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Popeye Changed America, Part One: A Breakout Star · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. That's our own cartoonist super producer, mister
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Speaker 1: Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Do you know that I really love spinach, but.
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Speaker 3: I can't eat it?
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Speaker 1: No edition, he's got the condition complex vegetables. I'm so
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Speaker 1: glad that you have approved of us putting that weird
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Speaker 1: Victorian malady term on the condition.
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Speaker 3: It's just we knew, we knew it was serious when
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Speaker 3: Max just started coughing kind of wheedily into a hanky
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Speaker 3: and then a little bit of blood kind of came out,
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Speaker 3: you know, and you.
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Speaker 1: Kept You bought the fainting couch, and you keep fainting.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: The vapors vapor, yeah yeah. And then and then I
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Speaker 2: got the tobacco smoke animals. I started reading Jayjay's book
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Speaker 2: and I read that. I'm like, oh, that's on the
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Speaker 2: fifth page.
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Speaker 3: Oh, yes, of course, The Year of Living constitutionally available anywhere.
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Speaker 3: Fine books are so quick. Question, Max, if you can't
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Speaker 3: eat spinach, where do you derive your super strength from? Oh?
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Speaker 2: He rubs a head, okay, and the twenty inches of
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Speaker 2: hair as well, and.
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Speaker 1: We are your host of ridiculous history. I'm Ben Bollen,
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Speaker 1: joined as always with the man, the myth, the legend,
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Speaker 1: mister Noel Brown, Noel Barcelona Brown. Okay, I'll think it's
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Speaker 1: been called sometimes and so as you can probably tell
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Speaker 1: from our uh, from our spinach references and a little
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Speaker 1: bit of some great uh, some great catchphrasing here, today's
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Speaker 1: episode is about Popeye the Sailor. Uh No, what's the
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Speaker 1: first thing you think about when you hear the Popeye?
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Speaker 3: I think of expanding biceps with a giant steamship tattoo
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Speaker 3: that it was. It becomes larger and larger and starts
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Speaker 3: to pump like vapors out into the air, you know,
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Speaker 3: it starts to animate and then punch and stuff, big,
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Speaker 3: big punching, serious violence in that cartoon. Oh yeah, for sure.
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Speaker 1: I mean Popeye the Sailor for almost a century has
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Speaker 1: been a mainstay of comics and cartoons, and of course
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Speaker 1: the film helmed by Robin Williams.
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Speaker 3: We all saw that one, you know. I've been wanting
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Speaker 3: to for ages. It's sort of been on my list,
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Speaker 3: but I haven't seen it. I just know the song
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Speaker 3: from it, sung by Shelley Devall. That was used delightfully
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Speaker 3: non sequitarily in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Chunk Love. He
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Speaker 3: needs me, he needs me, he needs me, the olive
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Speaker 3: oil kind of love theme. I guess I have not
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Speaker 3: seen Robert Altman's Popeye movie. It's apparently freakin' Bonker's weird.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of whent over my head the first
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Speaker 1: time I saw so in the course of this we
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Speaker 1: you know I rewatched this. Why are we talking about
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Speaker 1: Popeye today? Well, the guy's ridiculous. You know, he's got
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Speaker 1: a strong sense of right and wrong. You described his
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Speaker 1: situational super strength perfectly. He's got this bizarre pantheon and
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Speaker 1: entourage of allies and villains. And in full transparency. We
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Speaker 1: do a lot of stuff for a lot of different shows,
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Speaker 1: and one Saturday, we're working on something about credit cards
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Speaker 1: and instead found ourselves in a cost coat sized rabbit
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Speaker 1: hole about Popeye. What do you say, Noel, should we
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Speaker 1: crack open this podcast? Spinach can does that work? Yeah?
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Speaker 3: Because that's how he does it right. He just sort
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Speaker 3: of squeezes it and then the lid pops off and
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Speaker 3: the spinach shoots up into the air and immediately just
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Speaker 3: goes right down his gully hole, at which point he
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Speaker 3: is imbued with super strength and vanquishes his foes with
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Speaker 3: righteous indignation. As you said, Ben, Popeye is he doesn't
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Speaker 3: like bullies, and he's got a couple of nemeses that
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Speaker 3: we've seen over time, But I think the one most
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Speaker 3: people will probably remember is Bluto, the quintessential kind of
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Speaker 3: thick necked bully. He was essentially a bit of a
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Speaker 3: sex pest. He's always coming after olive oil like some
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Speaker 3: sort of weird, stalker ish kind of you know, misogynistic weirdo.
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Speaker 3: Right a more, Yeah, no shade on lumber checks. But man, Bluto,
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Speaker 3: what a bad guy. And I didn't know how many
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Speaker 3: words and terms in the kind of popular vernacular came
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Speaker 3: from Popeye the other way around. We're gonna get to
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Speaker 3: all this stuff. It's so fun because you think about
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Speaker 3: a character named Wimpy, and you think, oh, surely they
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Speaker 3: named Wimpy after the word wimpy. Well, it turns out
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Speaker 3: not quite the case. The story of Popeye, or as
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Speaker 3: some people in more of the like Midwest and maybe
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Speaker 3: Boston area might refer to him as Popeye. I say
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Speaker 3: this because Mitch from The dough Boys. I was always
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Speaker 3: talking about Popeye's Fried Chicken, so I think it's very charming.
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Speaker 3: But his creator, I was an American cartoonist named Elsie
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Speaker 3: Chrissler Seeger who was born December eighth, eighteen ninety four
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Speaker 3: in Chester, Illinois. Yeah, and just.
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Speaker 1: Like a lot of up and coming artists, he has
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Speaker 1: a ton of jobs. In his early years. He paints houses.
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Speaker 1: That is not an assassination euphemism. He was actually painting houses.
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Speaker 1: He paints signs, which is a cool thing to do.
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Speaker 1: As a job, he works as a projectionist with motion pictures,
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Speaker 1: and the entire time he's doing this, he is continually
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Speaker 1: cold calling, or I guess I would say cold pitching
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Speaker 1: cartoons to papers magazines of the day. And eventually, also
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Speaker 1: he gets bupkus. They're not listening to him or taking
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Speaker 1: his submissions until he travels to Chicago and gets a
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Speaker 1: little gets by with a little help from his friend.
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Speaker 3: That's right, a fellow by the name of Richard m
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Speaker 3: out Cult was a little bit, you know, more kind
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Speaker 3: of up and coming in the field, and he liked
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Speaker 3: the cut of Seeger's jib, and he used his influence
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Speaker 3: in the industry to get him a gig at the Herald,
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Speaker 3: the Chicago Herald, drawing Charlie Chaplin's comic capers, which we
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Speaker 3: love the alliteration. Oh, it's a very illiterative story today.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, it would have been, you know, I guess
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Speaker 3: Chaplin was such a brand. It never really occurred to
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Speaker 3: me that he would have had his own cartoon in
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Speaker 3: the newspapers, but of course he did. So this would
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Speaker 3: have been like the equivalent of getting a job, you know,
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Speaker 3: drawing for the Simpsons or something. Thing. Right, You're not
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Speaker 3: necessarily gonna use your own style, You're probably following a
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Speaker 3: style guide. But it's steady work, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's steady work, you know, And it seems like
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Speaker 1: a really promising thing because even even back then, of course,
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Speaker 1: working in any creative field can be intensely competitive, right,
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Speaker 1: and a to be a heck of a slog. So
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Speaker 1: he was able, through this personal relationship to get a
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Speaker 1: real plum gig that a lot of other people were
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Speaker 1: doubtlessly vying for. Unfortunately, this Herald, this paper he's working at,
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Speaker 1: it ceases publication in nineteen seventeen, so he relocates again.
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Speaker 1: He moves to New York. Now he's got some bona fides, right,
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Speaker 1: he's got a resume, he's got a CV, he's got
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Speaker 1: proven published cartoons. And he uses this to talk to
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Speaker 1: a group called King Features Syndicate, and he pitches his
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Speaker 1: own strip. That's the dream. We know a lot of artists.
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Speaker 1: All that's the dream is to have your own original work.
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Speaker 3: Everyone wants to own strip in the funny papers. That's
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Speaker 3: how that's how you know you've made it as an
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Speaker 3: honest today. Okay, maybe a measure of a different era,
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Speaker 3: but certainly the measure of this era. King's Features Syndicate,
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Speaker 3: which sounds like some sort of weird movie cartel, doesn't it.
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Speaker 1: It does syndicate.
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Speaker 3: No, there were syndicate. I just think of crime syndicate.
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Speaker 3: But no, this is a feature syndicate. And yeah, he
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Speaker 3: pitched this idea and it was accepted. You saw it
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Speaker 3: for the first time in nineteen nineteen called Thimble Theater.
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Speaker 3: At first, the strip dealt with the fat, tabulous adventures
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Speaker 3: of Olive Oil spelled oh oh y l olive Oil, which, okay,
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Speaker 3: just to just maybe hyperbolically to describe maybe what we're
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Speaker 3: all thinking a little bit sort of a bit of
8:52
Speaker 3: a bean polely kind of gawky old maid. For some
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Speaker 3: reason at the time, you know, unmarried women were a
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Speaker 3: source of scorn and yeah not cool. So Olive oil
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Speaker 3: was sort of fit into that role and was maybe
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Speaker 3: made a bit of a point of mockery, right, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 3: my brother was also depicted as kind of an idiot, right,
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Speaker 3: who's had an equally hilarious name, a little oakfish.
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Speaker 1: You know, these are cartoon characters, right, but there is
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Speaker 1: there is definitely that prejudice against women baked into the strip.
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Speaker 1: Olive has a.
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Speaker 3: Suitor, a paramole brother. By the way, the castor oil
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Speaker 3: still O y L.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so they never got to avocado oil, but maybe
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Speaker 1: that's a note in the future, Olive has Olive has
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Speaker 1: again this suitor, this uh, this lover of man named
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Speaker 1: originally he's named Harold ham Gravy all one word and
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Speaker 1: then it gets shortened to ham.
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Speaker 3: Gravy, ham gravy. Maybe her boyfriend, right, also somewhat buffoonish
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Speaker 3: is he, I don't know, sort of a proto Popeye
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Speaker 3: in a way, right, because I mean that's what Popeye
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Speaker 3: became was, you know, by the sailor man, he's about
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Speaker 3: protecting his lady love Olive Oil. They're they're betrothed. In
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Speaker 3: the stars is written that Popeye and Olive shall be one.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and for a while they kind of had this
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Speaker 1: sort of what we could call a Dagwood blondie vibe,
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Speaker 1: like here or here's the here are the one shot
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Speaker 1: adventures of these two, this odd couple, and they would
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Speaker 1: have a rotating cast, you know how, like in X
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Speaker 1: Files there's a Monster of the.
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Speaker 3: Week of course, right, so there's there's my favorite episode.
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Speaker 1: Same dude. I think they're tight, just structurally as well
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Speaker 1: as relistically. But they're except for Home, which we don't
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Speaker 1: have to get into.
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Speaker 3: That's a freaky one. That's a weird one.
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Speaker 1: So in Thimble Theater, originally they have a bunch of
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Speaker 1: these one shot characters who show up in these various
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Speaker 1: different styles. It's meant to be somewhat like an anthology,
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Speaker 1: hence the name Thimble Theater. But to your point, to
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Speaker 1: your excellent earlier point, man Segar keeps refining his universe
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Speaker 1: and he'll try characters out and then he'll cut them
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Speaker 1: if I guess he doesn't like drawing them or they
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Speaker 1: don't get a good audience response. There was for instance,
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Speaker 1: a villain named Willie Wormwood, and he cut Willy about
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Speaker 1: a year like over the first year, and then he said,
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Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to focus on the the dynamic
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Speaker 1: between ham gravy and olive oil. And it was still
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Speaker 1: like the classic you know, first first couple panels, set
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Speaker 1: up a joke, next is the punchline, right, and they
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Speaker 1: would call this a gag a day kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: Eventually he starts, I think it's around nineteen twenty two,
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Speaker 1: our cartoonists starts saying, well, let me take some longer
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Speaker 1: storylines over the course of multiple strips, which reminds me
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Speaker 1: a little bit by the way of our pal Dan's
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Speaker 1: work on Rick and Morty, because remember Rick and Morty
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Speaker 1: used to be just like one shot, twenty something minute adventures,
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Speaker 1: and they started building out the Mythos Navin story.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we love a good we love some good lore
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Speaker 3: and world building. I mean it makes sense that the
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Speaker 3: format first was much more of like a you know,
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Speaker 3: one off kind of jokey handful of frames beginning, middle,
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Speaker 3: and end, move on. And I still kind of enjoy
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Speaker 3: comics like that. There's a whole subgenre of manga horror
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Speaker 3: comics that are these very tightly contained like beginning, middle,
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Speaker 3: and end, almost like a punch line joke kind of
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Speaker 3: set up, but with a horror story that usually only
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Speaker 3: take about a page or so to tell you this
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Speaker 3: usually pretty twisted little taiale. So I'm a fan of
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Speaker 3: that kind of brevity. But then, of course it's as
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Speaker 3: a creator obviously really cool to be able to expand
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Speaker 3: that universe, and honestly, Popeye, it was sort of righte
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Speaker 3: for that. Because you already mentioned the rotating cast of characters.
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Speaker 3: Now we're going to start to see some recurring characters.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, sir, it might surprise some of us ridiculous
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Speaker 1: historians playing along at home to learn that Popeye did
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Speaker 1: not appear in Thimble Theater until a like a decade
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Speaker 1: after the thing you've been running.
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Speaker 3: Olive Oil was the first of the bunch, right.
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Speaker 1: Right, Popeye shows up on January seventeenth of nineteen twenty nine.
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Speaker 1: And here's the set up, all right. He's hired by
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Speaker 1: you know, our kind of oafish brother boy Castor Oil
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Speaker 1: and Olive Oil's boyfriend, Ham Gravy. These two guys hire
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Speaker 1: this new dude, Popeye, to crew a ship for a
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Speaker 1: voyage to Dice Island. Dice Island is important in the
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Speaker 1: show or in the strip because it is home to
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Speaker 1: a casino owned by a crooked gambler named Fade Well
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Speaker 1: all one.
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Speaker 3: Word, great name. And by the way, ham gravy. First
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Speaker 3: of all, I don't maybe maybe gravy on a pork chop,
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Speaker 3: but gravy on a piece of ham. That's a little
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Speaker 3: weird for me. Maybe it was a different time, but
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Speaker 3: to look at this fella, he is a little bit
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Speaker 3: of a sad sack. He's kind of almost like a
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Speaker 3: Charlie Brown, sort of always a little hangdog walking around.
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Speaker 3: But he weirdly is like the dude version of olive oil.
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Speaker 3: He has the same pointy shaped nose, the same kind
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Speaker 3: of wiry frame, uh, the same more or less kind
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Speaker 3: of seemingly bald head minus the braids coming down the side.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, he very much seems to be like a
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Speaker 3: male olive oil. So they you know, it makes sense
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Speaker 3: that they pair it to them. But I guess what
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Speaker 3: did did Popeye literally steal her away from ham gravy
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Speaker 3: with his muscles and nautical skills?
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Speaker 1: Well, this is where we get into some mythos, right,
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Speaker 1: So our buddy Castor Oil says, I'm gonna I've got
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Speaker 1: a ringer. I'm gonna break the bank at the casino
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Speaker 1: because Bernice the Whiffle hid, who is kind of our
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Speaker 1: first spinach.
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Speaker 3: We'll see what we mean, folks. If you if you.
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Speaker 1: Pet Bernice correctly, then for a limited amount of time,
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Speaker 1: you get incredible good luck. So they do this spoiler
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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a comic strip. Uh, And Popeye
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Speaker 1: returns because he now he has like you were saying, no,
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Speaker 1: he has this mission to romantically pursue Olive Oil, and
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Speaker 1: she breaks up with Ham to date Popeye in March
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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty, and then he also gets the Originally
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Speaker 1: his superpowers are given to him by petting or rubbing
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Speaker 1: Bernice the whiffle hen, but then later, of course the spinach.
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Speaker 2: And it's jumping real quick. I was also very curious
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Speaker 2: about ham gravy nol. It turns out, at least for
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Speaker 2: my very brief research, that ham gravy is just like
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Speaker 2: gravy made from the drippings of ham.
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Speaker 3: Mm hmm, okay, he can clear on anything. Gravy is
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Speaker 3: gravy exactly.
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Speaker 2: It's not like gravy specifically for ham, but it's gravy.
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Speaker 3: That makes us like mushroom gravy or any Okay, fair enough,
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Speaker 3: thank you. This has been Max's culinary corner or Max
16:49
Speaker 3: with the Max with the fact is that seeking in
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Speaker 3: the phone and he's fallen. Lolgh, it's just for you
16:59
Speaker 3: right now. Oh yeah, that too. They're interchangeable. But yeah, so,
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Speaker 3: I mean, okay, so, but it is true though, Ben,
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Speaker 3: that they wrote into the storyline that olive oil dumps
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Speaker 3: Sam gravy. Yeah, in favor of of of the uh,
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Speaker 3: I guess slightly more fetching than Edgy, somewhat dangerous but
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Speaker 3: weirdly misshapen jawlined Popeye.
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Speaker 1: He's a bad boy. Yeah, he is some bad things.
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Speaker 1: There's a yeah, which we'll get to. There's a bevy
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Speaker 1: of unique and eccentric characters that are continually showing up
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Speaker 1: before and after Popeye, and we'll describe some of those
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Speaker 1: in a moment. This guy became so popular he was
17:45
Speaker 1: a sky rocketing success in the world of comics. He
17:48
Speaker 1: was also inherently associated with Spinach. Just six years after
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Speaker 1: he first appears going to Dice Island, the town of
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Speaker 1: Crystal City, Texas, built a statue for Popeye for fictional
18:02
Speaker 1: character because Crystal City, Texas, at the time was a
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Speaker 1: huge agricultural center for spinach. Then they renamed the copy strip.
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Speaker 1: It's no longer Thimble Theaters Thimble Theater starring Popeye, and
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Speaker 1: then later they shorten it and they just say Popeye.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And then anyone's thinking of Popeye the salor man.
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Speaker 3: That's largely from the theme of the cartoon. That'll come later,
18:27
Speaker 3: and quick cook point of on the spinach thing, the marketing,
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Speaker 3: I don't see it anymore, but for years you could
18:33
Speaker 3: get bagged spinach that was logoed up with Popeye cartoons,
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Speaker 3: and I don't know what happened if the deal run.
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Speaker 3: I mean a lot of this stuff is public domain.
18:43
Speaker 3: Actually we'll get to that too. There's some interesting gray
18:46
Speaker 3: area questions around the public domain mess of the Popeye character.
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Speaker 3: But I wonder what happened. I would love to figure out,
18:53
Speaker 3: because for years you'd get bags spin into the grocery
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Speaker 3: store and it would be covered in Popeye logo. It
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Speaker 3: might be a.
19:01
Speaker 1: Thing where because they definitely still have Popeye brand canned spinach,
19:05
Speaker 1: it may be a thing where maybe a particular grocery
19:09
Speaker 1: store does not have that supplier anymore, but Popeye brand
19:12
Speaker 1: Spinach is still very much in playee.
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Speaker 3: I'm sure, I'm sure it is, just it used to
19:15
Speaker 3: be everywhere at the you know, in our neck of
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Speaker 3: the woods, the Kroger or the publics of the world,
19:21
Speaker 3: which is typically what we get around here. But yeah,
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Speaker 3: Crystal City, Boomtown for Spinach at the time already hitching
19:29
Speaker 3: their wagon to Popeye's pipe, I guess. And he gets
19:35
Speaker 3: so popular right at a time when animated cartoons are
19:40
Speaker 3: really starting to be a thing like this is in
19:42
Speaker 3: the early days of Disney from the Ink, well really
19:46
Speaker 3: weird psychedelic cartoons from the Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave,
19:51
Speaker 3: who produced all these cartoons shorts, they decided to, you know,
19:56
Speaker 3: capitalize on Popeye's popularity as a comic. It creates an
20:01
Speaker 3: animated version voiced by Jack Mercer, and that's where you
20:05
Speaker 3: get here and all of that stuff. That really is
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Speaker 3: what absolutely elevates Popeye into the stratosphere pop culturally speaking,
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Speaker 3: is to have that voice and that theme song, you know,
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Speaker 3: And it's honestly something I grew up with. It's forever
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Speaker 3: with me, you know, all my I remember I had
20:26
Speaker 3: a friend who told me during a sleepover once he
20:29
Speaker 3: was messing with me, but he swore to me that
20:32
Speaker 3: his mother would not let him watch Popeye cartoons because
20:35
Speaker 3: they were too violent. But it turns out he pretty
20:38
Speaker 3: with me, but they were violent, you.
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Speaker 1: Know, the older ones, especially, I mean, Popeye is part
20:43
Speaker 1: of the World War two propaganda moves that brought in
20:48
Speaker 1: Disney and had Donald Duck do some questionable things, and
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Speaker 1: then in the it persists into the nineteen sixties nineteen seventies.
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Speaker 1: Popeye cartoons are made for American TV, and the old
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Speaker 1: it triggers a wave of nostalgia. Weirdly enough, because a
21:05
Speaker 1: certain amount of decades have passed, so now people are
21:07
Speaker 1: finding the old cartoons as well. And Popeye comic books
21:11
Speaker 1: have been around since the nineteen thirties. They were still
21:14
Speaker 1: up until or publishing up until the nineteen seventies. There
21:17
Speaker 1: were toys, clothing, merchandise. It's very spaceballs.
21:22
Speaker 3: We know that.
21:23
Speaker 1: We already talked about how Robin Williams was in the
21:26
Speaker 1: star of the live action Popeye film in nineteen eighty,
21:29
Speaker 1: but maybe we describe Popeye a little bit more. He's
21:35
Speaker 1: thirty four years old when you first meet him. Even
21:38
Speaker 1: though the stablished this yeah, even though it looks like
21:41
Speaker 1: he's maybe mid fifties, hard lived, put away wet, but
21:45
Speaker 1: he's got one eye in the beginning is he is
21:48
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, specifically from Santa Monica, California, So I don't
21:53
Speaker 1: know who seeger met.
21:54
Speaker 3: You know, I never really thought of him of just
21:55
Speaker 3: having one eye. I thought it was more of a
21:57
Speaker 3: really hard squint yeah in the rock yeah, you know,
22:01
Speaker 3: kind of yeah. And the things that I always found
22:04
Speaker 3: interesting about the character design of Popeye is that, aside
22:08
Speaker 3: from his weirdly bulging muscles, he's like rail thin everywhere else.
22:15
Speaker 3: He's got these noodley arms. He looks like a freakin'
22:18
Speaker 3: what is it like a muffler on a car, you know,
22:21
Speaker 3: where it's like a tiny tube. Can I do a
22:24
Speaker 3: big old honking thing and then another tiny tube coming
22:26
Speaker 3: out on the other side.
22:27
Speaker 1: And he always has a pipe, yeah, in his weird,
22:31
Speaker 1: weird little mouth.
22:32
Speaker 3: And he's yeah, he's always aggressively.
22:34
Speaker 1: Right, He's always ready to fight in place of reasonable discussion.
22:39
Speaker 1: He's got a grabbling voice. There's a subreddit called thirteen
22:43
Speaker 1: or thirty which is entirely photographs. I don't know if
22:46
Speaker 1: you guys have seen it, but it's entirely photographs of
22:49
Speaker 1: people who look bizarrely not their age in one direction
22:52
Speaker 1: or another.
22:53
Speaker 3: I haven't seen this, but I know the vibe.
22:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, Popeye's one of these. And one of his most
22:58
Speaker 1: popular catchphrases is also, I would argue his fundamental like
23:03
Speaker 1: philosophical and moral axiom, I am what I am, and
23:08
Speaker 1: that's all what I am.
23:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, you know you hit on something
23:11
Speaker 3: just now, Ben. He does almost have like a lilting
23:17
Speaker 3: kind of Irish accent almost. It's more like, you know,
23:23
Speaker 3: the voice of Willem Dafoe in the in the Lighthouse.
23:27
Speaker 1: You know, he's kind of got this grizzled.
23:29
Speaker 3: Like Seeman's kind of brogue, I guess you could call it.
23:34
Speaker 3: And he does have a spouse sort of a personal philosophy. Uh.
23:39
Speaker 3: And he does so often very weirdly monologuing to himself
23:46
Speaker 3: under his breath, kind of like demons. He the guy's
23:52
Speaker 3: a bit of a of a of a crazy person.
23:55
Speaker 3: Let's not let's not men's words here.
24:03
Speaker 1: And to the point made earlier the comic strip, the
24:08
Speaker 1: original strip was pretty violent by today's measures. In his
24:12
Speaker 1: first appearance, you know, rubbing Bernice. The Whifflehn gives him
24:17
Speaker 1: the ability to survive fifteen gunshot wounds and he's fine.
24:22
Speaker 1: But that's a lot for kids. We would imagine today,
24:25
Speaker 1: and it's the end of nineteen twenty nine when his
24:29
Speaker 1: strength is no longer derived from Bernice. Instead it's derived
24:34
Speaker 1: by spinach, by the consumption of spinach, often in the
24:38
Speaker 1: most cartoonish method possible. He squeezes the can. Sometimes it
24:43
Speaker 1: goes into his mouth, sometimes through his pipe.
24:45
Speaker 3: It's weird he does go through I forgot about that
24:47
Speaker 3: is he's smoking it? What's going on?
24:49
Speaker 1: Smoking the spinach?
24:50
Speaker 3: He's smoking that sweet sweet green leaf by the way,
24:54
Speaker 3: really quickly. Just which as we're talking about his weird
24:56
Speaker 3: personal philosophy and mumblings, he had a couple other can
25:00
Speaker 3: phrases besides I am what I am, and that's all
25:03
Speaker 3: I am. Uh, that's all I can stand because I
25:06
Speaker 3: can't stands no more. That's a good one. And uh,
25:10
Speaker 3: let's see you. You got a face I like to touch, Yeah,
25:15
Speaker 3: talking to all of talking to all of yeah, and
25:18
Speaker 3: I am disgustiated. And a personal classic which sort of
25:23
Speaker 3: shows his you know, if you're not with me, you're
25:26
Speaker 3: against me. Mentality. If we can't be friends, we'll be enemies. Yeah.
25:32
Speaker 1: That was always chilling to me reading this, And we
25:36
Speaker 1: also know that there are a lot of other catchphrases,
25:39
Speaker 1: cultural tropes. We set this up so well in the
25:41
Speaker 1: beginning that come not just from Popeye himself Popeye the Man,
25:46
Speaker 1: but come from his pantheon of side characters, villains, ed allies,
25:51
Speaker 1: Jay Wellington. Wimpy of course be one of one of
25:55
Speaker 1: the crowd favorites. He's kind of lazy, he's not in
25:59
Speaker 1: the shape he beat me here, Max. He loves hamburger.
26:05
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he came up organically on a recent episode
26:07
Speaker 3: where you said something to the effect of I'll gladly
26:09
Speaker 3: pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, which was his
26:13
Speaker 3: catch phrase. But he he did sometimes in the way
26:16
Speaker 3: that a lay about comic relief kind of character will
26:19
Speaker 3: sometimes be the hero of the day. Sometimes Wimpy accidentally
26:23
Speaker 3: inspector gadgets his way into sort of like you know,
26:27
Speaker 3: being the lynchpin of what leads to the successful outcome
26:30
Speaker 3: and the caper.
26:31
Speaker 1: M one hundred percent. And you made this point so
26:35
Speaker 1: well earlier, the way that Popeye has informed American culture,
26:40
Speaker 1: and indeed American English. A lot of etymologists will argue
26:46
Speaker 1: that Wimpy is actually the source of the word wimp
26:51
Speaker 1: meaning timid or cowardly or not strong.
26:54
Speaker 3: Or you know, wimpy. That's a wimpy guy right there.
26:58
Speaker 1: You know, it's also a huge Hamberg chain, right or
27:01
Speaker 1: it was? Are they still around?
27:03
Speaker 3: I guess it was in England, right because I'm not
27:06
Speaker 3: familiar with it, but perfect branding. Also, Popeyes the restaurant
27:12
Speaker 3: unaffiliated with Popeye is the cartoon the chicken restaurant. I
27:15
Speaker 3: think at some point there was some litigation around that.
27:19
Speaker 3: I'd have to I think you're right, but I think
27:21
Speaker 3: they sorted it out because Popeyes is still Popeyes, Popeye
27:24
Speaker 3: the cartoon, and the intellectual property is still that. So yeah,
27:28
Speaker 3: Wimpy became a bit of a fan favorite. Mm hmmmm,
27:33
Speaker 3: he sure did.
27:33
Speaker 1: He actually became the next or the third full time
27:39
Speaker 1: major character alongside Popeye and all of Maybe one of
27:42
Speaker 1: the weirdest comparisons to draw is the in the world
27:47
Speaker 1: of DC comics, the three main members of the Justice
27:50
Speaker 1: League are Superman that's our Popeye, Olive Oil that's our
27:54
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman, and Wimpy, who I guess now is our batman.
27:59
Speaker 1: I have painted by self into a comparison quarter there.
28:02
Speaker 2: Also to jump in real quick, I did some quick
28:05
Speaker 2: diving into wimpy Burrs. They are basically out of the
28:09
Speaker 2: United States.
28:10
Speaker 1: There's one in Memphis, Okay.
28:13
Speaker 2: Where they really found success was South Africa. They're headquarters
28:18
Speaker 2: in Johannesburg, and they have four hundred and fifty three outlets. Obviously,
28:22
Speaker 2: this is according to the modern day Great Library of
28:26
Speaker 2: Alexandria Wikipedia. So yeah. And they're also in the United
28:30
Speaker 2: Kingdom with sixty two outlets. So yes, very much around.
28:34
Speaker 2: Not easy to find one unless you go to Memphis.
28:36
Speaker 2: According to Ben.
28:58
Speaker 1: South Africa, the country that is perhaps best known for
29:02
Speaker 1: its love of whippy hamburgers. A couple other things happened
29:06
Speaker 1: there too. You guys ever heard of jolliby, Yes, in
29:09
Speaker 1: the Philippines. It's so popular in the Philippines.
29:11
Speaker 3: There are some elsewhere, Like I think there's there's something
29:14
Speaker 3: like Boss California, California. That's right, I'm slute, You're absolutely right, California.
29:18
Speaker 3: But it is a Filipino fried chicken and spaghetti joints
29:23
Speaker 3: that also makes like crushed Hawaiian ices and various odd
29:28
Speaker 3: kind of boba type sweets, but I really want to go.
29:34
Speaker 3: I saw an Anthony board an episode where I think
29:36
Speaker 3: it was David Chang took him there. But it seems
29:38
Speaker 3: very interesting. It's good. Unrelated to Popeye, but one thing
29:41
Speaker 3: that is related to Popeye is the Fleischer cartoon. Obviously,
29:46
Speaker 3: is when you started to see all of these characters
29:48
Speaker 3: joining the Fray. You had Eugene the Jeep, which was
29:52
Speaker 3: a dog who's dog like, he's the Jeep. He's a jeep,
29:58
Speaker 3: that's what he is.
30:00
Speaker 1: He only has the one word such is jeep.
30:03
Speaker 3: And apparently.
30:06
Speaker 1: He is not named after the vehicle or the type
30:09
Speaker 1: of vehicle, the jeep, the automotive Jeep is named after
30:13
Speaker 1: this cartoon.
30:14
Speaker 3: Once again, first to market man, this is the thirties,
30:17
Speaker 3: they're gonna be. They're creating a lot of powerful pop
30:20
Speaker 3: cultural kind of like phenomenon, you know, and they didn't
30:23
Speaker 3: even realize it. I always, for some reason, assumed jeep
30:26
Speaker 3: was an acronym, though I couldn't tell you what that
30:28
Speaker 3: would possibly be. I don't know, it just seems like
30:31
Speaker 3: one of those words that would be. But Eugene the Jeep,
30:34
Speaker 3: he's a dog sort of, but he's really just a jeep.
30:37
Speaker 3: Who says jeep. He's magical though, isn't he. I think
30:40
Speaker 3: he has some like shape shifting kind of Sasquatch esque
30:45
Speaker 3: powers of teleportation sort of right.
30:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is very difficult to kill because of his
30:53
Speaker 1: magical powers. And he does not look like a jeep
30:56
Speaker 1: by the way, like the vehicle. He is sort of
30:59
Speaker 1: a yellow, green spotted like we said, vague dog like yeah,
31:05
Speaker 1: with a big h with a big balloon shaped nose.
31:10
Speaker 3: Trebasis, yes, just so.
31:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's got a schnaz for sure, and he uh,
31:17
Speaker 1: his powers are explained by the fact that he is
31:20
Speaker 1: in the three dimensional world, but he's from a fourth
31:24
Speaker 1: dimensional world. They got deep into the lore pretty quickly.
31:28
Speaker 3: Pretty cool. Popeye and his nautical explanation explorations, one would
31:34
Speaker 3: imagine found a rift in space time where he took
31:38
Speaker 3: his his sloop into another dimension and came back with
31:42
Speaker 3: the jeep.
31:43
Speaker 1: It's a really weird kind of thing, right, and the uh,
31:47
Speaker 1: the army vehicle was called the general Purpose Vehicle and
31:53
Speaker 1: then shortened to jeep. But we're pretty sure that happened
31:56
Speaker 1: because of the propaganda cartoons that were shown to soldiers
32:01
Speaker 1: to kind of boost morale. So we went from GP
32:04
Speaker 1: to JEEP. Look, this is our segue to learning together
32:11
Speaker 1: with you ridiculous historians, that this is a two part episode.
32:15
Speaker 3: We already know much fun. You already know what it is.
32:18
Speaker 3: This is one of those not posthumous. That's not the
32:21
Speaker 3: right word. What's the right word.
32:22
Speaker 1: We can say post script.
32:24
Speaker 3: Or Look, guys, it's summer. We're all trying to take
32:28
Speaker 3: a little time off. We thought this one was a
32:30
Speaker 3: beefy one part or a nice nuggety, spinach bite sized
32:36
Speaker 3: two parter for you to enjoy this week. And I
32:38
Speaker 3: don't know, man, I think Popeye deserves his own week.
32:41
Speaker 3: It's Popeye Week here on Ridiculous History.
32:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe we can also answer some other questions
32:49
Speaker 1: that surely are burning in our collective minds, folks, in
32:53
Speaker 1: Part two of the Ridiculous History of Popeye. But for now,
32:58
Speaker 1: we've got a a lot of thank yous. We're always
33:01
Speaker 1: grateful when we do our credits. It's it's a fun
33:04
Speaker 1: it's a fun thing for us. So, of course, shout
33:07
Speaker 1: out to the man the myths legend, mister Max Williams. Also,
33:12
Speaker 1: you know what, shout out to Casey Pegram I think
33:14
Speaker 1: we should have him back on the show.
33:16
Speaker 3: It's oh, we must he's got his hands full with
33:18
Speaker 3: fatherhood and other podcast duties. But boy do we love
33:21
Speaker 3: that guy. I want to say now, I want to
33:23
Speaker 3: take this opportunity to add something that I think we
33:25
Speaker 3: didn't get into in either of these episodes, where we
33:28
Speaker 3: might have just glossed over. I didn't really think about this.
33:32
Speaker 3: And again, we've we've promised this, and we're going to
33:34
Speaker 3: fully deliver and report back. Gonna go down some YouTube
33:37
Speaker 3: rabbit holes rewatching some of these classic Popeye cartoons. But
33:40
Speaker 3: I had forgotten, or maybe it had never acknowledged or
33:44
Speaker 3: noticed in the first place, that not only does spinach
33:46
Speaker 3: give Popeye super strength, it often gives him other kind
33:52
Speaker 3: of like side.
33:54
Speaker 1: Like playing the piano yeah, or.
33:56
Speaker 3: Whatever is required in the moment to be the most
34:00
Speaker 3: ass right, yeah exactly, dance like it make him dance
34:04
Speaker 3: like Barishnakoff all of a sudden, right right.
34:07
Speaker 1: We also may at some point another thing we forgot
34:11
Speaker 1: is we mentioned this, but we may at some point
34:13
Speaker 1: need to explain why Popeye's Chicken is not related to
34:19
Speaker 1: popeye'es this Popeye the Sailor.
34:22
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, maybe you know what, maybe will do that
34:24
Speaker 3: in our Out show for episode two. I think that's
34:27
Speaker 3: a smashing idea, and I just want to play on
34:30
Speaker 3: a couple other things. Originally, I think you had mentioned this,
34:33
Speaker 3: the chicken, the whiffle Hen. It was a luck factor, right,
34:38
Speaker 3: so essentially what up? It's like it's like maxing out
34:41
Speaker 3: your luck parameter in a Fallout game, right, And all
34:46
Speaker 3: of a sudden, everywhere you go, people are just throwing
34:48
Speaker 3: themselves at you to give give you their stuff, and
34:50
Speaker 3: you know, whatever crate you open full of like magical
34:53
Speaker 3: items that you'd never find, and.
34:55
Speaker 2: A psychopath shows up starts shooting people for you. Have
34:58
Speaker 2: you found his document in Nick Valentine's office and fall
35:02
Speaker 2: It four?
35:03
Speaker 3: No, I haven't gotten there yet. I also I have
35:05
Speaker 3: a Skyrim related question that I want to post to you,
35:07
Speaker 3: but not quite this second. So luck was what the
35:10
Speaker 3: Whifflehen was about. But the spinach he could at times
35:14
Speaker 3: he'd turn into like a human bullet, you know, or
35:17
Speaker 3: like a like a rocket, a cruise missile, you know.
35:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And we're going to answer all these questions
35:25
Speaker 1: and more in part two of our series this week.
35:29
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
35:30
Speaker 3: Folks.
35:30
Speaker 1: Thanks to our superducer mister Max Williams, Our Blue Toe,
35:34
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka the Twister of course, AJ Jacobs, Bahamas
35:39
Speaker 1: and who else.
35:41
Speaker 2: And just jumping here real quick. Special shout out to
35:43
Speaker 2: our research associate for this episode, no other than mister
35:47
Speaker 2: Ben Bolin.
35:48
Speaker 3: Oh Chriss rossiotis here in spirit. He's Jeff Coats wherever
35:52
Speaker 3: they may roam, check out Eve's podcast on Theme. They
35:57
Speaker 3: just did a really cool live lit event here in
36:00
Speaker 3: Atlanta in conjunction with our buddy Michael Alder. June is
36:05
Speaker 3: part of the Right Club series, so do check out
36:08
Speaker 3: their podcast on Theme with Eaves, Jeffcoats and Katie Mitchell
36:12
Speaker 3: out now wherever you get your podcasts, man About covers
36:17
Speaker 3: the thank you, Thank you Ben for your human abilities
36:21
Speaker 3: of podcasting.
36:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's all the spinach.
36:24
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
36:34
Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
36:38
Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.