Referenced By / Popeye

MAD Magazine parody by Will Elder.

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Comic Books

• Cubitus: In a gag in which Cubitus plays Michelangelo Buonarroti, he thinks about new things to paint, among them Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Bécassine and Tintin.
• Marvels: In Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross's Marvels, Popeye is interviewed in a Captain America story.
• De Kiekeboes:
  • In Afgelast Wegens Ziekte Kiekeboe's funeral is attended by comic book characters from "rival series", such as Tintin and Captain Haddock, Boule et Bill, Asterix and Obelix, Lucky Luke, as well as "a foreign group of representatives", which includes Batman, Donald Duck, Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Popeye.
• Urbanus: In Urbanus Zijn Snippeldepipke Rekt Uit Urbanus' mother Eufrazie undergoes a breast enlargement operation. At first her husband is in seventh heaven with this, but after a while he starts looking at other women again and to add insult to injury they are both flat chested, namely Tante Sidonia from Suske en Wiske and Olive Oyl.
• In DC Comics, Superman encounters an expy of Popeye named Captain Horatio Strong.
• The Punisher had this to say about Pittsy, a Made of Iron Mafia goon:
  Asshole's been eating his spinach.

Comic Strips

• The Far Side:
  • A cartoon has Olive discover that Popeye is a cross-dresser. As she shouts, "Popeye, no!", he replies, "I Yam What I Yam."
  • The same punchline is used when Popeye is accused of committing an unspecified but obviously horrible crime. "But your pipe was found at the scene, sir! How could you?!"
  • In another gag a bar scene is shown in ruins, while a female witness explains to a policeman: "So then this little sailor dude whips out a can of spinach, this crazy music starts playin', and... well, just look at this place."
• MAD Magazine published a spoof of Popeye as early as 1954 under the title Poopeye.
  • Don Martin once drew A Mad Look at... Popeye in 1981, full of gags spoofing the tropes in Popeye.
• Nero: Nero beats up a couple of thugs in De Wallabieten and says: "Eat that, Popeye, Jerom and Jan Spier!"
• Dick Tracy: In an October 2013 episode of Dick Tracy, Olive Oyl and Popeye make an off-screen cameo appearance. Despite not actually being seen in the strips themselves, it's obviously them. Check out for yourself: [1]
• In the December 1, 1995, strip of Peanuts, Sally's Christmas cards were returned because she drew the stamps herself.
  Sally: I copied them from the new cartoon stamps.
  Snoopy: She drew a better Popeye than they did.
• Mutts:
  • Crabby reveals that he actually met Popeye and his friends.
  • Popeye appears alongside other comic strip characters in this strip as one of Frank's old friends.
  • Bip and Bop throw acorns at Popeye's head.
  • Crabby as "Popeyed".
  • The title panel of this strip is a parody of the cover of this Popeye "cartoon book"◊, with Mooch in place of Popeye, Butchie in place of the other boxer, and Frank in place of Wimpy.
• Off the Mark:
  • Why Popeye eats spinach.◊
  • "The results are back from the lab and this green, leafy substance is not what we thought..."◊
  • A cannibal is cooking◊ Peanuts with Olive Oyl.
  • Popeye sneezes spinach in Olive Oyl's face◊.
  • Popeye◊ and Wimpy◊ are residents at the "Betty Rubble Center For Recovering Toons".
  • Here◊ Wimpy appears as part of group therapy along with Goofy, Daffy Duck and Butthead.
  • It turns out that Popeye and Bluto have an "Oyl Dependency"...
  • Popeye's also found◊ at the Cartoon Hospital Ophthalmology Wing".
  • "Hey, this isn't the book I thought it was..."◊
• Garfield: The title panel for this strip◊ features Odie as Popeye, Garfield as Wimpy, and Arlene as Olive Oyl.

Films — Animation

• In The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, a portrait of Popeye can be seen hanging on the wall of the bar in which SpongeBob and Patrick are eating sundaes.

Films — Live-Action

• In the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla, Fujita compares King Kong's positive reaction to electricity to Popeye's spinach.

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Literature

• Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters features an American sailor named Popejoy who is blinded in one eye by Wolf Larson because his nickname was Hawkeye the Sailor Man, talks wit a diskinktive accent (including a hoarse, choking laugh represented as "akakakakak!"), smokes a corncob pipe, enjoys fighting "palookas" (and sings "I yam what I yam" when all Team Vampire are singing different battle songs that somehow all counterpoint each other), is attracted to very thin women, and is eventually turned by a plant-based vampire, resulting in a thirst for near-liquid vegetables with the same iron content as haemoglobin. There's even a reference to the parody lyrics of the theme song when he admits "I loves to go swimmin' with all of the wimmin."

Live-Action TV

• On Jon Stewart's first time hosting The Daily Show, he does a report on the comic book The Wedding of Popeye and Olive.
• Joey Gladstone from Full House frequently imitates Popeye's voice. On one occasion, he dressed up for Halloween as Popeye, with Rebecca as Olive Oyl and Michelle as Swee'pea.
  Danny: (to Michelle) That's how you looked the day you were born.
• Spitting Image: In one sketch Prince Philip insulted a group of Papua New Guinean tribesman by claiming that their god was stupid and demanded to see a miracle. Their chief then asks for a miracle. Cue to the next scene in which Philip's face is changed into that of Popeye.
• In Living Color!: In the spoof of Snow's "Informer" called "Impostor", some of the lyrics that Jim Carrey raps—made complete with him steering a ship and a corncob pipe in his mouth while squinting—is "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam! (Scatting)"

Music

• Israeli children’s song ‘Papa Popeye’ is a Deconstruction of the franchise: Popeye’s son talks about how being his son made him face a severe case of Celebrity Is Overrated (which is even worse, because they hound him but are only interested in his father), he has to eat incredible amounts of spinach, and his unrelenting workout regime leaves him with intense muscle pain. At the end he admits that, being more artistically and cerebrally inclined, inverting Parental Favoritism, he prefers Olive.

Video Games

• In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, there's a humorous scene where a seemingly normal enemy turns into a Boss in Mook Clothing by eating spinach.

Web Original

• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • His "Top 11 Cereal Mascots" episode has him comparing Sugar Bear's cereal-induced strength to Popeye's spinach.
  • He imitates Popeye's garbled mumbling in his review of The Magic Voyage too.
  • In his review of Mr. Magoo, Critic compares the film's animated Fake-Out Opening to a movie in which a cartoon Popeye turned into Michael Clarke Duncan playing the sailor.
  • The review of The Odd Life of Timothy Green has the Popeye theme playing when Timothy receives a boost of sunlight at the soccer game.
• In the SuperMarioLogan episode, "Black Yoshi's Girlfriend Problem!", Delilah breaks up with Black Yoshi after the latter hits her, and when Mario tells him she's leaving, Black Yoshi tells her to get him some biscuits from Popeye's (the chicken restaurant). Who does Delilah hook up with after she leaves Black Yoshi? Why, Popeye (the sailor man), of course! Popeye then tries to open a can of spinach to beat up Black Yoshi, but can't get it open. He eventually does at the end of the episode.

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Western Animation

• The Simpsons:
  • In "Radio Bart", Homer, having had enough of Springfield's apathy toward's Bart's predicament, boasts "That's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!"
  • In "Deep Space Homer", Homer gets put on a centrifuge as part of astronaut training and his face morphs into Popeye's as he says "I can's stands no more!"
  • The ending to "Brother's Little Helper" has Bart taking Ritalin and singing a parody of Popeye's closing song.
  "When I can't stop fiddlin', I just takes me Ritalin. I'm poppin' and sailin', man!"
  • The climax of "Jaws Wired Shut" involves Homer saving Marge from a demolition derby by consuming a can of beer like it was Popeye's spinach and imitates Popeye's under-the-breath mumblings. In addition, Marge is seen screaming and flailing her arms like Olive Oyl.
• Family Guy:
  • In "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire", after Cleveland vows to kill Quagmire for sleeping with his wife, he consumes a can of spinach and toots smoke from his ears while Popeye's theme plays.
  • In "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives", a Cutaway Gag shows Popeye visiting Dr. Hartman, who says that his squinted eye and weird speech pattern stemmed from a stroke, and that his large forearms are cancerous tumors.
  • Wimpy makes a cameo as a stroke victim in "McStroke"
  • A Cutaway Gag from "April in Quahog", shows Bluto being nominated for an Academy Award thanks to Peter overstuffing the ballots.
  • In "Herpe the Love Sore", Peter tries to fight back against a bunch of bullies by eating spinach, only he has trouble getting it out of the can and, when he does, finds out the spinach does nothing for him.
• The Critic: Jay Sherman's adopted father Franklin tells Jay how, when he and Eleanor were dating, he fought a bully after having gin as his Power-Up Food. The flashback is in the style of an old Popeye cartoon.
• Looney Tunes
  • In Porky's Garden, a chick is seen eating spinach and turns into a caricature of Popeye.
  • In the Merrie Melodies short The Major Lied Till Dawn, after getting pummeled by jungle animals, the hunter pulls out a can of spinach and says "If it's good enough for that sailor man, it's good enough for me."
  • In Scrap Happy Daffy, after getting beaten by Those Wacky Nazis, Daffy asks for a can of spinach.
• The were several Popeye-themed sketches on Robot Chicken. Possibly an Actor Allusion, as Popeye was voiced by Dave Coulier of Full House in all of them.
  • "The Sack" featured a sketch where Wimpy considers committing suicide, but Clarance comes down to show him what things would be like without him. When he sees that things will be much better without him, he pushes Wimpy off the bridge.
  • "Squaw Bury Shortcake" has Popeye's friends holding an intervention for his spinach addition.
  • "Yancy the Yo-Yo Boy" has a sketch where Popeye gives Wimpy some money for a hamburger, but gives him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown when Wimpy doesn't pay him back on Tuesday.
  • A sketch from "Triple Hot Dog Sandwich on Wheat" had several cartoon characters known for smoking being treated for lung cancer in a hospital. Olive Oyl is in the hospital, due to her lung cancer being caused by years of secondhand pipe smoke from Popeye. Ironically, Popeye is just fine due to an immunity to lung cancer developed by the antioxidants in his spinach.
• The Fairly OddParents episode "The Good Old Days" has Timmy's grandfather showing him an episode of Pokeye the Longshoreman.
• A newspaper headline Couch Gag from American Dad! once read "Popeye Says Olive Oil Ain't No Virgin."
• The Screen Songs cartoon Toys Will Be Toys has a Popeye toy rolling in the toy parade.
• The South Park story arc "Imaginationland" has Popeye being a member of the Council of Nine. He gets gangraped by the Woodland Critters, then fights them off when Butters imagines up some spinach for him. Bluto also has a cameo in this episode trilogy, by the way.
  • Towelie's debut episode has him getting high in a manner similar to Popeye eating his spinach.
• The Drawn Together episode "The Lemon-AIDS Walk" has Popeye depicted as a steroid-abusing gym owner who befriends Captain Hero, and later dies of AIDS.
• Animaniacs: In the Mindy & Buttons short "Cat on a Hot Steel Beam", while Buttons is trying to save Mindy on a construction site, he encounters expies of Tom and Jerry following a stray baby, followed by an expy of Popeye chasing his baby Green Bean.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: In "It's All Relatives", Babs attempts to impress her grandmother with a rapid-fire montage of various impressions of cartoon characters, Popeye being one of them.
• Ren & Stimpy:
  • In Stimpy's cartoon Stimpy makes an animated cartoon with a villain who looks and talks suspiciously like Bluto and shares traits with Peg-Leg Pete.
  • In "The Big Shot", when Stimpy becomes famous and stars in a cartoon with Muddy Mudskipper, he runs around saying various other cartoon characters' catchphrases like his "Well, blow me down!" and Elmer Fudd's "I'm hunting wabbits!"^note Which becomes absolutely hilarious since Billy West would go on to voice both characters himself years later.
  • In another episode, when Ren and Stimpy are walking out of a sauna, Stimpy suddenly sings in his voice "I like to go swimming with bowlegged women-g!"
• The Mask: In one gag the Mask eats spinach to become strong, then spits it out again and says: What am I doing? I don't even like spinach.
• Duckman: In the pilot episode of the series, I, Duckman Duckman watches some archive footage from his youth, each segment a stylistic parody of old cartoon series: Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Yogi Bear and The Simpsons.
• Family Guy: A cutaway gag from Seth MacFarlane's Cartoon Cavalcade features Bob Dylan and Tom Waits meeting each other backstage, while Waits introduces Popeye to him. They all get into an argument over Dylan not playing "Blowin' In The Wind", then Muhammad Ali comes in to complain that Dylan didn't play "Hurricane" either. For those wondering what the joke is here: all of them speak in undecipherable voices.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Mitch Mitchelson, the class bully, has a voice based on Popeye's, complete with the "Aug-gug-gug" laugh.
• In Samurai Jack episode XCVII when Ashi encounters several assassins Jack previously defeated, a robot who resembles and talks like Popeye says "He bustered me eye", referring to Popeye's eye that's always squinted.
• In the surfing episode of Duck Dodgers. "Surf the Stars", after Dodgers is apparently beaten in the surfing competition, he eats a can of pineapple and immediately jumps to his feet and flexes bulging biceps. There's then a closeup of the bicep showing it as a tank, a warship and a mass of muscle tissue.
• Sponge Bob Squarepants: In "Lighthouse Louie", at one point SpongeBob gets stuck under a heavy box and gets himself out by eating a Krabby Patty in a can, complete with a visual of motors running in his bicep and a pastiche of the usual Popeye theme.

Real Life

• Presumably every child in the world has been told to eat his or her spinach to become strong just like Popeye.

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