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| Cartoon Stars Re-Animated |
Well, it's about time I returned to the series I started on classic cartoon characters (Besides, the way things are going in the world, it would be nice to talk about a character who would likely punch a dictator in the face. Or “paste them in the mush” as Popeye himself would likely say).
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| Popeye the Sailor |
Popeye the Sailor is a creatin of cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar for his comic strip Thimble Theatre. Thimble Theatre started as a parody of stage and screen melodramas, but once the character of Popeye was introduced, he struck a chord with readers. Pretty soon, Popeye himself became the star and title character of the strip and while Olive Oyl and a few other Thimble Theatre regulars would carry over, a new cast would start to grow around the titular sailor man, including town mooch J. Wellington Wimpy, Popeye's adopted boy-kid Swee'pea, and Popeye's own irresponsible 99-year-old father Poopdeck Pappy.
In 1932, Segar signed a deal with Fleischer Studios to adapt Popeye into a series of cartoon shorts. Unlike the comic strips, which had gotten more complex and serialized over time, the set-up of most of the cartoons was fairly simple. Popeye and his rival Bluto are competing for the affection of Olive Oyl. Bluto does something underhanded to get Popeye out of the way and claim Olive as his own. A fight breaks out between the two. Popeye ends up on the ropes until he eats a can of spinach to power up, beats Bluto and wins the day. It's simple, but it worked and allowed enough variability within a format that the cartoons could still feel fresh. Sometimes the characters would take on different roles, but it still kept the formula. One of the great strengths of the cartoons was the ability to turn a fistfight into a series of sight gags (who can forget the scene of Popeye socking a bull so hard it changed into a butcher stand filled with steaks and hot dogs). The cartoons also managed to break from formula enough times to introduce a surprising number of the comic strip's side characters, including the aforementioned Wimpy, Swee'pea and Pappy, but also the magical creature Eugene the Jeep and hulking race of Goons. The other big thing that the cartoons added was voice. The Popeye cartoons made Popeye's mangled English dialogue come to life and created his trademark laugh. There's also Olive Oyl's trademark voice, which was performed by a number of actresses but is largely associated Mae Questel, who channeled the vocal affectations of a popular actress named Zazu Pitts into her performance.
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| Popeye and Swee'pea |
There are other differences between the comic strip and cartoons to make note of besides the length and complexity of the stories. Segar's version of Olive Oyl was more headstrong and willing to throw hands herself. Also, Popeye's strength originally came from stroking the head of a bird called a Wiffle Hen. Then it became just an intrinsic trait of the character. Then, as something of a ploy to get kids to eat their veggies, it came from eating spinach. The comics would use it sparingly but it became a mainstay of the cartoons. The cartoons would often depict Olive Oyl as Swee'pea's primary parent and Eugene as Popeye's pet, even though in the comic strips it was the other way around. Probably the biggest difference is how much Bluto was used. Bluto first appeared in the comic strip as Bluto the Terrible and was the villain of one story during Segar's run. However, he became the primary antagonist of the cartoons. Bluto appeared so sparingly in the comics that King Features Syndicate seemed to think that Fleischer Studios created him. It was to the extent that when they tried to make their own Popeye TV cartoon in the '60s, they created a very similar character named Brutus to take his place in order to sidestep any IP law infringement. Popeye's biggest villain in the comic strips is actually a piarte witch named the Sea Hag. The cartoons also did end up introducing their own characters. Namely four mischevious nephews for Popeye named Pupeye, Pepeye, Pipeye and Poopeye (kind of taking a page out of the Disney playbook, but it's nice when Popeye gets a challenge he can't solve with his fists. Just for the novelty).
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| The Sea Hag, Popeye's big comic strip villain |
They lasted through the 30s and 40s. They lasted through the Second World War, where they became propaganda for the Allied cause. They lasted through the break-up of Fleischer Studios and the buyout by Paramount that transformed it into Famous Studios. And all the while, the comic strip kept going as well, being taken up by succesors after Segar's death.
There's a very basic appeal to Popeye. It's very similar to the basic appeal of Superman (another classic character adapted by Fleischer Studios). There's a basic righteous juvenile power fantasy at the core of it all. The idea that there's a very strong fighter out there whole stand up for what's right and sock ne'er do wells in the jaw. Because, no matter the situation, Popeye is always standing up for someone weaker. Some cartoons even had him standing up for animal welfare in an era where that didn't really seem like it was much of a concern (yeah, he fought a bull in “Bulldozing the Bull”, but he spent most of the cartoon saying he wouldn't do it because it wasn't right. Until he had no choice in the matter). The difference between Superman and Popeye is that Superman is a good-looking, some may even say godlike, alien in a circus acrobat outfit while Popeye is . . . not. Instead, Popeye is a sailor, a profession that doesn't always have the most moral of reputations. Sailors have long been associated with fighting, drinking and womanizing. On top of that, he's kind of an ugly cuss with one eye, no teeth, a voice like he's been gargling gravel and a questionable command of the English language. And yet, he's still the guy who saves the day. That's the appeal of Popeye. He's a pug-ugly, one-eyed seafaring roughneck with a good right hook and ultimately a heart of gold. The ultimate unexpected hero.
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| Poster from Robert Altman's Popeye movie |
And Popeye continued on as a household name for decades. He had multiple cartoon series, including the 1960 one with Brutus, 1978's The All New Popeye Hour and 1987's Popeye and Son. In 1980 there was a Popeye feature film musical starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall and directed by Robert Altman. There was nearly an animated film by Genndy Tartakovsky but that fell through. He was even adapted into a ride at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure named Popeye and Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges. Popeye's popularity even went international. The Japanese were apparently very fond of Popeye for a long time. There are numerous Popeye video games that were only released in Japan. Heck, the game Donkey Kong started out as a Popeye game before evolving into something else (don't worry, Popeye would get his Nintendo game later).
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| Eye Lie Popeye #1, a more shonen action take on Popeye. |
Nowadays, though, Popeye is often thought of as a dead property. Which is weird because he's not really gone. He just sunk from a level of popularity where awareness is high to one where you have to seek Popeye stuff out. He still appears in things. A series of shorts for kids titled Popeye's Island Adventures started being posted to YouTube about five years ago. In 2023, Massive Publishing started publishing a manga-influenced comics miniseries named Eye Lie Popeye which makes lots of sense when you realize how much Popeye DNA is in stuff like One Piece). And his comic strip still appears in newspapers almost every day (check it out on www.comicskingdom.com). And at this point, the first strip Popeye appeared in has actually gone into the public domain, causing the character to get some renewed attention for a little while. (Though, note that the public domain is a mixed, complicated blessing in this case. Olive Oyl's first strip had been in the public domain for years already. But King Features Syndicate still legally owns the trademarks to both characters).
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| The first comic strip to feature Popeye. Which I can now legally post here. |
It shows how a property can be considered “dead” but not really be “gone”.
I kind of glossed over the history of Popeye, but you can go out and read more about it if you still need more depth. Personally, I still think the basic character concept still has gas in the tank. The appeal of a rough-and-tumble hero with a heart of gold isn't going to go out of fashion quite so completely. The right Popeye project just needs to come along. And hopefully one comes along. I'd like to see new adventures of Popeye socking no-good palookas in the kisser.
