Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appearing on January 17, 1929, in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, but the one-eyed sailor quickly became the lead character, and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the early 1930s. Popeye became the suitor of longtime Thimble Theatre star Olive Oyl, and Segar introduced new supporting characters such as adopted son Swee'Pea and friend J. Wellington Wimpy, as well as foes like the Sea Hag and Bluto.
Following Segar's death in 1938, Thimble Theatre was continued by several writers and artists, most notably Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip continues to appear in first-run installments on Sundays, written and drawn by R. K. Milholland. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories. In 1933, Max Fleischer adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and Fleischer Studios, which later became Paramount's own Famous Studios, continued production through 1957. Cartoons produced during World War II included Allied propaganda, as was common among cartoons of the time. These cartoon shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by its sister company Warner Bros.
Over the years, Popeye has also appeared in comic books, television cartoons, video games, hundreds of advertisements, peripheral products ranging from spinach to candy cigarettes, and the 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman and starring Robin Williams as Popeye. In 2002, TV Guide ranked Popeye number 20 on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list. Charles M. Schulz said, "I think Popeye was a perfect comic strip, consistent in drawing and humor."
Inspiration
The person believed to have inspired Popeye was Polish-born Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, a tough laborer from Chester, Illinois, who was always getting into fights. Some say he was a professional boxer. However, he also gave out candy and treats to children, including E.C. Segar, who remembered Fiegel when he created Popeye. Fiegel was described as "just like the fictional spinach-loving mariner... a one-eyed, pipe-smoking curmudgeon with a jutting chin."Fictional character and story
Popeye's story and characterization vary depending on the medium. In his debut storyline, Popeye's superhuman strength and endurance stemmed from the "luck" he acquired by rubbing the feathers of the head of Bernice, a "whiffle hen", which enabled him to survive fifteen gunshot wounds. By the end of 1929, strength was a regular fixture of his character, attributed from 1932 to spinach. In Segar's comic strip, Popeye's superhuman strength and near-invulnerability were permanent: only on some occasions would he need to eat additional spinach to boost his strength. It was Fleischer Studios' cartoon series that made Popeye eat a can of spinach whenever he needed to increase his strength to superhuman levels. Swee'Pea is Popeye's ward in the comic strips, but his custody is inconsistent in cartoons.There is no absolute sense of continuity in the stories, although certain plot and presentation elements remain mostly constant, including purposeful contradictions in Popeye's capabilities. Popeye seems bereft of manners and uneducated, yet he often comes up with solutions to problems that seem insurmountable to the police or the scientific community. He has displayed Sherlock Holmes-like investigative prowess, scientific ingenuity, and successful diplomatic arguments. Over time, the character has evolved, with the use of tobacco notably reduced in modern depictions. In the animated cartoons his pipe also proves to be highly versatile. Among other things, it has served as a cutting torch, jet engine, propeller, periscope, musical instrument, and a whistle with which he produces his trademark toot. He also eats spinach through his pipe, sometimes sucking in the can along with the contents. Since the 1970s, Popeye is seldom depicted using his pipe to smoke tobacco.
Popeye's exploits are also enhanced by a few recurring plot elements. The cartoons introduced the love triangle between Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto, and Bluto's endless machinations to claim Olive at Popeye's expense. Another plot element is Popeye's near-saintly perseverance in overcoming any obstacle to please Olive.
Comics
''Thimble Theatre'' and ''Popeye'' comic strips
Segar's Thimble Theatre debuted in the New York Journal on December 19, 1919. The paper's owner, William Randolph Hearst, also owned King Features Syndicate, which syndicated the strip. Thimble Theatre was intended as one of several Hearst-commissioned replacements for Midget Movies by Ed Wheelan. While initially failing to attract a large audience, the strip nonetheless increasingly accumulated a modest following as the 1920s continued. At the end of its first decade, the strip resultantly appeared in over a dozen newspapers and had acquired a corresponding Sunday strip.Thimble Theatre's first main characters were the lanky, long-nosed slacker Harold Hamgravy and his scrappy, headstrong girlfriend Olive Oyl. In its earliest weeks, the strip featured the duo, alongside a rotating cast of primarily one-shot characters, acting out various stories and scenarios in a parodic theatrical style. As its first year progressed, however, numerous elements of this premise were abandoned, soon rendering the strip a series of episodic comic anecdotes depicting the daily life and dysfunctional romantic exploits of Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl. It could be classified as a gag-a-day comic during this period.
In mid-1922, Segar began to increasingly engage in lengthier storylines; by the end of the following year, the strip had effectively changed fully into a comedy-adventure style focusing on Ham, Olive, and Olive's ambitious-but-myopic diminutive brother Castor Oyl, initially a minor character yet arguably the protagonist of the strip by 1925. Castor and Olive's parents Cole and Nana Oyl also made frequent appearances beginning in the mid-1920s. By the late 1920s, the strip had likewise acquired a number of notable characters beyond the sphere of Ham Gravy and the Oyl family, including Castor Oyl's wife Cylinda, her wealthy, misanthropic father Mr. Lotts and Castor's fighting cockerel Blizzard, all of whom had exited the strip by the close of 1928.
Popeye first appeared in the strip on January 17, 1929, as a minor character. He was initially hired by Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy to crew a ship for a voyage to Dice Island, the location of a casino owned by the crooked gambler Fadewell. Castor intended to break the bank at the casino using the unbeatable good luck conferred by stroking the head feathers of Bernice the Whiffle Hen. Weeks later, on the trip back, Popeye was shot many times by Jack Snork, an undercover stooge of Fadewell's, but survived by rubbing Bernice's head. After the adventure's conclusion in June, Popeye left the strip, but, owing to reader reaction, he was brought back after an absence of only five weeks.
Ultimately, the Popeye character became so popular that he was given a larger role by the following year, and the strip was taken up by many more newspapers as a result. Initial strips presented Olive as being less than impressed with Popeye, but she eventually left Ham to become Popeye's girlfriend in March 1930, precipitating Ham's exit as a regular weeks later. Over the years, however, she has often displayed a fickle attitude towards the sailor. Initially, Castor Oyl continued to come up with get-rich-quick schemes and enlisted Popeye in his misadventures. By the end of 1931, however, he settled down as a detective and later on bought a ranch out west. Castor's appearances resultantly became sparser over time. As Castor faded from the strip, J. Wellington Wimpy, a soft-spoken and eloquent yet cowardly hamburger-loving moocher who would "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" was introduced into the Sunday strip, in which he became a fixture by late 1932. After first appearing in the daily strip in March 1933, Wimpy became a full-time major character alongside Popeye and Olive.
Thimble Theatre was renamed Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye in 1931. It was eventually renamed simply Popeye, the name under which the strip continues to run.
In July 1933, Popeye received a foundling baby in the mail whom he adopted and named Swee'Pea. Other regular characters introduced into the strip following its retool in 1930 were George W. Geezil, an irascible cobbler who spoke in a heavily affected accent and habitually attempted to murder or wish death upon Wimpy; Rough-House, the temperamental owner of a budget diner who served as a long-suffering foil to Wimpy; Eugene the Jeep, a yellow, vaguely doglike animal from Africa with magical powers; the Sea Hag, a terrible pirate and the last witch on Earth; Alice the Goon, a monstrous creature who entered the strip as the Sea Hag's henchwoman and continued as Swee'Pea's babysitter; the hapless, perpetually anxious King Blozo; Blozo's unintelligent lackey Oscar; Popeye's lecherous, scheming father Poopdeck Pappy; and Toar, an ageless, dim-witted caveman.
Segar's strip was quite different from the theatrical cartoons that followed. The stories were more complex, with a heavier emphasis on verbal comedy and many characters that never appeared in the cartoons. Spinach usage, a trait introduced in July 1931, was comparatively infrequent, and Bluto appeared in only one story arc. Segar signed some of his early Popeye comic strips with a cigar, his last name being a homophone of "cigar". Comics historian Brian Walker stated: "Segar offered up a masterful blend of comedy, fantasy, satire and suspense in Thimble Theater Starring Popeye".
Owing to Popeye's increasingly high profile, Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular strips during the 1930s. A poll of adult comic strip readers in the April 1937 issue of Fortune magazine voted Popeye their second-favorite comic strip. By 1938, Thimble Theatre was running in 500 newspapers, and over 600 licensed "Popeye" products were on sale. The success of the strip meant Segar was earning $100,000 a year at the time of his death. The strip continued after Segar's death in 1938 under a succession of artists and writers. Following an eventual name change to Popeye in the 1970s and the cancellation of the daily strip in 1992, the comic, now solely a Sunday strip, remains one of the longest-running strips in syndication today.