Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar,[1] who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye also became the strip’s title in later years. Although Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut in 1929, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular properties during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was continued after Segar’s death in 1938 by several writers and artists, most notably Segar’s assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip, now titled Popeye, continues to appear in first-run installments in its Sunday edition, written and drawn by Hy Eisman. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories. Over the years, Popeye has also appeared in comic books, television cartoons, arcade and video games, hundreds of advertisements and peripheral products, and a 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman starring comedian Robin Williams as Popeye.
Competing diner owners Popeye and Bluto stimulate the appetite of their first customer, Wimpy, to get him to lunch in their respective restaurants. As usual, Wimpy has to borrow money from them to eat. Guess who ends up eating all the profits of their tasty business.
It’s the Fourth of July, and Popeye wants two of his four nephews (don’t ask which two!) to have a “safe and sane” holiday. The two nephews are playing with fireworks (the other two probably blew themselves up!). Popeye tries to get them to play safe games like baseball. “Who wants to be safe?” asks one nephew. “Yeah, and who wants to be sane?” asks the other. Popeye takes away their box of fireworks, and they plot to get it back. The scheming little devils outwit Popeye and go crazy with the fireworks until they get into such trouble that Popeye must rescue them from joining the other two!
Popeye and Bluto are running for president; it’s election day, the vote is tied, and Olive is the only remaining voter. But she won’t vote until her chores are done, so Popeye and Bluto compete to cut her wood, plow her fields, and store her hay. And then it’s just an old-fashioned fight.
Popeye and Olive Oyl have finally decided to get married. But that doesn’t mean that Bluto is through trying to stop them.
Popeye has just finished building his house when some nasty termites come to eat him out of house and home. All is lost until Popeye decides to build a steel house.