It's Popeye the Sailor Man by Linda Rosenkrantz on Creators.com

Recently

FDR'S Fala and the Fad for Scotties There has been any number of well-known presidential pooches in modern history, including Richard Nixon's infamous spaniel, Checkers; LBJ's beagles, Him and Her; Gerald Ford's golden retriever, Liberty (much spoofed by Chevy Chase in the early days …Read more. The Yo-Yo Story The yo-yo, like many other things, has been around for so long that we tend to take it completely for granted, not thinking about how it originated or, for that matter, how it got its distinctive name. But now that the yo-yo is becoming something of …Read more. Recollecting and Collecting Mutt and Jeff Even today, more than a century after they entered the realm of popular culture, this comic-strip team's name is part of the common vernacular — put a tall guy and a short guy next to each other and they'll almost inevitably still be called …Read more. For Collectors, the Milkman Cometh You may have noticed that glass milk bottles are gradually reappearing on supermarket shelves, bringing them back into the modern era. But for people of a certain age, there is still no sound quite as nostalgic as the clink of milk bottles jangling …Read more.

It's Popeye the Sailor Man

It might seem as though the muscle-flexing, pipe-smoking, spinach-popping sailor man has been around forever, but it actually took him a while to break into the funny papers. Elzie Crisler Segar's comic-adventure strip "Thimble Theatre" had been running for a full four years before Popeye made his appearance in it in 1929.

"Thimble Theatre" began in 1925 as a replacement by William Randolph Hearst for his recently lost New York Evening Journal feature "Minute Movies." From the start, an ingenious cast of oddball running characters populated the strip, revolving around the spinsterish, rubber-legged Olive Oyl and her scheming low-life brother, Castor.

A progression of memorable adventures ensued, featuring such other characters as J. Wellington Wimpy; Olive's original boyfriend, Ham Gravy; the Sea Hag; Alice the Goon; and Eugene the Jeep, a weird orchid-eating creature. But it was after the introduction of the sailor man on Dec. 19, 1929 that "Thimble Theatre" became one of America's most popular comic strips. Readers particularly loved the long-running farcical plot lines co-starring Popeye's juvenile sidekick, the "orphink" Swee'Pea.

Popeye's popularity and influence were widespread. Grateful spinach growers in Crystal City, Texas erected a statue of him near their city hall in gratitude for his saving their businesses during the Depression (the spinach-eating idea seems to have been inspired by boxing champs Max Schmeling and Gene Tunney eating spinach daily for its high concentration of iron). When Mussolini banned all comic strips in Italy, public outcry convinced him to make one exception — Popeye. And Popeye's burger-loving pal, Wimpy, had his name immortalized in a chain of European hamburger joints.

Popeye proved a natural for animation, making his screen debut in 1933 for the Max Fleischer Studio, joining Betty Boop for a hula dance in "Popeye the Sailor." At first, his raspy growl was provided by William Costello, a temperamental radio star who was soon replaced by animator Jack Mercer, who continued in the role for 30 years, while Mae "Betty Boop" Questel was the voice of Olive.

The Popeye cartoons gave birth to a trio of successful featurettes, which were two to three times the length of the average short. Starting with "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor" in 1936, these also included "Popeye Meets Ali Baba and His Forty Thieves" in 1937 and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" in 1939.

It was in the animated cartoons that Popeye first encountered his near nemesis, the bone-crushing Bluto. Color was added in 1936, and by 1938, some polls showed that the sailor man had become more popular than Mickey Mouse. All in all, Popeye starred in more than 250 films made for theatrical release.

Popeye's virtual life extended into the medium of television, first through the syndicated "Popeye" series, which ran from 1958 to 1963, and then "The All-New Popeye Hour," seen on CBS from 1978 to 1983 and reaching whole new generations of viewers. Between 1961 and 1963, an additional 200 cartoons were added to the original stock, in many of which Popeye faced a villain named Brutus, who bore a striking resemblance to his old foe Bluto.

Collectible Popeye merchandise began hitting stores as early as 1930 and has continued to the present, showing the character both in his comic strip uniform of black shirt with red collar and in the white shirt he wore in the animated shorts. He can be seen strutting, scowling and flexing his biceps on tin windup toys (especially valuable), picture and coloring books, Big Little Books, alarms clocks, music boxes, banks, dolls (including a Swee'Pea cloth doll), board games, dishes, glasses, lamps and figurines. And of course, vintage comics material as well as animation cels, background drawings and other animation art are highly collectible.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, most recently "Beyond Ava & Aidan: The Enlightened Guide to Naming your Baby" (St. Martin's Press). Visit her baby names website at http://nameberry.com. She cannot answer letters personally. To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.