At number Eight

Popeye is a guy a lot like me. Intellectual. Strong. One good eye, physically out of proportion, getting a little thin on top. Even his tagline is enough to make a Calvinist grin: "I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam". Of course mine is a little more like "I yam what I yam, Lord have mercy on me and fix me"

There are a number of differences between Popeye and Ashley Wilkes's Daddy, though, such as: One does not smoke a pipe, nor carry one around unlit all day. One does not eat canned spinach. Ever. Ashely Wilke's Daddy also has much better taste in wimmin.

Popeye was adapted for the screen in the early 1930s by the Fleischer Brothers, Max and Dave with backing from Paramount Studios. The newspaper cartoonist, Segar, was the originator, and been drawing the Popeye comic strip for several years prior. Popeye and Olive made their first animation appearance in a Betty Boop Cartoon, Popeye The Sailor, from 1933 which also featured Popeye's signature song. Don't all kids familiar with Popeye's song also enjoy the alternate popular versions? (I likes to go swimmin' with bald-headed wimmin'). Most of the characters from the comic strip were not adapted into the animated cartoons, and of all Popeye's many comic strip adversaries, only Bluto, who had been a minor adversary, made it.

The best Popeye cartoons were from the 1930s, but the series went downhill after WWII, when Paramount took over the Fleishers' studios. Just prior to the war Popeye joined the Navy and his costume changed to the white Navy uniform with the military sailor's cap.

The new studio, was renamed "Famous Studios", but their work never equaled that of the Fleisher's, although several of the war era toons were pretty good, if somewhat racist in their portrayal of the Japanese. It was a tough war, and the Japanese got it from all cartoon directions. Famous Studios was sold to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p) and later again to United Artists. In the late '40s, as Popeye cartoons began coming out in color, the quality of animation, storyline, voices all suffered. If you see the black and white boat window opening and closing with the episode title and credits as the cartoon begins, you know it is one of the better films from the Fleisher days.


One of the highlights of the early Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons was the use of Fleischer's "Stereoptical" process where perspective against the background is emphasized as characters move horizontally through the screen.


The best Popeye episodes are three two-reel color animated ones from the Fleisher era, Alladin and His Wonderful Lamp, Popeye Meets Sinbad the Sailor, and Popeye meets Ali Baba's Forty Theives. They are fun to watch over and over. As you listen to Popeye's mumbles and the utterances of Bluto, Olive and Wimpy, you catch something different in each viewing.