July 14, 1933…Popeye Comes To The Silver Screen

July 14, 1933…Popeye Comes To The Silver Screen

This is the first of 109 cartoons Popeye starred in from 1933 until 1942. Newspaper cartoonist E. C. Segar is the man who created Popeye, but before he came along, Olive Oyl had been the star of his “Thimble Theater” comic strip, and had been since the strip debuted December 19, 1919…10 years before Popeye was created on January 17, 1929. The sailor man was an instant hit and Segar’s creation character became one of the top funny paper characters in the country.

When Popeye came to the silver screen, he needed a voice and for the first two years, that was done by Billy Costello, but he was replaced in 1935 by Jack Mercer. Olive Oyl was originally voiced by none other than the voice of Betty Boop, May Questel, but when producer Max Fleischer moved operations to Miami from New York in 1938, Questel didn’t want to move, so Margie Hines took over. In 1943, Paramount moved the operation back to New York and May Questel once again became the voice of Olive.

William Pennell was the original voice of Bluto, but he too declined to move to Florida, but when Paramount moved the operation back to NYC, he took over again. While they were in Miami, Gus Wickie was the voice of Bluto.

Thanks to the animated shorts, Popeye became even more of a sensation than he had been in comic strips. As Betty Boop gradually declined in quality as a result of Hays Code (movie sex police) enforcement in 1934, Popeye became the studio’s star character. By 1936, Popeye began to sell more tickets and became the most popular cartoon character in the country in the 1930s…beating Mickey Mouse. Well blow me down! -Bobby Ellerbee