Dole Ruins Popeye
Everyone in the cartoon world knows that Olive Oyl is a whiney know-it-all who is not good for Popeye. Recently she started nagging him about eating canned spinach.
“It’s so 20th century,” she told him. “It’s barbaric the way you grab a can and squeeze it until the top pops off and then you just pour it down your throat! It’s gross, Popeye.”
“I am what I am,” Popeye said. That’s true. He is what he is and he’s never been known for his profound statements. Just an uneducated sailor who swallows spinach with a pipe in his mouth, and, with his spinach strength, beats people up.
“I want you to start eating fresh spinach,” Olive Oyl continued.
Popeye’s good eye widened. “Shiver me timbers!” (See what I mean?)
“Fresh spinach is good for you. It will probably make you even stronger,” Olive Oyl persisted.
Between spinach intake, Popeye is a wimp and gave in to Olive Oyl. He knew what all men know. If you don’t do what a woman asks, she’ll shut you off. So Popeye bought bags of fresh spinach. One day day when Popeye and Olive Oyl were out strolling, Bluto came along and said he was going to kidnap Olive Oyl. Popeye reached into his pocket looking for his can of spinach. He pulled out a bag of fresh spinach instead. He tore open the bag and started eating it, realizing suddenly that he had to chew this stuff.
This was not right, at all. He was used to slimey green gloppy stuff that slid down his throat before he had to taste it. But Olive Oyl was being threatened and he chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed.
“Well, it’s time to take you away,” Bluto said with a bearded evil grin and Olive Oyl knew what he had in mind.
Popeye’s face began turning white. His stomach churned. Without a word he waddled tight-assed across the street to a public restroom, which they have in cartoon land. He slammed the door.
“Popeye!” Olive Oyl screamed in that high, steel-piercing whiney voice that has grated on me since childhood. “Help me! Help me!”
“I can’t, Olive Oil,” came the muffled voice from the rest room.
Both Olive Oyl and Bluto paused, puzzled. This was not in the script. “Why not?” Olive Oyl screamed.
“I got the shits,” came the voice.
“You got the what?” Olive Oyl screamed.
“The shits! I got the shits, Olive Oyl. Bad shits. I gotta stay here.”
Bluto laughed as Olive Oyl’s skinny body writhed in his arm. He carried her to the nearest motel and had his way with her, which could be tragic except that the motel owner swears he heard her humming “I did it my way,” as the couple left.
This double dipping is something that kids for generations have suspected. Olive Oyl’s sex life with Popeye was never satisfactory because he withered as soon as his dose of spinach wore off. That’s right, a can of spinach hardened all his muscles. But only in short spurts, as it were.
Popeye was feeling better by the next day but that didn’t help his hurt pride. To have your woman carried off by a guy even dumber than you are and have his way with her while you strapped to the john is not a good thing for a crusty sailor used to beating people to toony pulps.
A few days later Popeye saw two men fighting on top of a building, and this being a cartoon, he knew that a man was going to fall and he would have to rush to the rescue. He ripped open his bag of spinach and tried to swallow it. He began choking. Bluto rushed in and administered the Heimlich maneuvere until the one-eyed sailor spat out the spinach gob and gasped himself back to life. Meanwhile both men fell from the room and crashed through the sidewalk. Another blow for Popeye.
Later Bluto took Popeye to the diner. “Popeye, I got a reputation to look out for. What do you think my credibility’s gonna be when the word gets out that I saved your life?”
“It’s humiligratin’ alright,” Popeye said emiting a puff of smoke from his pipe.
“The only reason I did it is ’cause we got a season to finish out and there can’t be a bad guy without a good guy. Got it?”
Popeye hung his head in shame. God, he had to be saved by his arch enemy while two perfectly good cartoon characters fell through the sidewalk.
It was a good lesson for Popeye. He couldn’t fresh spinach down it like a can, so he began eating it a little at a time so he could build up and sustain strength. The feeling of sickness came over him again as he and Olive Oyl were crossing the street. Out of nowhere came The Pusher who pushed Olive Oyl into the path of an oncoming bus.
Normally, Popeye would have done the canned spinach thing, run over and slammed his fist into the bus, injuring every passenger on it and wrecking the vehiclel, but saving Olive Oyl, nevertheless. Now, he had to rush to the men’s room
“Pope! Popeeye! Save me!”
“I got the shits again!” He called weakly from the toilet.
“Popeye, I don’t understand why you get the shits everytime I’m in danger!” She screamed.
“We don’t either!” The people on the bus yelled.
“”I am what I am and that’s all that I am.” He could barely get the words out because all that he was was draining fast. He’d never had shits like this.
“Popeye, you save me or –” Her high whiney voice was cut off when the bus ran over her. In cartoon land nobody dies. Olive Oyl stood up with a pretty deep bus tire tread mark across her chest and one leg was now longer than the other. Olive Oyl was not much of a catch before the accident. Now her once flat chest was an indented chest with tire marks. Her bra size had instantly changed from 28 A to 16 three-ply.
She stood at an angle from a crushed spine and with the longer leg walked like she was on a pogo stick.
She limped over the the men’s room. “Popeye, you and I are finished!”
Popeye sighed in relief. She’d been getting on his nerves and right now he had to concentrate on his dehydrating body. “Later sweetie. Right now I got a bad poop deck.”
It was all down hill from there. Popeye’s reputation was ruined. He had acquired the nickname of “Poopeye.” He changed his diet to asparagus canned in Argentina and began putting dope in his corn cob.
He was finished.
He never made the connection. He never understood that bagged spinach ruined him.
Olive Oyl checked into a nursing home for deformed cartoon characters. She would never scream again.
The only character to come through unscathed was the oversized, bearded carnivore, Bluto, who to this day can be heard singing:
“He’s Poopeye the Sailor man, Poopeye the sailor man,
He’s really finished cause he ate his spinach.
He’s Poopeye the sailor man.”
And his rich, evil laugh echoes down the crime-ridden streets of the city, as Popeye lies in an alley, accepting the fate that was Doled out to him.