Popeye cartoon character approaches milestone birthday

Comic strip icon Popeye the Sailor Man is creeping up on his 100th birthday in 2029.

 

Fans are urging America to get this party started early…by bringing Popeye back in balloon form for the 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 26, 2026, in New York City.

The 56-foot Popeye balloon appeared regularly in the Macy’s parade from 1957-68.

 

Popeye’s sweetheart Olive Oyl holds the distinction of being the “first female character to appear in balloon form” in the Macy’s parade. She made her debut in 1982. Olive’s balloon was about 75 feet tall; she was joined in her final year (1986) by the infant Swee’Pea.

 

Both Popeye and Olive were created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler (E. C.) Segar of Chester, Ill., who was born in 1894. 

As a teenager, Segar worked as the silent film projectionist at the Chester Opera House and drew cartoons with colored chalk on city sidewalks to advertise the week’s movie.

Opera house owner J. William Schuchert recognized Segar’s talent and paid for a correspondence course in cartooning for Segar, offered by the W. L. Evans School of Cartooning, based in Cleveland, Ohio. The curriculum included 19 lessons on “How to Draw Animated Cartoons.”

After finishing up each evening at the opera house, Segar “lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3 a.m.” He completed his coursework in 1916, at age 17, and was hired to draw for the Chicago Herald newspaper.

In 1918, Segar moved on to William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Evening American. The newspaper’s managing editor thought Segar could succeed in New York City, so he sent him to Hearst’s King Features Syndicate.

 

Segar’s comic strip, “Thimble Theatre,” debuted in the New York Journal on Dec.19, 1919. Olive Oyl was a member of the original cast, along with her brother Castor Oyl.

 

More than a decade later (on Jan. 17, 1929), Castor Oyl needed to hire a mariner to pilot his ship over to a private island. Castor picked up a weatherbeaten sailor named Popeye on the docks.

 

Segar fashioned his new character after Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, a rough and tumble Merchant Marine veteran who was born in Poland. In Chester, Rocky Fiegel was always getting into fights, but he also gave out candy and treats to children, including a young E. C. Segar.

 

Rocky worked at Wiebusch’s Tavern in Chester and entertained customers by telling stories about his adventures sailing the Seven Seas. Olive Oyl was patterned after Dora Paskel, owner of a corner grocery store in Chester.

 

Newspaper readers welcomed the addition of Popeye to the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip, and Segar elevated Popeye to become the star of the show.

Segar commonly signed his work “Segar,” connected to a sketch of a smoldering cigar, reflecting the slang-like pronunciation of his surname, “SEE-gar.” Segar died of leukemia in 1938 at age 43.

 

By this time, “Thimble Theatre” was published in about 500 newspapers globally. King Features Syndicate refused to let the comic strip disappear.

Tom Sims of Ohatchee, Ala., took over as writer. His father had operated a steamship on the Coosa River in Alabama. Sims said he mentally transformed the river into a “salty sea” for Popeye’s future adventures.

 

Sims’ scripts were drawn by Bela Zaboly of Cleveland, Ohio. Sims and Zaboly had a long run working together, collaborating on the daily Popeye comic strip well into the 1950s.

 

In 1959, the torch was passed to Forrest Cowles “Bud” Sagendorf of Wenatchee, Wash. He once worked as E. C. Segar’s assistant. Sagendorf continued to draw the Popeye strips until his death in 1994 at age 79.