Popeye and Olive are taking a ferry run by Bluto. When they find out the fare, they decide, with Wimpy, to build a bridge. Bluto does what he can to sabotage this plan - until spinach time, of course.
Popeye and Bluto stop by to see Olive and fix her leaky faucet. Popeye does it better, and Bluto gets jealous, so he starts rerouting Olive's plumbing and causing all sorts of leaks.
Popeye skates over to Olive's house to give her a Christmas present: ice skates of her own. While he's teaching her, Bluto skates up and gets fresh; of course, Popeye fights him.
In Judge Wimpy's courtroom, Bluto accuses Popeye of assault and battery; he claims to have been attacked by him on several occasions, without provocation.
Popeye's ensemble is rehearsing the opening of the Poet and Peasant Overture (with interpolations of the Popeye theme and "I've Been Working on the Railroad").
Popeye, Olive Oyl and more King Features Syndicate comic strip characters are invited on a cruise hosted by Professor Grimsby, a mad scientist who wants to eliminate laughter from the world.
Olive preaches the need for brotherly love on the radio. Popeye, hearing this, does a number of good deeds: helping two workmen raise a safe, straightening a wrecked car, and helping two boys sneak into a baseball game.
Although Larry "Buster" Crabbe earns top billing, the hero of Drift Fence is former Western star Tom Keene as Jim Travis, who, at a rodeo, meets city dweller Jim Traft, who has come west to erect a fence that will prevent Clay Jackson from continuing his cattle rustling business.
A retired Scotland Yard detective, Patrick Fitzpatrick (Tom Walls) comes back to take one final case, tracking down a missing vase which has been stolen by a gang of thieves specialising in taking art treasures.
Peyton Wells (Ben Lyon) rescues Judy Jones (Joan Marsh) from a very dull young man, at a sedate party given for her by her multi-millionaire grandfather Silas P.
Paddy O'Riley and Ossie Merrill, Bellport high school football heroes, enroll in distant colleges; Paddy at a small school in the East, where he is barely a substitute, and Ossie at a powerhouse-football school, where he is an instant star and all-American candidate.
A newly hired police chief vows to clean up a notoriously corrupt police department. When he is murdered, investigators find that there is no shortage of suspects, most of them being fellow cops.
Hoping to rid a small western community of its corrupt political machine, Ken Marshall (Ken Maynard) runs for sheriff against the bad guys' candidate and wins the election.