Popeye The Sailor Man

About

Popeye The Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar. Popeye is portrayed as a sailor with his signature squint right eye, corncob pipe, and large forearms. Popeye is also known for his signature power boost when consuming spinach. Since his appearance in 1929, the character has become cultural icon, appearing in many forms of media.

History

Popeye made his first appearance as a minor character on the newspaper strip Thimble Theatre in 1929. Since his appearance, the character gained popularity among readers which prompted Segar to give Popeye a larger role in the strip. In 1933, one of the first animated adaptations of Popeye titled Popeye The Sailor was released for Paramount Pictures. The animated adaptation differs from the strip with simpler storylines and the introduction of the use of spinach when Popeye is in a pinch. The series is also notable for introducing the signature theme song of the character titled "I'm Popeye The Sailor Man".

After Segar's death in 1938, the strip was carried on by various other artists and was written by Bud Sagendorf who was Segar's assistant. After Sagendorf's death in 1994, the daily strip began doing reruns of his past stories.

Movie Adaptation

In 1980, a live-action adaptation of Popeye was released across theaters. The movie was directed Robert Altman and starred Robin Williams as the iconic sailor.

On September 18th, 2014, famed animation director Genndy Tartakovsky announced an upcoming Popeye CG adaptation that was being produced by Sony Pictures Animation.

On March 12th, 2015, during an interview with Moviefone for his upcoming movie Hotel Transylvania 2, Tartakovsky revealed that he was no longer involved in the project with the following statement:^[1]

"Popeye," at least, we put up a great screening, everybody really liked that sizzle, we got a positive reaction. I was in love with what we were doing, but I think the studio is going through changes and I don't know if they want to make the "Popeye" that I want to make. So they've got to make a decision. Right now, I'm off that project and moving on to the other one that we soft-announced, which is "Can You Imagine?" which is an original idea of my own and a very personal story. It was hard to let "Popeye" go, but that's the business.

Online Presence

Popeye has become the subject of discussion on a number of sites including 4chan^[2] and Tumblr.^[3] On April 7th, 2003, Urban Dictionary user Grin Reaper submitted an entry regarding the character.^[4] A Facebook page dedicated to Popeye was created which gathered over 10 million likes as of August, 2015.^[5] The Popeye wiki has over 370 pages regarding the character as of August, 2015.^[6] On Youtube, many users have uploaded episodes from various Popeye animated adaptations.^[7]

Fan Art

On the art sharing site DeviantArt, typing the keyword "Popeye" would yield more than 9.500 results.^[8]

Search Interest

External References