Why is Popeye a hero?

Answer 1

• Born: 17 January 1929
• Birthplace: The Comics
• Best Known As: Fist-fighting, spinach-loving sailor of comics and Cartoons

Popeye the Sailor has been well-known to comic strip fans since his first appearance in the newspaper strip Thimble Theaterin 1929. The hot-tempered old salt with bulging forearms and a fractured vocabulary was at first a minor character, but he grew to dominate the strip as readers fell for Popeye "the sailor man." A comical cast of characters grew up around him: skinny flirt http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-dsid-1648-dekey-oliveoyl-nafid-10-initiator-WANS, origin-free orphan Swee'pea, tattered hamburger-lover J. Wellington Wimpy, and the bewhiskered brute Bluto, Popeye's perennial rival for Olive's attention. Popeye loved a good brawl, and would eat a can of spinach to give himself enough strength to secure victory. In 1933 Popeye made his way to animated cartoons (appearing first in a http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-dsid-1648-dekey-bettyboop-nafid-10-initiator-WANS short), and that's where his supernatural spinach habit really became famous, along with screwball sayings like "I yam what I yam" and "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!" Hundreds of Popeye short subjects were made, and Popeye cartoons were a fixture in movie theaters and television well into the 1960s. The comic strip continued right into the 21st century, handled by a succession of artists. (Popeye's creator, Elzie Segar, died in 1938.) Popeye was played by http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-dsid-1648-dekey-robinwilliams-nafid-10-initiator-WANS in the 1980 feature film Popeye, which co-starred Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and was directed by Robert Altman.

According to the King Features website, "Spinach growers credited Popeye with a 33 percent increase in U.S. spinach consumption  and saving the spinach industry in the 1930s!"... The Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurant chain is named not for Popeye the Sailor, but rather (according to the fast-food company) for the Popeye Doyle character played by http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-dsid-1648-dekey-genehackman-nafid-10-initiator-WANS in The French Connection... Bluto was called Brutus in some later animated cartoons... Wimpy was an incorrigible moocher whose regular promise was, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

That's why.