Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410270037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROGER HURLBURT FORT LAUDERDALE (FLA.) SUN-SENTINEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Except one.
Il Duce had to yield to public clamor and keep Popeye the Sailor.
Imagine Mussolini thrusting out his prominent jaw and muttering, ``I yam what I yam, an' thas' all I yam,'' to quote the cantankerous cartoon swabbie.
Just as the character remains ingrained in popular culture, Popeye items continue to score with generations of nostalgia collectors. Related vintage toys, figures, games and paper products are second only to Disney collectibles in popularity. It started with `Thimble Theatre'
Popeye was the 1929 pen-and-ink creation of Elzie Crisler Segar. In 1919, his Thimble Theatre strip began in William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal.
Readers adored Segar's loony menagerie of characters.
Frolicking were hirsute Alice the Goon, the angular Sea Hag, gruff Poop Deck Pappy, orchid-eating Eugene the Jeep, Snork, Geezil and Roughhouse.
Of course, there was swooning Olive Oyl, the stick-figured femme fatale usually in tow with nightshirted Swee'pea, her ``adoptik infink.''
Like the bell-bottomed hero, unshaven nemesis Brutus (Bluto in later movie cartoons) had a hankerin' for Miss Olive, too. Olive's addled brother, Castor Oyl, also was on hand, along with fall guy Ham Gravy.
Always nearby was gentle, roly-poly J. Wellington Wimpy, an incurable moocher whose ``I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today'' launched a frugal Depression-era repast - and a premonition of a future fast-food craze.
After the stock-market crash and following the debuts of Tarzan and Buck Rogers in the funnies, the squint-eyed, ``fisk-fighting'' tar with a corncob pipe and bulbous tattooed forearms appeared in Thimble Theatre.
Hired by Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy because he could ``drive a boat,'' Popeye was conceived as a colorful ancillary character. But from his first comic-page appearance in 1929 when asked, ``Hey there! Are you a sailor?'' and his reply, ``Ja think I'm a cowboy?'' Popeye was an instant winner with readers.
Popeye was a feisty good guy who spouted tough lingo. And once he was fortified by a can of spinach, swinging mitts of iron could beat back any adversity.
Publisher Hearst ordered Segar to tone down the belligerent sailor because Popeye had become an influence on the youth of the country.
Segar, whose signature frequently incorporated a stogie butt (a ``se-gar''), began his career as a cartoonist on the strip Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers.
Popeye made him famous. By 1932, the sailor had become captain - and star - of Thimble Theater.
Original strips are rare finds, since old newsprint is brittle and subject to yellowing. Full-color pages from the '30s are worth $15 or so and daily strips $3 to $5.
Great items are Big Little Books by publishers Whitman and Saalfield. The first is 1934's Popeye the Sailor, a scarce rectangular-shaped compendium of dailies bound in blue cardboard. It is worth $100 or more in clean condition.
Later Popeye Big Little Books with pages, cover and spine intact fetch $35 to $75. The Whitman Big Big Book Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye with Popeye and Swee'pea on the cover is valued at $200 to $250.
Beginning in 1930, the strip spawned a series of lively animated cartoons by Max Fleischer Studios for Paramount. And in 1935, Popeye spoke on NBC radio in three weekly programs sponsored by Wheatena cereal.
Movie-related Popeye material is eagerly sought. But original animation ``cels'' from Fleischer cartoons are almost unheard of; the studio never thought of saving the painted acetate production drawings, and most were destroyed.
Prized are vintage feature-film Popeye posters in the one-sheet (27 inches by 41 inches) size. They bring $600 and far more, depending upon condition and title.
At a junk shop a few years ago, I cherry-picked for $175 a fabulous full-color poster from Paramount's classic ``Popeye Meets Sinbad the Sailor'' (1936). It sold to a California collector who un hesitantly offered $4,000. ... Blow me down!
by CNB