Popeye (film)



A 1980 Musical Live Action Adaptation starring Robin Williams as the eponymous character and directed by Robert Altman.

The story deals with Popeye searching for his long lost pappy (Ray Walston) while caught in a Love Triangle with Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall) and Bluto (Paul L. Smith).

The movie grossed more than twice its enormous budget in the U.S. alone (it took two studios to mount it -- Paramount and Disney), but received mixed reviews from critics.

The Popeye movie provides examples of:
""He's tall... good lookin'... and he's large... he's large... large... tall... large...""
 * Actor Allusion: The actors playing Popeye and Pappy both starred as an alien in a sitcom. Robin Williams was Mork in Mork and Mindy and Ray Walston was the Martian in My Favorite Martian.
 * All That Glitters: The treasure that everyone is hunting is actually Pappy's mementos, which is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when he shows the items to Swee'Pea.
 * Annoying Younger Sibling: Castor to Olive. This is a complete turn-around from the original Thimble Theater comic, where it was Olive who was the Annoying Younger Sibling to Castor.
 * Arranged Marriage - Between Olive and Bluto.
 * Auteur License - Robert Altman, best-known at the time for iconoclastic comedies and dramas like Nashville and MASH, getting the reins to a family musical is a perfect example of this. Because the film wasn't as profitable as hoped and reviews were so mixed, he immediately lost it and while he did a lot of film and TV work over the rest of The Eighties, none of it got mainstream attention until 1992's The Player, which triggered a Career Resurrection.
 * Babies Make Everything Better - Swee'pea!
 * Catch Phrase - "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam!" Even turned into a song.
 * Wimpy gets to say a few of his famous Catch Phrases over the course of the movie, such as "I'm buying, he's paying" and of course the classic "I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
 * Geezil never misses an opportunity to tell Wimpy that he hates him -- or tell other people that he hates Wimpy.
 * Cole Oyl is very prone to tell people that they owe him an apology.
 * "You're not thinking of doing [random activity], are you? Because there's a xx cent [same random activity] tax."
 * Composite Character - Swee'pea, who has taken on the "fortune-telling" traits of Eugene the Jeep (who was originally going to be in the movie but was dropped -- see the What Could Have Been entry below).
 * Cut Song - "Din' We" didn't make it into the final film, though it did make it onto the soundtrack album.
 * For some unknown reason, "I'm Mean" and "Children" are missing from UK releases.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: "He's Large" can be rather... awkward, due to this.

"Popeye: What is this, a house of ill re-pukes? Ooh, who'd bring me infink to this den o' immoraliky? (to Olive) Don't touch nothin', you might get a venerable disease. Lady of "ill re-pukes": Oooh, is that a bed pole you got in your pocket, handsome?"
 * Diner Brawl
 * Distressed Damsel - Guess.
 * Does Not Like Spam:
 * Driven to Suicide - Popeye over losing Swee'Pea, in a scene that was cut because it was considered too dark.
 * Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas - Oxblood Oxheart very clearly loves his mother.
 * Evil Debt Collector
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: The "house of ill re-pukes" that Wimpy takes Swee'pea to in order to bet on horses is not only a place of gambling but very clearly also a brothel. It's never directly stated, but the following dialogue as Popeye and the Oyls enter the place make very little room for doubt:

""One thing I remember about me pap was that he always used to throw me up in the air. Yeah, heh heh... but he'd never be there when I come down, you know. Heh heh heh. Boy, he had a sensek'a humor, didn't he? Yeah, that was me pap. I remember the time he gave me a electric eel as a toy. Hah hah hah -- eep! Hah, yeah, that was fun. Or, or he'd rock me cradle real, real, real hard and I'd lose me formula. And then he'd say 'One day, you'll be a sailor.' Heh heh heh, that's... that's what I yam today, yeah. Hm. Yeah. Sometimes he'd bounce me on his knee. Heh heh, most o' the time he'd miss, though, 'cos he couldn't see too well with one eye.... heh heh heh, oh, me pap, yeah...""
 * Hilariously Abusive Childhood: It's clear from Popeye's stories from his childhood that pap was not a good father, even before he abandoned him. It's all Played for Laughs, since Popeye seems to either be in denial or is trying to make excuses for his father.

""If you play it backwards, it has a plot.""
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Poopdeck Pappy comes across as a genuine Jerkass at first, but towards the end proves to have had a heart all along.
 * Just for Pun - "A place of ill re-puke!"
 * Mickey Mousing - all the fighting is choreographed like an elaborate dance, like one of the old Popeye shorts where he'd line 'em up and knock 'em down.
 * Mythology Gag - At Olive and Bluto's engagement party a man can be heard complaining about Olive getting married. This man is Ham Gravy, who was Olive's fiance in the original Thimble Theater comic strip before he was Put on a Bus and Popeye took his place.
 * The movie, in fact, has many old Thimble Theater characters in bigger or smaller roles -- most of them never made it to any of the cartoons, but they're easily recognizable to fans of the comic.
 * Swee'pea's introduction in the movie is a big Shout-Out to the way he was introduced in the comic strip.
 * When Rough House asks who's going pay for the burger Wimpy replies "I'm buying, he's paying." This was one of his Catch Phrases in the original comic strip.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Only Bluto could be so stupid as to force Popeye to eat his spinach, and get the mega-knuckle sandwich he so deserves because of that.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Castor Oyl vs. Oxblood Oxheart ("The Dirtiest Fighter Alive")
 * "First man who is dead, loses!"
 * Old Shame - Robin Williams basically sees this movie as his old shame.


 * The Mediterranean village in Malta where the movie was filmed, however, has become a giant tribute to the movie.
 * Origin Story - Like is typical of first superheroic films, this is a tale of how Popeye gets started.
 * Papa Wolf - Popeye to Swee'pea.
 * Parental Bonus - The town drunk is named Barnacle Bill, a reference to a Bawdy Song from the early 20th century.
 * More than that, "Beware of Barnacle Bill" was the name of an early Popeye cartoon, which contains a cleaned-up version of the song (and with Bluto in the role of Barnacle Bill). Behold!
 * Precision "D" Strike: In Bluto's "I'm Mean" song.
 * Cluster "H.A." Bomb Pappy, during the rescue mission.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning - When Bluto sees Olive with Popeye and the newly found Swee'Pea when she arrives late for their engagement party he gets the wrong idea and his eyes glow red with anger, complete with POV shot. See below.
 * Retraux: The opening starts off with a hand drawn throwback to the original Max and Dave Fleischer Popeye cartoons made during The Golden Age of Animation, the animation being outsourced to Hanna-Barbera (which was making new Popeye cartoons for TV at the time).
 * The town of Sweethaven, for that matter, is a veritable Anachronism Stew of driftwood buildings and Retraux artifacts.
 * Something Only They Would Say - When Popeye is trying to prove to Pappy that he's his son, Pappy tells him there's only one way he can be convinced. "Eat the spinach." Once Popeye refuses to eat it, whining like a baby, Pappy is convinced that he's his son.
 * Sound Effect Bleep: Pappy, during his "Children" song.
 * Speech Impediment: Another thing Popeye's got... is a senske of humiligration.
 * Stylistic Suck - Bluto's red eyes POV shot is just Popeye, Olive and Swee'Pea dressed in red in front of a red background.
 * A similar Visual Pun comes at the end of the movie when Bluto "turns yellow," i.e. he's dressed in yellow as he runs away.
 * Super Mode: Popeye finally transforms into his famous Spinach Mode at the end after being force fed spinach by Bluto. However, you only get to see his enlarged arms uppercutting Bluto from underwater.
 * Typecasting: Shelley Duvall is the only actress on Earth who could nail the role of Olive Oyl.
 * Villain Song - "I'm Mean".
 * What Could Have Been - The parts of Popeye and Olive Oyl were originally intended for Dustin Hoffman and Gilda Radner.
 * Eugene the Jeep was originally going to be in the film, but he was written out because the special effect would have been too expensive. Eugene was going to be a Living MacGuffin with telepathic powers. The script was rewritten so that Swee'Pea took over this role.