The Family That Eats Spinach Together (original) (raw)

While Popeye was originally introduced as an orphan, creator Elzie Segar eventually gave him a living father. From what I’ve read, part of his motivation for creating Poopdeck Pappy was that, as Popeye became the hero of the Thimble Theatre strip, his bad behavior was gradually toned down. Pappy, essentially an older and more uncouth version of the famous sailor, could be used as an outlet for these negative traits.

In the comic, Popeye finds his father living on a desert island with a dwarf named Pooky Jones and a bevy of mermaids for company, and takes him back to his home. Other media have differing versions of what happened to Pappy. A 1938 cartoon made him a prisoner on Goon Island.

And in the live-action movie, he’s serving as the seldom-seen Commodore of Sweethaven. All are agreed, however, that he abandoned his son when he was still a baby. Pappy’s age is given in a few different places as ninety-nine, and since Popeye himself is generally considered to be about forty, he must have been pretty old when his son was born. I guess spinach does wonders for maintaining virility. Bud Sagendorf, Segar’s assistant who later graduated to drawing new Popeye strips, reduced Pappy’s age to eighty-five so that he could bring in Poopdeck Pappy’s mother, Popeye’s Granny, as a character.

I suppose the first relative of Popeye’s to be introduced, however, isn’t Poopdeck Pappy, but rather the sailor’s adopted son Swee’pea. At least, that’s how Segar originally conceived of the baby. The cartoons tended to have him living with Olive Oyl, and I believe it was implied he was a relative of Olive’s.

The original explanation for why Swee’pea was left with Popeye was that he was born in Demonia, the most superstitious country in the world, and would have been denied a normal childhood due to having seven moles on his back. Another story has it that Swee’pea was the Crown Prince of Demonia, and an evil uncle wanted to assassinate him. Perhaps both are true. Regardless, the running bit in the early comics with Swee’pea about how Popeye wants him to grow up to be President is basically for naught, as he wasn’t born in the United States. The sailor actually names the baby Scooner, but refers to him as Swee’pea so often that this came to be typically regarded as his name.

More relatives who appear only in the cartoons are Popeye’s nephews Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and (most unfortunate of all) Poopeye. These four are basically rip-offs of Donald Duck’s nephews, in that they’re mischievous, all identical, and frequently complete each others’ sentences. They hate spinach, and a recurring plot for shorts in which they appear is for Popeye to tell them a story to try to get them to eat the vegetable. It’s unknown exactly how the nephews are related to the sailor, and we never see their parents. If they’re literal nephews, then Popeye must have a hitherto unknown brother or sister. I would say they must be blood relatives of some sort, though, because as Pooky Jones said about Popeye and Pappy, “Faces like that don’t just happen.”

This entry was posted in Cartoons, Comics, Popeye and tagged bud sagendorf, elzie segar, olive oyl, peepeye, pipeye, pooky jones, poopdeck pappy, poopeye, pupeye, swee'pea. Bookmark the permalink.