He Wuz What He Wuz
The return of Popeye - sailor, hero, American male
By Kirk Silsbee
At Otis Art Institute in the mid-1970s, I mingled with contemporaries who grew up all over Los Angeles and its suburbs. We compared notes on the common cultural touchstones we'd all been raised with, and heard about what we might have missed. Universally cherished were the Popeye cartoons screened by Channel 5's Tom Hatton between squiggle contests. We liked the action, the gags, and the animation. ("The old Popeyes!" emphasized muralist Richard Wyatt Jr.) We also liked the ingenuity, the grit, and the determination that Popeye routinely showed when the chips were down. He could kick the stuffing out of his eternal nemesis, Bluto, with his feet alone. In the "Kung Fu Fighting" atmosphere of the day, that was a worthwhile 40-year-old precedent.
Popeye cartoons always involved conflict, and they always resolved violently. Popeye - with the aid of his trusty spinach - could turn into a human threshing machine, sorting out man, beast, and even nature itself. In that, he was an ideal of American masculinity. He was rough as a cob and in direct opposition to the temporary ideal of the "sensitive" man that took hold in the '70s. Alan Alda for one, through his role in TV's M.A.S.H., gave feminist-inspired American women a softer alternative that they embraced, however briefly. That prototype has evolved into today's feminized male. Popeye wouldn't be caught dead in a salon of any kind.
He was no superhero. Popeye was all too human - easily embarrassed and quick to anger. But he was extraordinarily resourceful. Popeye didn't waste any time analyzing his feelings. He faced his problems, however formidable. He got the job done, usually in physically graceful and clever ways. A common motif in the Popeye cartoon slugfests of the 1930s (when they first appeared) was the destruction and rebuilding of inanimate objects. A forest of felled trees, through Popeye's well-directed fury, could handily tumble down into a log cabin. When men doubted themselves in the worst years of the Depression, Popeye offered a masculine ideal which, given half a chance, could overcome extraordinary odds. It would take World War II for that ideal to reach its finest flower.
Popeye has just resurfaced in two formats. Warner Home Video's Popeye The Sailor: 1933-1936, Vol. 1 is a gluttonous, four-disc banquet of great animation, comic mayhem, and witty characterizations. No less than 60 theatrical shorts are collated, in pristine clarity of sight and sound. Copious commentary by historians, filmmakers, and animators are provided as special features on each disc. In addition, original "Popumentaries" examine different aspects of the Popeye legacy, such as the characters, soundtracks, and animation of the cartoons.
The Fleischer Brothers' studio raised the animation bar significantly with the Popeyes. Elaborate backgrounds, a palpable human rhythm (all the figures bounced, even when stationary), subtle inside jokes (often through the muttered asides of Jack Mercer, the most recognizable voice of the squinty-eyed gob), and ingenious scenarios were all part of these cartoons. His habitat was the gritty urban digs of the Fleischers' immigrant Jewish New York. When Popeye knocks a charging bull into the air, it explodes into pieces and falls into the form of a meat market. A Hebrew character is briefly glimpsed on a side of beef.
The jewel in the crown of this box is the lavishly colored "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor" from 1934. Popeye is abducted by a giant bird and taken to Sinbad's dangerous island, inhabited by snarling beasts and the badass Bluto. Only later would Disney's full-length features surpass the Fleischers' pastel watercolor backgrounds. An amusing aside is the two-headed monster that speaks to itself in a Yiddish-tinged patois. This cartoon was available on a compilation video from the early '80s. The color was washed out through cheap duplication so it's great to have the restored version available in such crisp registration.
Another offering is the Fantagraphics publication of E.C Segar's Popeye: I Yam What I Yam. It's a typically comprehensive anthology of the first Popeye comic strips, from 1925 to '31. (A second volume will be published shortly.) Beginning with the "Thimble Theatre" series, in which Popeye was just one character of many, creator Segar realized that his tough sailor was his star. In his forward, Jules Feiffer calls Popeye "the forgotten man: uneducated, unsophisticated, untamable." He could lick his weight in wildcats but Popeye was no match for his girlfriend, the fickle and easily riled Olive Oyl.
~ E.C. Segar's creation. Courtesy Fantagraphics ~
Treachery circled all around Popeye. He may have been low class but he played everything on "the ups and square." Ten-thousand bucks flush after a crap game, Popeye sees a homeless woman with children. At first, he walks by but after hearing the kids complain of hunger, Popeye doubles back and gives the whole wad to her with no regrets. In the last panel of the strip, he tries to bum 50 cents from a millionaire. A loser? Maybe, but one with a heart of gold.
While the Popeye of the daily funny pages was the same gorilla-armed swabbie, the donnybrooks were far fewer. In this format, character development took place on a much deeper level, as did the roles of ancillary characters like the hamburger-worshipping Wimpy, Popeye's disapproving father, and Olive. Interestingly, Bluto only makes a few appearances in the strips. Popeye dukes with other sailors, palookas, suede-shoe sharpies, the witchy Sea Hag, and Olive's would-be suitors.
If the screen Popeye was a man of relatively few words, his newsprint counterpart was not only gabby, he was downright analytical. At a dance, Olive tells her man to wait out in the hallway, because he's too coarse-looking. His word balloon reads: "Now what's wrong with me face? I'm just a rough ol' sailor man but I got sensitivity an' I DON'T LIKE INSULKS!" In the same panel, another passage elaborates: "Blow me down, I'm mad! An' when I gets mad somethin' always happens." Instead of taking the matter up with Olive, some well-dressed boyfriends have their clocks cleaned.
Each DVD disc begins with a disclaimer, apologizing for the ethnic and gender stereotypes depicted in the 1930s Popeye cartoons. Two of the many commentators are animators Jose Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua, whose smart, fast-paced El Tigre is a Nickelodeon hit series. Both grew up in Mexico and loved the Popeyes, which, they say, gave them a window onto the American psyche, which they clearly admire. One cartoon has Popeye moving through a tough Mexican town and battling a bandolero-wearing Bluto and his gang. Marveling at the elaborate watercolor backgrounds, Gutierrez wondered longingly, "Why isn't Mexico like this?"
With today's deadly political correctness, it's no wonder that a corporation like Warners would cover itself with such a prophylactic apology. It's refreshing then, to see such a rough-hewn character like Popeye strut across the landscape, with nary a thought to such restrictions. And, for the record, my Popeye-loving art school pals were all black and Chicano.
Published: 09/20/2007
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