Back to School With Popeye at Penneys – 1935

Fans of pop culture know that during the 1930s, Popeye the Sailor was more popular with kids than Mickey Mouse. Because of his animated cartoons (which beat the ever-cheerful Disney rodent in polls taken by theater owners) and his daily comic strip (drawn by cartoonist/creator Ezie Segar), the one-eyed, spinach-eating sailor was truly a national sensation. 

Thus it's not too surprising to see Popeye featured in this Back-to-School ad for Penney's that ran in the Lorain Journal back on August 28, 1935. Since it was assumed that rough-and-tumble Popeye had great appeal to little boys, most of the ad space is taken up with boys' clothes: shirts, knickers, sweaters, slacks, golf hose and school oxfords. The inclusion of girls' tub frocks seem like an afterthought.

The main drawing point of the ad was a complimentary ticket to the Warner Bros. Palace Theater on Friday, August 30th and Saturday, Aug. 31st. Lorain schools started the next week, so it was sort of a last hurrah for summer vacation.

And what was showing at the Palace on those two nights? None other than the just-released W.C. Fields comedy Man on the Flying Trapeze. 

Despite the fact that it sounds like a circus movie, the plot was no doubt a familiar one to the great comedian's fans. He plays a henpecked husband with a shrewish wife (and nasty mother-in-law) and a loving daughter. And happily (like most of his movies), his character come out on top and there's a happy ending.

But what about Popeye?

If you look closely at the ad, there is indeed a Popeye cartoon as part of that night's program. It doesn't say which one it was, but a football-themed Popeye cartoon was released to theaters that very weekend. Here's a clip of You Gotta Be a Football Hero featuring Popeye's football team versus that of Bluto's. The game is already underway and Popeye is getting clobbered. Fickle Olive isn't even rooting for him!

Lorain Journal Comics Page – Nov. 10, 1937

If you're not a fan of Popeye (the comic strip, not the monotonous big screen cartoons of the 1940s and 50s), you might want to skip today's post. 

You see, originally I was just going to post the Lorain Journal comics page from November 10, 1937. But the Popeye strip from that day so intrigued (and amused) me that I had to go back and read the whole storyline, which ran for several months. Before I knew it, I was retrieving the majority of the comic strips to post here.

It's pretty hilarious and shines the spotlight on Popeye's father, namely Poopdeck Pappy. The storyline, entitled "Wild Oats," begins with the old reprobate helping himself to $10,000 of Popeye's money and generally causing trouble in the one-eyed sailor's household as well as the community. Eventually Pappy is arrested (after throwing a woman in the river), leading to the funniest part of the plot line – his courtroom trial.

Poopdeck Pappy's interaction with his lawyer, the prosecutor, the jury, his accuser and finally, the judge, is side-splitting (to me at least), with hilarious dialogue and a cockeyed view of the justice system.

Here's my selected strips from the story, which ran from the end of August 1937 until the second week of November 1937. E.C. Segar usually let his readers know when a new storyline was starting by featuring a special introductory panel.

Popeye plans to use Eugene the Jeep (his magical pet that knows everything) to help him solve the crime. However, Poopdeck Pappy is one step ahead in his effort to cover up his theft.

Poppdeck Pappy causes other trouble before he's finally arrested – which isn't an easy job for the police.

Finally, the storyline reaches its hilarious climax with the trial of Poopdeck Pappy. Popeye finds his father a lawyer, who soon regrets ever taking the job.

Poor Popeye feels bad for his dad  – who doesn't feel any remorse at all and seems happy in prison! And with that, Segar launched a brand new story on Nov. 15th.

Several of the dialogue lines made me laugh out loud: Jake and his "I'm not in the habit of eating in prisons" line and, of course, Poopdeck Pappy's exclamation upon hearing his 'guilty' verdict: "We wins the case – I don't get hung!"

Ah, the simple joy of reading the funnies. Many of us have fond memories of it, others will never know the pleasure of looking forward to their arrival in our daily newspaper.

Oh, and here's the Nov. 10th, 1937 comics page that initiated this unusual post. Besides Popeye, our old pals Barney Google and Snuffy Smith are there, as well as Blondie & Dagwood, and Mickey Mouse.

Lorain Journal Comics Page – April 10, 1935

Ninety years ago today on April 10, 1935, this was the comics page of the Lorain Journal. 

A quick look at the page seems to indicate that there aren't too many comics that are still around today. The only ones appear to be Blondie and Barney Google (now called Barney Google and Snuffy Smith). Popeye is still around, but it's pretty much just in classic reruns.

Popeye was hugely popular back then. Here's a closer look at its panel on the page.

It wasn't a gag-a-day comic back then; it was a continuity strip with elaborate storylines that often went on for weeks or months. The Journal even encouraged its subscribers to have their newspapers forwarded to them on vacation so that they wouldn't miss any of the Popeye strips (which I wrote about back here).

But the reason I posted this page was because of the Barney Google strip. I noticed that it included Snuffy Smith and his wife Loweezy. 

Snuffy had just been introduced as a character in the strip the year before. Eventually he became so popular that he basically took over the strip, with Barney fading into the background! In recent years, Barney has made a comeback and is a regular character again.

Why is this interesting to me? Because I read Gasoline Alley online, and Walt Wallet has been visited by Snuffy and Barney for the last week or so in a neat crossover storyline. It was all part of the celebration of Gasoline Alley's 106th Anniversary. Classic comic strip characters Mutt and Jeff were part of the fun too. Here are a few of the panels.

As you can see, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith will be celebrating its 106th Anniversary as well. The comic itself is still going strong, with great art and humor. This image from the King Features website shows the whole cast, including Sparkplug the race horse, Tater (Snuffy's son) and Jughaid (his nephew).

Many of us Baby Boomers grew up watching those King Features cartoons on TV, which featured Beetle Bailey, Krazy Kat and Snuffy Smith. Here's the well-remembered introduction to the Snuffy Smith cartoons.

Why not sit back fer a spell and enjoy a few episodes while you eat your grits? 

Although today's surviving newspapers seem to run mostly the same (lousy) comics, it's nice to read the old favorites each day online on such websites as GoComics.com.