View source for Leave Well Enough Alone

{{Infobox Cartoon Short
| name= Leave Well Enough Alone
| image=
| caption=
| director= Dave Fleischer
| producer= Max Fleischer
| writer= 
| narrator=
| starring= Jack Mercer<br>Margie Hines
| music= Sammy Timberg<br>Lou Fleischer
| animation= Seymour Kneitel<br>Abner Mathews
| editing=
| studio= Fleischer Studios
| distributor= Paramount Pictures
| released= April 28, 1939
| runtime= 6:00
| country= USA
| language= English
| budget=
| gross=
| preceded_by= ''[[Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp]]''
| followed_by= ''[[Wotta Nitemare]]''
| website=
| amg_id=
| imdb_id= 0031559
}}'''''Leave Well Enough Alone''''' is a ''[[Popeye|Popeye the Sailor]]'' theatrical animated short produced by Fleischer Studios and released on April 28, 1939.

== Plot ==
Popeye passes by Olive Oyl's pet shop while out for a walk when his attention is caught by a litter of puppies clamoring in front of the shop's display window.  Feeling sorry for the puppies, Popeye goes inside and tries to ask about them at the sales counter when Olive starts making a sales pitch to him.  Popeye cuts Olive off when he asks how much it would cost to get all the animals she has on sale in her store; she answers $500.  The sailor pays out the cash and then goes to open up all the animal cages in the store and set all of the dogs, cats and birds inside free, including the puppies in the display window.

After all the pets get out of the pet shop, Popeye spots a parrot which has not left his perch, so he goes to the perch and tells the parrot that he is free to leave.  The parrot then breaks into song and points out why he is better off having the safety of a roof over his head and steady meals than taking his chances in the outside world, advising Popeye that he should have left well enough alone regarding the pets that he set free from the pet shop.  Popeye soon realizes the error of his earlier action when he sees some of the dogs he freed rooting through garbage in an alley; those dogs, along with all of the other dogs Popeye freed, are quickly caught by a dog catcher and deposited into a waiting truck to take to the dog pound.

As Popeye chases after the dog catcher's truck, three more dogs are kicked out of a nearby meat market, but one of the dogs pulls out a bone it had grabbed from the market before they were caught.  The dogs start gnawing on the bone when the dog catcher comes along and snags them as well, then catches more of the stray dogs before arriving at the dog pound.  Popeye arrives moments later and tells the dog catcher that all the dogs in the truck belong to him, but the dog catcher points out that none of the dogs have licenses.  Popeye hands over some cash to the dog catcher to license the dogs, then takes them all from the truck and back to Olive's pet shop where they are returned to their cages.  The parrot gets the last word when he reiterates his message to Popeye to leave well enough alone, at which the sailor grins in agreement.

== Trivia ==
* This is one of the few ''Popeye'' cartoons where Popeye does not eat spinach to defeat a villain, as there was no actual villain to defeat in the cartoon.
* Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye, also voiced the parrot in this short, using a similar voice to what he would later use as the voice of Felix the Cat in made-for-TV ''Felix the Cat'' cartoons in the 1950s.
* When adjusted for inflation, the $500 Popeye pays to buy the freedom of all the animals in the pet shop is equal to $10,599.89 as of 2023.

== Production notes ==

== External links ==

[[Category:Popeye the Sailor]]