49 Fun Facts About Popeye

Which classic Nintendo game was first designed as a Popeye game?

Donkey Kong. Shigeru Miyamoto first sketched it around Popeye, Olive Oyl and Bluto, who were then redrawn as Mario, Pauline and the gorilla.

Popeye first appeared in 1929 as a bit player in which ten-year-old comic strip?

Thimble Theatre had starred Olive Oyl and her boyfriend since 1919, but the walk-on sailor took over so completely that the strip was later renamed Popeye.

Popeye debuted in January 1929, days after which European comics hero?

Tintin reached print on January 10, 1929, one week before Popeye, a sailor his creator meant to use only once.

Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, believed to have inspired Popeye, was known locally for what?

Getting into fistfights. Fiegel was a tough, pipe-smoking local whom the cartoonist remembered from boyhood, and his gravestone now bears an engraving of Popeye.

Doctors call the bulge left by a torn tendon in which muscle the "Popeye sign"?

Biceps. A torn tendon lets the muscle bunch into a ball above the elbow, a bulge doctors named for the cartoon sailor's arms.

Bernice, whose head feathers gave Popeye luck in his first story, was what kind of bird?

A whiffle hen. Rubbing Bernice's head let Popeye survive a hail of bullets, making him indestructible two years before spinach entered the strip.

Popeye left the strip after his first adventure in 1929; what brought him back within weeks?

Reader demand. Popeye had been hired only to crew one voyage, but the audience missed him so much that he returned for good and became the star within a year.

Who was Olive Oyl's original boyfriend before she left him for Popeye in 1930?

Ham Gravy, short for Harold Hamgravy, had been the strip's leading man since 1919, yet he was written out within weeks of losing Olive.

What is the name of Olive Oyl's brother, an early protagonist of the strip?

Castor Oyl ran the get-rich-quick schemes that drove the early stories, and one of them, a voyage to a casino island, is why he hired a sailor called Popeye.

How did baby Swee'Pea join Popeye's household in the 1933 comic strip?

Left as a foundling, the baby was adopted by Popeye; later stories revealed him as the crown prince of Demonia, hidden from a scheming uncle.

J. Wellington Wimpy is famous for promising to pay on which day for a hamburger today?

Tuesday. In the strip Wimpy never pays up, a running joke that a Bank of America ad later cashed in on by showing him finally settling his hamburger debts by phone.

Eugene, the yellow doglike animal from Africa with magical powers, is what kind of creature?

A Jeep. Eugene joined the strip in 1936, and the Army's wartime jeep is thought to owe its name partly to him, alongside the initials G.P. for general purpose.

Which character began as the Sea Hag's bodyguard and ended up as Swee'Pea's babysitter?

Alice the Goon so frightened young readers that parents complained, and she was softened from the Sea Hag's enforcer into a gentle nursemaid.

Which old sailor did Popeye find in 1936, only to be rejected?

Poopdeck Pappy is Popeye's long-lost father, and a far rougher character than his son: when finally found, the old man just wanted to be left alone.

In the original 1930s comic strip, how often did Popeye's rival Bluto appear?

In a single story arc: his creator never used Bluto again, and it was the cartoons that turned the one-off bully into Popeye's permanent rival.

As World War II loomed, the cartoon Popeye enlisted in which service?

The US Navy. He enlisted in 1941's The Mighty Navy, traded his dark shirt for an all-white uniform and spent a string of wartime cartoons fighting the Axis.

E. C. Segar often signed his Popeye strips with a small drawing of what?

A cigar. The little doodle beside his signature was a pronunciation guide: Segar is said SEE-gar.

Which newspaper baron owned King Features, the syndicate that launched Popeye?

William Randolph Hearst ordered the strip up in 1919 as a knock-off, to replace a movie-parody comic whose cartoonist had just walked out on him.

Whose mirror-polished steel sculpture of Popeye sold for $28 million in 2014?

Jeff Koons. Casino magnate Steve Wynn paid the $28 million and put the gleaming sailor on show at one of his resorts.

Which former assistant to Popeye's creator later took over the comic strip and drew it for decades?

Bud Sagendorf drew the daily strip until 1986 and the Sunday page until he died in 1994, and papers that run the daily today are still printing his old stories.

Why was cartoonist Bobby London fired from the daily Popeye strip in 1992?

An abortion storyline, told through a doll, got him sacked, and the daily Popeye has run nothing but reprints ever since.

On January 1, 2025, what happened to the 1929 strip that introduced Popeye?

It entered the public domain, 95 years after it first ran, so anyone may now reuse the 1929 sailor, though King Features still holds the Popeye trademarks.

Popeye's first regular cartoon of 1933 took its title from which of his catchphrases?

I Yam What I Yam launched his own series later in 1933, after a guest spot in another star's cartoon proved the sailor could carry films of his own.

Which comedian played Popeye in the 1980 live-action musical film?

Robin Williams was still starring in TV's Mork & Mindy when he played the sailor, and film stardom waited seven more years, until Good Morning, Vietnam.

In the 1930s, the Popeye cartoons rivaled those of which other cartoon star in popularity?

Mickey Mouse. Popeye reached the screen only in 1933, yet within a few years his cartoons were rivaling the mouse's as the most popular of the day.

Popeye was shrugging off bullets in 1929, nine years before which comic-book hero made his debut?

Superman arrived in 1938, by which time the indestructible sailor had been surviving gunfire for years, which is why Popeye is often called a forerunner of the superheroes.

Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye for decades, also voiced which cartoon cat on 1950s TV?

Felix the Cat. Mercer supplied nearly every voice in the 1958 series, hero and villains alike, while still playing Popeye in new TV cartoons.

Mae Questel, the longtime voice of Olive Oyl, was already famous as the voice of whom?

Betty Boop. Questel had been boop-oop-a-dooping since 1931, but for Olive's voice she said she was imitating the actress ZaSu Pitts.

When first asked in 1929 whether he was a sailor, what did Popeye sarcastically say he might be taken for?

A cowboy. "'Ja think I'm a cowboy?" was Popeye's very first line, and the wisecrack got him hired on the spot for what was meant to be his only voyage.

Pinto Colvig, one of Bluto's voices around 1939, was the original voice of which Disney character?

Goofy. Colvig left Disney in the late 1930s for the Popeye studio in Miami, where he growled as Bluto, then returned to play Goofy until his death in 1967.

The double-length Technicolor Popeye specials of the 1930s adapted stories from what source?

The Arabian Nights. Sindbad, Ali Baba and Aladdin each got the Popeye treatment in color specials twice the usual length, and the first earned the studio an Oscar nomination.

What did Paramount rename the Fleischers' animation company after taking it over and ousting the brothers?

Famous Studios soon moved Popeye into color and kept him on screens until 1957, while launching a new star of its own, Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Why did the 1960s TV cartoons rename Popeye's bearded rival Brutus?

King Features thought Paramount owned it, but Bluto had come from its own comic strip all along; once someone checked, the old name returned.

In the 1987 Hanna-Barbera series Popeye and Son, what is unusual about Popeye Jr.?

He hates the taste of spinach, to his father's dismay, though the boy has inherited Popeye's powers and forces it down whenever trouble starts.

Who directed the 1980 live-action Popeye musical?

Robert Altman, the director of MASH and Nashville, kept it in the family: baby Swee'Pea was played by his grandson, Wesley Ivan Hurt.

Who played Olive Oyl in the 1980 live-action film Popeye?

Shelley Duvall had already made six films with the director, and Roger Ebert wrote that Olive Oyl was the role she was born to play.

The 1980 film Popeye was shot almost entirely on which Mediterranean island?

Malta. The ramshackle village built for the shoot was never torn down, and it now earns its keep as a tourist attraction called Popeye Village.

In the 1980 film Popeye, what is the seaside town where the sailor arrives looking for his father?

Sweethaven. The crooked hamlet was built from scratch for the film, with streets running at crazy angles up the hillside.

Which studio teamed up with Paramount to make the 1980 live-action Popeye?

Walt Disney Productions co-produced it with Paramount, and the two studios teamed up again a year later for the fantasy Dragonslayer.

Which animator was twice attached to an animated Popeye film that was finally cancelled in 2022?

Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack, left the film in 2015 over the direction the studio wanted, was named again when it was revived in 2020 and said in 2022 that it was dead.

Which Texas town, a spinach-growing center, put up a statue of Popeye?

Crystal City, the self-styled Spinach Capital of the World, raised its statue in 1937 to thank the sailor, whom growers credited with lifting American spinach consumption by a third.

Which Mississippi River town, the birthplace of Popeye's creator, hosts an annual Popeye Picnic?

Chester, Illinois, put up a bronze Popeye in 1977 and has kept adding statues of the rest of the cast, a new one most years, for fans who gather there each September.

For Popeye's 75th anniversary in January 2004, which landmark lit its tower green?

The Empire State Building turned its tower lights spinach green for the weekend of January 16 to 18, 2004, as a birthday tribute to the sailor.

In 1995, Popeye was one of 20 classic comic strips honored on a commemorative set of what?

US postage stamps. The Comic Strip Classics set marked the centenary of the American newspaper strip and put Popeye beside Flash Gordon and Brenda Starr.

The founder of the Popeyes chicken chain said he named it after a character from which film?

The French Connection. Al Copeland said he had Gene Hackman's detective Popeye Doyle in mind, not the sailor, yet the chain later paid to use the sailor in its ads anyway.

Segar's first published comic, in 1916, was about which silent-film star?

Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers came his way after Richard Outcault, creator of the Yellow Kid, recommended the young unknown to the Chicago Herald.

Italians know Popeye by a different name that means what in English?

Iron Arm, or Braccio di Ferro. Most countries kept the name Popeye, but Italy renamed him and embraced him so warmly that local artists drew their own Popeye comics for decades.

What happened to Popeye and Olive Oyl in a 1999 anniversary comic?

They got married, in a one-shot written by Peter David, although a 1987 TV cartoon had already shown them as husband and wife with a son.

Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges is a white-water raft ride at which Florida resort?

Universal Orlando. The ride opened with the Islands of Adventure park in 1999, next to Me Ship, the Olive, a play area whose water cannons let children soak the passing rafts.