The Bizarre Logic of Popeye's World
Analyzing the Confounding Physics of an 80s Cartoons
In the 1980s I watched cartoons every morning while waiting for the school bus to arrive, and one of those cartoons was Popeye. Although the original Fleischer Studios Popeye cartoons date all the way back to the 1930s, I was most familiar with the Popeye the Sailor series, produced in the early 60s.
In the late 70s and early 80s CBS brought back the characters for The All New Popeye Hour, most likely to piggyback on the release of the live action Popeye film starring Robin Williams. Even as a kid the 80s Popeye cartoons felt a little off to me, and it turns out there was a reason for that. It was during that timeframe that the FCC began to crack down on violence on television, especially in programs targeted toward children. After 50 years of fighting for Olive Oyl’s affection, Popeye and Bluto suddenly stopped punching one another.
But even more than that, those Popeye cartoons from the 1980s were just plain weird. To prove my point, this weekend I watched one of those old episodes, “Popeye the Carpenter”. What follows is a long look into the weird and mysterious world of 1980’s Popeye.
Our story begins as Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend, is attempting to hang a framed picture in her living room. Despite being physically weak, when Olive taps the nail with a hammer she accidentally knocks a hole you could drive a car through in her living room wall. Still standing on her stool, Olive yells into the universe that she needs a carpenter.
Dictionary.com defines a carpenter as “a person who makes and repairs wooden objects and structures.” Based on the damage she has just done to what has to be a load-bearing wall, it would appear she’ll need more than a carpenter… but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
Some of the home’s structural issues can probably be traced back to those baseboards in the corner of her living room not lining up. Just look at them! Is this the house from the House of Leaves?
Across town, Popeye and Bluto are arm-wrestling over a fire hydrant in front of an establishment named “Momma’s”. When Popeye hears Olive’s cry for help, he kicks over the hydrant (blatant destruction of city property) and soaks Bluto with water as he runs to the nearest phone booth.
It’s kind of weird that Popeye even calls Olive. He heard her yelling and knows what she wants. It seems like he could just yell back if he wanted to, or just, you know, go over there.
Inside the phone booth, Popeye picks up the phone’s receiver and begins talking to Olive Oyl without inserting a coin or even dialing her phone number. This seems to imply that the phone booths in this town, or at least this one, are a direct line to Olive’s house.
Bluto quickly arrives and is able to eavesdrop on Popeye’s conversation by literally shielding his ear from the booth with his hand. Also, that paper sign tacked to the side of the phone booth bugs me. There’s no way to read it, and you know it says something witty. “For a good time, call Olive Oyl. No coins needed.”
I suspect the same city employee who anchored that fire hydrant to the ground was responsible for picking the font for that bus stop sign. Yikes.
Although it has been firmly established that Popeye is Olive’s boyfriend, Bluto intends to win Olive’s affection by launching Popeye into outer space and then performing the repairs himself. While physics is not my strong suit, I have a lot of questions about using a bus stop sign as a makeshift catapult and the amount of force required to send a phone booth high into the clouds.
Physics be damned, Bluto’s plan works and Popeye is launched into the stratosphere. As he sails aimlessly, we can still hear Olive talking on the phone. Think about that. Moments later, a goofy looking pelican flies by, which gives Popeye an idea.
Popeye sticks his hands through the holes where glass should be and begins to fly. If nothing else, the lack of glass in the booth’s windows explains how Bluto was able to hear Popeye’s conversation earlier.
While Popeye is out defying gravity, Bluto takes advantage of the time and arrives first at Olive’s house. “Your carpenter has arrived,” he says. Perhaps just once, Olive should say, “you know, my boyfriend’s on his way,” and not let him in. Instead, she invites him in.
Popeye was sent so high into the air that Bluto had time to either rob a tool store, or stop by his place and pick up his tool belt.
Seconds later, Popeye, still inside the phone booth, arrives like the refrigerator from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, sailing right through Olive’s open window. As someone who has wrestled with moving a recliner through a standard doorway, all I can say is… that’s a big window.
For what it’s worth I laid awake in bed last night, wondering about that letter in her mailbox. Why would anyone mail Olive Oyl a letter when the phonebooths in this town are hard wired to her house?
Also, assuming Olive’s door is three feet wide, her house is approximately 11′ x 8′.
Popeye leaps out of the flying phone booth by grabbing on to a light fixture. It’s an ace move, I’ll give you that. Popeye has a lot of trust in whoever hung that light. Hopefully it’s not the same person that built the wall that crumbled earlier.
The phone booth continues sailing through the room, scoops up Bluto, smashes through the opposite wall, and dumps Bluto upside down outside. If you’re keeping track, that’s now two major holes in Olive’s house. At this point, she can use all the carpenters she can get. Also, that note is still attached to the side of the phone booth, mocking me.
Back inside, Popeye pulls down the light fixture, along with the entire ceiling. He can probably fix it though. He’s a carpenter.
Here we get our first look at Popeye’s carpentry skills. To keep Bluto out, Popeye nails up five planks of wood, covers them with Spackle, and places wallpaper over the entire thing. I… I don’t think this guy is a dues paying member of any carpentry union, is all I’m saying. There’s a reason the theme song isn’t, “I’m Popeye the Carpenter Man.”
Toot toot.
Bluto shows Popeye what he thinks of his handiwork by knocking down the entire wall. It appears in this picture that two walls are now completely missing, along with the original hole Olive created. I also just noticed that Bluto appears to be wearing Freddy Krueger’s trademark sweater. I would totally watch a movie where Freddy Krueger in life was actually Bluto. That would explain so much.
Good news, Olive! The original hole is gone. (In all fairness, complaining about the lack of continuity in a Popeye cartoon is low hanging fruit.) As Popeye attempts to hammer the nail into the wall, we see a saw protruding up through the floor cutting a hole around Popeye.
Of course, it’s Bluto. For the record, Bluto entered the basement, devised this plan, found a saw, and started cutting a hole in less than 5 seconds.
Popeye falls through the hole and now it’s Bluto’s turn to hammer in the nail. For some reason, he keeps missing. Also, from those holes you can tell Olive’s walls are roughly one inch thick, with no insulation or wood. This house needs more than a carpenter.
The reason Bluto keeps missing the nail is revealed. Popeye is lifting the entire house and moving it around. You can clearly see on the right hand side that two walls of the house are now missing. Note that there are sixteen holes in the wall (two of which overlap). Bluto doesn’t catch on very quick. We can also see that Olive’s house consists of exactly one room, with no bathroom. Maybe after these carpenters get done she can poop in that new hole in her floor.
Bluto, strong but not bright, decides what he needs is a bigger hammer. In a matter of seconds, this wall breaks, too. Not for nothing, but I would kill to own a hammer like that. I’m not sure what I would use it for, other than I guess hanging pictures and smashing walls, but it’s super cool. It’s Hammer Time.
Finally, Bluto discovers what Popeye’s been up to. This picture is actually pretty disturbing. The floor to Olive’s house is still on the ground — you can see the hole Bluto just cut, and in the shot with all the holes we saw everyone standing on the ground. Besides, if Popeye were moving the whole house with the floor still attached, there’s no reason why Bluto’s aim would be affected. So… what is Bluto standing on? Nothing. He’s levitating. This is starting to make sense. Olive Oyl lives in the house from The Amityville Horror.
Bluto, fighting mad now, shoves Popeye into a piano that has 10 misshapen white keys and 11 black ones. It makes sense that the piano is kind of small since we determined her house is like seven foot wide.
Bluto kicks the piano, sending it across town and into the back of an (c) Overseas Movers truck, which quickly moves it onto a waiting airplane that, within seconds, takes off. Nobody on that truck or inside that airplane has been paid to move a piano. Where are they sending it? The last time we moved, I paid a crew of three guys for four hours to move our stuff. They complained the entire time about how heavy the boxes were, and took four breaks an hour. And I don’t even own a piano with a body inside.
With Popeye out of the picture, Bluto finally gets a chance to show off his carpentry skills. By my math, this is the only remaining wall in Olive’s house. That’s convenient because when you say “I want a picture hung on the wall,” there’s no mistaking which wall you’re tlaking about. “THE” wall.
Bluto finally looks at the picture and realizes it is of Popeye. Furious, he begins punching the wall in an attempt to hit the picture, but the picture and nail keep moving out of his way. Zero explanation is given for this, which points back to my haunted house theory.
Bluto knocks the same wall down again. Even with the wall gone, the picture remains floating in the air. This Popeye cartoon really missed a crossover opportunity here. They really could have used Scooby-Doo’s help to solve the mystery of the haunted painting.
Sick of Bluto destroying her house, Olive climbs her chimney and screams for Popeye.
Popeye, who is inside a piano inside an airplane cruising at 20,000 feet, hears her.
While plummeting to the earth, Popeye opens a can of spinach and shoots it up into the air. It falls into his mouth (don’t tell Newton), and now it’s time to get busy carpentering.
Despite the fact that we’ve already established that Popeye can fly by simply flapping his arms (while inside a phone booth, no less), here he turns into a Popeye Rocket. A Pop-Rocket. A RockEye. I dunno, you come up with something. And it’s a good thing he does, because…
…he’s halfway around the earth now.
By the time he arrives, Bluto has already destroyed the entire house. Popeye then jumps on a 2×4 and shoots Bluto into the air, never to be heard from again.
Popeye spends the next eleven seconds building Olive Oyl a new house. Eleven seconds. In the length of time it took people to watch the videotape in The Ring, Popeye can build nine homes.
By the way, that is enough sheet rock to build a house the size of Montana.
For some reason, this reminds me of that television show “Extreme Home Makeover,” where Popeye must hand Olive Oyl the keys to her new home so she can go in for the first time. “Move. That. Bus!”
Now there’s only one thing left to do. Olive asks Popeye if he’ll hang the photo. Olive Oyl has a really short memory.
Popeye taps the wall with the hammer and the entire house cracks before crumbling to the ground. It appears Popeye’s skills as a carpenter and home builder lie in his speed and not the strength of the things he builds.
No way that thing passed code. The last time I installed a hot water heater I had to raise it 18″ to make it legal. Just wait ’til the home inspector discovers Olive Oyl poops in a hole in the floor of her living room.
Moments later, a furious Olive Oyl chases Popeye away from her house for 11 seconds, the same length of time it took him to build it. Perhaps now would be a good time for him to turn into a rocket again and zoom away.