I Yam What I Yam...
I was flipping through the channels the other night and came across one of my favorite childhood movies: Popeye.
I know, most people consider this right up there with Heaven's Gate and Ishtar as one of the biggest cinematic disasters of all time. Sure, the plot is "eh" and there are certainly some cringeworthy moments in it but overall it's pure movie goodness to me.
I don't know how I got started on it, but ever since I can remember I was a Popeye fanatic. As a little kid, my mom would buy me Popeye comics and the paperback books written and drawn by Bud Sagendorf (himself with a name that sounded like one of Popeye's "misprununskiations") and I would even draw my own comic strips starring the one-eyed sailor, Olive Oyl and J. Wellington Wimpy.
I was staying with my grandparents down Cape Cod and they took me to the Buck a Book store as I was (and still remain) an avid reader. I always have to have something to read and will usually have about 3 books in progress at any given time. In going through the racks I came across what would become one of the most cherished possessions of my childhood: A Kitchen Sink Press reprinting of the Popeye daily paper strips from 1936. This wasn't the Popeye from the later cartoons where every episode boiled down to him getting his butt kicked by Bluto until he ate the spinach and saved Olive. These were the classic "Thimble Theater" and had actual running storylines, double entendre, social commentary and an unparalleled cast of characters. This book had the storyline of Popeye's search for his father, Poopdeck Pappy, which would become the storyline (albeit much altered) of the movie. I loved
this book and the strips in it so much that when I later in life I found that Fantagraphics had published The Complete EC Segar Popeye which reprinted the entire run from the newspapers I hunted down all 11 of the out of print books (I'm in the midst of an auction on EBAY right now for the last one to complete my set). Just great characters and storytelling.
Some of the big differences from the comic strip and the later cartoons:
Popeye started off as a supporting character in Thimble Theater. The strip was originally about Olive's brother Castor (
Oyl, get it?) for 10 years and in 1929 and Popeye was hired to ferry them to Dice Island to gamble. This was his first appearance ever.
Popeye rarely used spinach (a lot of people point to him hating spinach in the movie as one of the reasons they don't like it) and he got his nigh-invulnerability from a magical creature called "The Wiffle Hen" in his first adventure.
Bluto only appeared once in the comic strip for it's entire run.
So having explained all of this, you have to understand that to my 8 year old imagination this live action Popeye movie starring Robin Williams was akin to Lord of the Rings making it's way to the silver screen for die hard Tolkein fans. I flipped out!
If you've never seen the movie or saw it once as a kid and hated it, it might be worth another look. Director Robert Altman creates a mind blowing 'world' with sets and costumes that look like they leapt right off the comic pages. He also incorporates his trademark overlapping dialogue and the double entendre from the original Fleischer studio cartoons (Popeye after getting taxed at the movie's opening: "I yam disgustipated. If you pays your taxes you should get a cervix"). There's a lot going on in the movie and it's a lot of fun if you take it for what it is...a live action cartoon. Lots of slapstick, odd songs and prosthetics forearms. Might not be for everyone but I still love it to this day.
And as Robin Williams once said regarding his first foray into motion pictures: "If you watch it backwards, it does have a plot".
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