A to Z of Animation Studios: E Is for E.C. Segar's Popeye
How a one-eyed sailor with a spinach habit became one of the first superstars of animation.
Okay, Popeye isn't technically a studio. But his story is the story of two studios, and E was looking a little thin. Let's go.
E is for E.C. Segar's Popeye
The creator: Elzie Crisler Segar created Popeye in 1929 for his comic strip Thimble Theatre. Popeye was supposed to be a minor character. Readers loved him so much he took over the strip.
The jump to animation: In 1933, Fleischer Studios brought Popeye to the screen, first as a guest in a Betty Boop cartoon. He became one of the most popular cartoon stars of the 1930s.
The Fleischer era (the greatest hits)
The early black-and-white shorts. Loose, rubbery, musical and full of jokes muttered under Popeye's breath.
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936). A two-reel color special nominated for an Academy Award.
The Stereoptical Process. REAL: the Fleischers built miniature 3D sets and placed flat drawn characters in front of them, giving their backgrounds real depth decades before computers.
Why Popeye worked
He's an underdog who never starts a fight, but always finishes one.
Olive Oyl is no pushover. She fights back plenty.
Bluto exists to be punched into the next time zone.
One can of spinach changes everything. It's the clearest "power-up" in animation history.
RUMOR: you've probably heard that Popeye boosted American spinach sales by a third, and that he was created because of a decimal-point mistake that made spinach seem full of iron. Spinach farmers really did love him, but both stories have been heavily disputed by historians.
The decline
REAL: in the early 1940s, Paramount took control of Fleischer Studios and renamed it Famous Studios. The Popeye cartoons kept coming, but most fans agree they got more formulaic: same plot, same fight, same punch.
Honorable mention: Famous Studios
Even after Popeye's golden age, Famous Studios gave us Casper the Friendly Ghost and Little Audrey. Not the Fleischers' wild genius, but plenty of childhood memories.
The lesson
Popeye proves the power of a clear transformation. Weak, then spinach, then strong. Every hero who "powers up," from video games to superheroes, owes a little something to a sailor with a can opener.
Up next
F is for Filmation, the studio that made He-Man.
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