A Lifetime of Popeye - Unca Jeffy's Toy Box Saturday!

I like Popeye!

I like E.C. Segar's Popeye, I like Bud Sagendorf's Popeye and I like Max & Dave Fleischer's Popeye!

I like the idea of Popeye, the mythos of Popeye and the way he looks and acts!

I loved him as a child and as I grew older and learned all the more in-depth stories and sub-text, I loved him even more!

This Saturday's "Unca Jeffy's Toy Box" skims through about 45 years of Popeye collections of toys. It's not all I have, but diving into my toy trunks is not something done easily, I hop you like some of what you see.

I've had this dye-cast metal/plastic/moving toy since before I can remember, I can only assume I've had it since I was 3 or so.


Popeye on board as lookout/navigator rotates to the left and right as the car moves, belting pilot/driver Olive Oyl in the noggin. This of course has her rock back and forth and turn the helm.


Wimpy and Bluto's heads bob up and down as pistons....

And sweet li'l Swee' Pea rocks gently in his dinghy as the car/boat rolls along.

Other than some serious dust build up and a broken dighy plastic rope...the whole darn thing works like new.

And Swee' Pea can even dip down for some independent fun of his own!

Another 40+ year fixture in the ol' Toy Box de Jeffy is a classic. Remember "Bendys"? A soft rubber exo-skeleton over some metal wire armature, give it a vague resemblance to a cartoon character and a sloppy paint job and you have something that actually has a warm place in my heart!

The next two toys are ones I've picked up new sometime in the last 5 years. The first is from a series of PVC figures that are base on hacky cartoon movie one-sheets of the day. Usually these posters were created by the distributers without any input from the originating cartoon studio and they must have been drawn by the owners nephew or son-in-law, because more often that not, they were as off-model as you could get without really trying.

For example, this abboration was an original theatre one-sheet generically used for whatever new Popeye cartoon came along that week.

The sad thing is, these weren't just made before the character was recognizable or had a following, this piece of shit was drawn rigth in the heat of Popeye Mania, right when Popeye was actually rivaling the top tier Mickey Mouse as king of the animated box office! Sheesh!

The cool thing is, the toy looks GREAT! A wonderful work of art, masterfully styled after a hack's dung pile. Amazing! More from this series of toys next Saturday.

And lastly for today, a set of Popeye and casts PVC figures from sometime in the last 5 years which truly does justice to some of my favorite characters. These came as a box set of 7 for about $40...not a bad deal at all...and they look great!

A big chunk of Popeye's cast of supporting players is represented here, and in all their loveable glory. There's J. Wellington Wimpy complete with hamburger...

The magical other-dimensional Eugene the Jeep, standing atop the crate he was shipped to Popeye in...

Popeye's Pappy, Poopdeck hisself...

Popeye's adopted son, "Scooner Seawell Washenting Cristiffer Columbia Daniel Boom"! We know him by his nickname Swee' Pea best though...

Olive Oyl, the love of Popeye's life...

And his sworn enemy, Bluto!

And of course, the sailorman to beat all sailormen hisself. Popeye!

Lot's of years under the bridge for this guy. He's been around since 1929, that's 82 years! Not many creations of that vintage can be identified by so many people. Hell, Olive Oyl made HER comic strip debut in 1919, that's 92 years.

We should all be so lucky.

Guess we'd better eat our spinach.

Talk to you soon.

"Mr. Gumpox Blows Kisses" and "Ruthie Stembottom Has Secrets"!

I'm going to jump right in to this weeks OTR Friday and try and not ramble on and on like I usually do. I don't think my attempts at astute observation help the personal discovery of the humor of Paul Rhymer for anyones enjoyment of "Vic & Sade" all that much,

So jump right in to the best show about nothing (and this is coming froma BIG Seinfeld fan here) EVER produced!

From June 24, 1940, here a story about Mr. Gumpox the trash man's friendly little habit of blowing kisses to the ladies on his route, and how it cause quite the hoopla over at the Donahue's house. Don't think anyone could fill a 15 minute show with only our 3 cast members describing something this simple that happened before the show started and all off mic? Then you haven't been listening!





And from July 1, 1940, after a stimulating game of 500 with Fred & Ruthie Stembottom, Sade reveals to Rush and Vic all of Ruthie's deep, dark secrets. Scandal in a quiet town!





For our visual feature of the week, the December 27, 1943 issue of Time Magazine. A short snippet about the show in which nothing much happens that is ravenously listened to by 7,000,000 listeners and the genius behind it.

And from the same issue (this one's for you Frank), A Happy Christmas breakfast from 68 years ago. The waffles are surely bad by now but I guarantee that the Spam hasn't lost a bit of it's gelatinous, un-porcine texture. Dig in!

Talk to you soon.

Cartoon Momentum and Explanation?

Here's a blog post about blogging! Exciting isn't it?

I am truly working on building momentum in my cartoon posts here. The boring part for you is, I'm looking to fine-tune my story telling and layout skills. The fun part for you "dear-gentle reader" is, I'm looking to fine-tune my story telling and layout skills.

My goal is to be entertaining.

With my sporadic posting in the past though, as well as (happy to say it) new readers, I know that some of my running gags are lost on some folks. This is kind of an age old issue with sequential and periodical features that I'm also trying to explore. I mean at some point, the audience just knew that Superman didn't like Kryptonite. At some point, people stopped wondering "why" Snoopy was sleeping on top of his doghouse and just accepted it.

One advantages that this new medium has, is extemporaeneous information can easily be linked. Space is not an issue. For people wanting to explore they need only click the mouse, for those looking for a quick chuckle, they can buzz right by.

I will soon be posting "stand-alone" pages to the right, of some of the tenants of Jeffy's little world. The characters, the settings and who-knows-what-all.

Until I get that worked out though, for those that didn't understand yesterday, why Jeffy and Mike have "bunk couches", here's a blast from the past.

Enjoy!

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My ex-roommate moves back home. As always, click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

The prodigal roommate. It's all there but the fatted calf.

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...and for those wondering why Jeffy and Mike's swingin' bachelor pad is called "The Steamy Grotto"? Because "The House of Whacks" was too spot on.

Talk to you soon.

Kinection to Austin!

Continued from here...

Jeffy and Scotty return to "The Steamy Grotto" to find Mike waiting...

...and so it goes with ALL leaps forward in technology, it all leads to porn.

Talk to you soon.

"Contemplatin' Companions"

Continued from here...

Jeffy and his nephew Scott leave "Ye Olde Drink Hole" and head for Jeffy's home, taking Jeffy's favorite short-cut, "Contemplation Beach". They're joined by an old friend.

Talk to you soon.

"Kane Keen!" - Mad Mondays!

Private eyes have been the subject of many adventure/detective stories and have a long healthy history. Dashielle Hammet's "Sam Spade" and Raymond Chandler's "Philip Marlowe" are surely the archetypes with many followers and it was probably "Martin Kane" on that brand new doohicky television (starring Ralph Bellamy) that inspired the name for this story. All those legions of private dick's were certainly a melting pot of inspiration for Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis is 1953 when for "Mad" the comic book #5 they did...

'KANE KEEN! Private Eye"...

Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.

George Swanson's "Salesman Sam - Nemo Anual part 4

I know, you probably thought I fell off the edge of the earth with the scarcity of blog posts this week. Well, I did. But I successfully fought all the sea-monsters and have returned victorious in time to wish you all a Happy Easter Sunday and to ask, "Is Spring EVER GONNA GET HERE???"! Geez I'm sick of grey skies. Must be some kind of record here in sunny southern California to have winter last from November on in April. This is how the REST of the country lives, not us here in the promised land!

Oh well. Nothing I can do about it but bring a little Spring sunshine your way with more of "Nemo: the Classic Comics Library" Annual #1 (and only) from 1985 and their tribute to the screwball comics.

Part 4 brings us a relatively little remembered strip called "Salesman Sam" by the equally overlooked George Swanson.

Read on, Kiddoes...I'm sure you'll dig it!

Talk to you soon.

It's good to be back.

Garfunkel & Oates - "Weed Card" - new video!

The talented and lovely and vivacious and sweet-sounding Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, alternately known as "Garfunkel & Oates" come through again!

A new video for their song "Weed Card" is the newest single off their newest album "All Over Your Face". If you like what you hear, you can pick it up on iTunes and CDBaby.

I hope you do, because I want them to make sooooooooo much money that Ms. Micucci starts making all kinds of bad-judgement calls...like marrying me!

Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.

"Miltie of the Mounties" - Mad Mondays!

Mountie adventure stories go way back. From Renfru of the Mounties to Sgt. Preston of the Yukon to the lampooning of Dudley Do-Right. Somewhere in the middle of this long tradition lies Harvey Kurtzman and John Severin's "Miltie of the Mounties!" from "Mad" the comic book issue #5 from 1953.

"Mad Monday" marches on. Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.