After 75 years, Popeye still packs a punch and he now sports a 3D image. All images © 2004 King Features Syndicate Inc. ™ Hearst Holdings Inc.

Popeye, the world’s beloved sailor man, is fond of saying, “I yam what I yam.” This year Popeye is 75 years young, and he is celebrating with his first-ever 3D animated adventure, Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.

This King Features initiative, rendered by computer animation specialists Mainframe Entertainment, is the first new Popeye animation to appear in more than 15 years. The 30-minute TV special of Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy is set to air on FOX on Dec. 17, 2004, while the DVD/home video from Lion’s Gate Entertainment — which includes an hour-long version of the Popeye special — releases on Nov. 9, 2004 ($19.98 for DVD; $14.98 for VHS).

“For Popeye to adapt to this new medium is a natural step in the evolution of the character,” comments Frank Caruso, King Features’ vp and creative and exec producer of Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.

“Popeye is the only character in the history of animation to endure almost seven decades of animation, weather a number of different studio makeovers and remain one of the most beloved characters in cartoon history,” Carouso says, continuing, “Also, being huge fans of the Fleischer animation, we posed the question to ourselves: if this technology had existed in the 1930s, would the Fleischer brothers have used it to animate their cartoons? And the answer was... absolutely!”

Popeye and Olive
Popeye first sailed into public view as an offshoot of an Olive branch — Olive Oyle, that is. Popeye made his first public appearance on January 17, 1929, in E.C. Segar’s then 10-year-old comic strip, Thimble Theatre, which originally revolved around Olive Oyl’s family. Although he was introduced as a minor walk-on character, Popeye quickly “muskled” his way into the limelight and eclipsed the older characters to become the star of “Thimble Theatre.” With Popeye came a host of new, offbeat funny folks such as Swee’Pea, the “infink” Popeye adopted; J. Wellington Wimpy, the world’s most hamburger-obsessed moocher; and Bluto, the hairy “heavy” with the glass jaw.

Popeye made the jump to the silver screen in a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon entitled Popeye the Sailor from the Fleischer Studios. Nearly 750 Popeye cartoons were made and many are available on video.

In 1980, Paramount Pictures released a live-action musical motion picture in which Popeye was portrayed by Robin Williams and Olive Oyl played by Shelley Duvall. In 1993, Ted Turner’s Cartoon Network celebrated the 60th anniversary of the sailor man’s film debut with Popumentary, a series of six primetime specials.

Popeye searches for Pappy (right) on the rough seas. Production designer Walter Martishius used the lush painterly style of CGI to recreate the color of the Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s.