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.