Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a famous comic strip character, later featured in popular animated cartoons. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar and first appeared in the King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17 1929. Popeye is an independent sailor with a unique way of speaking, muscular forearms, and an ever-present corncob pipe. His strange, humorous, and often supernatural adventures take him all over the world, and place him in conflict with enemies such as the Sea Hag and King Zlobbo of Brutopia.

Spinach

The reference to spinach comes from the publication of a study which, because of a misprint, attributed to spinach ten times its actual iron content. Nevertheless, the popularity of the character helped boost sales of the vegetable and the spinach-growing community of Crystal City, Texas erected a statue of the character in gratitude. There is another Popeye statue in Segar's hometown, Chester, Illinois.

Related Topics:
Iron - Vegetable - Crystal City, Texas - Chester, Illinois

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The 1954 Popeye cartoon Greek Mirthology depicts the fictional origin of spinach consumption in Popeye's family. Popeye's Roman ancestor, Hercules, originally sniffed garlic to gain his supernatural powers. When the evil Brutus removes the scent of the garlic using chloroform (an obvious incongruity), Hercules ends up getting punched into a spinach field, and, upon eating the leafy green substance, finds it empowers him many times more than garlic.

Related Topics:
Roman - Hercules - Garlic - Chloroform

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It has also been claimed that the "spinach" Popeye used was a reference to marijuana. Spinach was a slang term for marijuana at the time of Popeye's creation, and it was believed by some that marijuana could give users superhuman strength.

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Currently Popeye Fresh Foods markets bagged fresh spinach with Popeye characters on the package, and Allens Canning markets Popeye-branded canned spinach.

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