"The Hungry Goat" is a 1943 Popeye cartoon directed by Dan Gordon. The short was released on June 25, 1943.
This short is less in line with a regular Popeye Short, and seems more like a Tex Avery cartoon. The cartoon even starts with the main character walking in front of the title card! Billy The Kid is starving to death (after looking at the title and realizing what his role in the picture is), and all the scrap is taken away for scrap drives. Starving and desperate, he finds a ship, but must contend with Popeye for his dinner.
"The Hungry Goat", has examples of:
- Big Eater: Billy is hungry enough to eat a whole warship!
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In spades:
- The short even starts with Billy walking in front of the title card, before asking the projectionist to reverse the film so he could read the title.
- Admiral Kurry goes to the movies and watches the cartoon in theaters.
- And the ending. Billy somehow gets out of the cartoon and starts cackling as the cartoon zooms in to the Paramount logo.
- Driven to Suicide: Unable to find any cans to eat, Billy decides to end it all by jumping off a pier. He ends up hitting the warship, which he sees as an all-you-can-eat buffet.
- Extreme Omni-Goat: Billy tries to eat the entire ship, including the anchor and multiple chains.
- Fake-Out Opening: Billy enters the film singing a happy song, but then reads the title card and asks the projectionist to restart the movie, changing his performance from happy to starving.
- Meat-O-Vision: Billy sees Popeye’s ship as a giant pile of tin cans to eat.
- Out of Focus: Popeye only appears in the second half, and only has a few lines of dialogue. He doesn't even get to eat his spinach!
- Rewind Gag: After Billy passes the title card, he asks the projectionist to rewind the film so he can read it.
- Wartime Cartoon: The reason Billy is starving is because all the tin cans have been collected for wartime scrap drives.
