Popeye

[Darrell]

You might've noticed that Google had Popeye on their logo today, turns out it's the 115th birthday of Popeye's creator, E. C. Segar. While reading around the webs about it, I ran across the classic I Wanna Be A Lifeguard episode on Youtube. Talk about a flashback, I hadn't seen that in 40 years or more! Seeing Popeye swimming like an octopus while fighting Bluto underwater, and making a fish face, took me back to my childhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKbX1F9aSLQ

I always loved the old Popeye cartoons, some were really off the wall, unlike anything else in movies or TV. He has quite a history, here's the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye

[Rod]

deleted for inappropriate response.

Edit: Popeye's always been fun to see. Especially enjoy seeing the tanks in his "muskels".

[Darrell]

Rod, I don't crap in your threads, please don't crap in mine. Feel free to talk about Popeye, or go start a thread about the evils of Google if you like.

[rightisright]

We have a town in NJ named Mt. Olive.

The running joke is, "I went to Mount Olive, but Popeye kicked my ass before I could."

Ba dum dum

[Mud_Dog]

Popeye was more popular than Mickey Mouse? I was not aware of that.

From what I've seen they had some fairly good cartoons, but he's got some kick-ass chicken.

[Mike OTDP]

Popeye was more popular than Mickey Mouse? I was not aware of that.

From what I've seen they had some fairly good cartoons, but he's got some kick-ass chicken.

Of course! Mickey Mouse is a rat with a good press agent. Popeye is a Sailor Man, filled with all the virtues of a proper Son of Neptune.

[Catbird]

My favorite Popeye story was told by the WWII cartoonist Bill Mauldin, in his book, The Brass Ring. Here, he is discussing his experiences on his first day attending the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

A blonde chick in a robe lounged in the curtained entrance to a dressing room at the side of the stand, talking to a dapper little old man with a snow-white Van dyke and a string tie. Mrs. Ford told me he was Wellington J. Reynolds, who taught anatomy and painting. She added that two of his students in the academy had won the Prix de Rome. As we approached him she warned me in a whisper to never, never let him know I wanted to be a cartoonist, because he hated the breed.
"Mr Reynolds, here is a boy with some talent, but absolutely no training," Mrs. Ford said. "Please look after him. His ignorance is complicated by cockiness."
The Model grinned and the old painter looked me over.
"Do you think you know anything about the human figure?" He asked.
"A little, sir," I said, cautiously. "I've studied a few books." This was a lie. I had once looked through a Gray's Anatomy in a doctor's office.
"How many heads high is this girl?" he asked.
"Well, I never thought of it that way," I said.
"All right, how far down the length of the average head is the center of the ear?"
"About a third," I said.
"My God," he said to Mrs. Ford, "what's he doing here--understudying to draw Popeye?"
I learned later that one of Reynold's former students had been a gifted fellow named Segar. The teacher had high hopes for the young man, possibly seeing him as another Prix de Rome candidate, but Segar couldn't care less about that stuff. He wanted to do a comic strip. Reynolds, disappointed, began needling him in class. Segar bided his time. Later he created Popeye, the one-eyed, spinach-eating sailor. Popeye became a huge success, both as a syndicated strip and as a series of animated movie shorts. The cartoonist went out of his way to mess up his hero's anatomy. Popeye's upper arm was pencil thin, whereas the lower part was huge, as if that was where the biceps lived. It's hard to imagine the effect this had on Reynolds, who was known to make a student repeat a drawing of a kneecap a dozen times or so until he had it right. Worse, Popeye's best friend was named J. Wellington Wimpy, a sloppy, lazy, paunchy, greedy bum who was the very antithesis of Wellington J. Reynolds, the natty, dilligent, wiry, ascetic scholar, artist, and teacher.

[blackeagle603]

Is it true Fleet Annie is Olive Oyles sister gone bad?

Popeye ain't saying. What happens on lib's, stays on lib's.

[Darrell]

Here's a fun little site:

http://www.popeye.com/

They even have some avatars under Downloads. Ya know, I never thought about it before, but Bluto reminds me of Chris! Heck, I might have to retire the ol' Zorak one...

P.S. That's a great story, Catbird.

[SoupOrMan]

The town of Chester, Illinois, is a nice little river town on the Mississippi that had a vicious little drunkard of a riverman who scared the daylights out of little kids. Now he's a semi-beloved cartoon character.