Popeye Characters

[doc]

Which obscure Popeye character would you have liked to have seen (or have seen more of) in the cartoons? I would have liked to have seen more of Geezil. I just liked him for some reason. Characters from the original strips that I would have loved to see in the cartoons were Castor Oyl, his buddy Harold "Ham" Hamgravy, the immortal Toar, and sailor dwarf Pooky Jones.

Well, that's my two bits for the night.

GW

[mhberest]

I'd go with Toar. He was the comics' first gay character.

[bluto]

Geezil and Toar. Oscar could have added some more comic relief as well.

[doc]

What was the deal with Oscar, anyway? How did he get injected into the strip and what was he supposed to be? I think I saw him VERY briefly in a couple of the cartoons, but I'm not sure of his story. I have a very vague recollection of him being this useless soldier in Blozo's army, but it has been so long.....

Oscar: figure of mystery or just a goofball with bad teeth. The world may never know.

[darcat]

How about that "Willie Wormwood" do you think he was a model for some of the later cartoon bad guys.Snidely Whiplash,Dishonest John and others who dressed like he did early on?

[mhberest]

I'd also recommend Geezil. Although he was presented a bit over the top (although wasn't everybody presented that way in Thimble Theater?), Geezil was a rare instance of a Jewish character created without Anti-Semitic overtones. Segar was a very advanced thinker in many ways.

Of course, the great irony (if it is an irony) is that Geezil had the same last name as Dr. Seuss (although his was spelled Giesel).

[doc]

I have always wondered about Geezil's background. He does conform in appearance to a Hassidic Jew, but I don't know if this was intentional or not. Many of Segar's background characters had long coats, or long beards, or hats, or a similar look. Was Geezil intended to be a Jewish character, or was it just a by-product of Segar's art style?

[mhberest]

I regard Geezil to be Jewish. Doesn't he always wear a hat? Jews are supposed to keep their heads covered before God as a sign of respect. We also are not supposed to shave (that one proved problematic for Samson). And his clipped manner of speech, fractured English, cries of "Bah!" also are reminiscent of Eastern European Jewish speech.

In the one Popeye theatrical he makes an appearance in, "Olive's Boithday Presink," he is portrayed as distinctly Jewish, but with Anti-Semitic overtones. He's a dishonest furrier (of course, in the comic strip Geezil was neither dishonest, nor a furrier; he "gobbled" shoes) who speaks with a distinctly Jewish accent and says Yiddishisms like, "If I'm lying, the ceiling should fall in on my head!" It's forgivable for no other reason than just about everyone working on the cartoon was also Jewish, but why Geezil was transformed this way makes no sense to me.

Also, Dr. Seuss to the contrary, "Giesel" can be either a Jewish or a German surname.

[doc]

I always thought that Geezil looked like an undertaker. I expected Pappy to take one look at him and faint, presuming that he was going to be taken away to be laid to rest.

In some, more recent, sources, it is stated that Geezil is actually from Nazilia. Since he looks and sounds nothing like the other Nazilians shown, I doubt the veracity of this.

[mhberest]

I suspect the full name of the country he's from is Ashkenazilia.

[mhberest]

I also suspect Oscar to be Wilbur Kookmeyer's grandfather.

[hsjones]

In the KFS Popeye cartoons, Geezil is Professor Snazolla, who invented a time machine who transported Popeye into the past & future. in these cartoons Popeye is the Chronic Argonaut,(a slang term meaning time traveller.) How about what it would be like if Geezil(Professor Snazolla) would ask Circus star, Popeye about having circus girl, Olive Oyl, from "Tops in the Big Top", about being the first circus girl time traveller?