Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a famous comic strip character, later featured in popular animated cartoons. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar and first appeared in the King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. more...

Popeye is an independent sailor with a unique way of speaking, muscular forearms with two (sometimes one) anchors tattooed on them, and an ever-present corncob pipe. His strange, humorous, and often supernatural adventures take him all over the world, and place him in conflict with enemies such as the Sea Hag and King Blozo of Brutopia.

The plot lines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler. A villain, usually Bluto (later renamed Brutus for a time), makes a move on Popeye's "sweetie", Olive Oyl. The bad guy then clobbers Popeye until Popeye eats spinach, which gives him superhuman strength. (The "spinach factor" is only in the cartoons; in the comic strip, Popeye is just naturally tough.) Spinach farmers in Crystal City, Texas were so grateful for this they erected a statue of Popeye in the town and credited him for saving the then-dying spinach industry.

Although Popeye is short, odd-looking, belligerent, and has only one eye, many consider him a precursor to the superheroes who would eventually come to dominate the world of comic books. Some observers of popular culture point out that the fundamental character of Popeye, paralleling that of another 1930s icon, Superman, is very close to the traditional view of how America sees itself as a nation: possessing uncompromising moral standards and resorting to force when threatened, or when he "can't stands no more" bad behavior from an antagonist. This theory is directly reinforced in certain cartoons, when Popeye defeats his foe while an American patriotic song such as "The Stars and Stripes Forever" plays on the soundtrack. One of Popeye's catchphrases is "I yam what I yam, and that's all I yam." may be seen as an expression of American individualism.

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