In one of the weirdest attempts to convince an occupied nation that they should not welcome liberation, the German authorities commissioned an animated short designed to show the stupidity and recklessness of the liberating Allied forces.