More Popeye

[LittleArm]

It's true.. Popeye really is just a scrawny runt next to the magnificent physique of Bluto.

[loopyrhino2001]

Hey, where did you find that pic of me and Hulkmuscle?

[musqlure]

Speaking of Popeye, anyone know where I can find clips of some of the cartoons? I'm interested in the episode "For Better or Nurse" where Bluto eats Popeye's spinach and gets even more muscular, then beats the crap out of Popeye.

[6-5 stachedude]

The Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/popeye...ualtendensies/ has a folder in the Photos section called "Bluto's Sexy Pecs" that shows the sequence of his chest expanding and his 'involuntary' double-bi pose after he gets all spinached up. The battleship tattoo across his chest gets huge and fires off its cannons just like it did in the toon BEACH PEACH (also a folder in that section).

[musqlure]

Thanks for the tip, man. Bluto is so hot. Wish there were more cartoons where he beat the crap out of Popeye. Nothing's hotter than a big bully!

[6-5 stachedude]

Bluto beats the crap out of Popeye easily in just about every cartoon--until Popeye cheats and resorts to his little "equalizer." I think the best and most prolonged beating of the worthless runt is in "How Green Is My Spinach," where Bluto bounces Popeye up against a wall using only his pec muscles--HOT!!

There is one other cartoon--"Beaus Will Be Beaus"--where Bluto not only shows off his tanned-up muscular bod in a bathing suit through most of it but eats spinach in the end and gives Popeye the comeuppance he so richly deserves.

[musqlure]

Wow! I gotta find "Beaus Will Be Beaus." Wish someone would make more Popeye comics in which big bad Bluto always comes out on top.

[6-5 stachedude]

The photo section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/popeye...ualtendensies/ has an album titled "Bluto In A Bathing Suit" that is mostly taken from this cartoon. Should give you some taste of what you can look forward to!

[musqlure]

Thanks Stachedude. I've checked out the Yahoo group, and it's pretty good. If only it had actual clips from the cartoons. I'm looking to find some DVD compilations of Popeye cartoons. Any idea where I might find them?

[6-5 stachedude]

Amazon.com has DVDs titled "70 Years of Popeye" and "Popeye Vols. 1,2,3, & 4," but I don't own any of them and they don't list contents so I'm not in a position to advise.

The "inspiring" Popeye cartoons are the ones made between 1944 and 1957 by Famous Studios where Bluto is an outrageously developed bodybuilder (earlier and later cartoons made him a buffoonish lardass). I just wait till they come on the Cartoon Network, although some of the best ones are no longer shown because of their violent content (e.g. 'Quick On The Vigor,' where Popeye continues to brutally savage Bluto's body long after he is beaten unconscious).

You're right about that Yahoo group--it certainly is hot, even if a lot of the photo content is somewhat off-topic (i.e. pics of musclemen naked or in black speedoes or skin-tight jeans or a bearded Tom Katt getting beat up and hogtied, etc.). However, limited as it may be in terms of Bluto action, it's far and away the best of the lot--go to any of the other Popeye groups (there are at least a dozen) and you wouldn't even know there was a Bluto character. What would anyone find of interest in Popeye cartoons other than that bearded musclebound nemesis who always ends up beaten into pulp?

[musqlure]

Yeah, I saw some DVDs advertised on line, but they don't list the content. Without that, I'm not willing to shell out the money. There's a 75th anniversary DVD as well, and it supposedly has something like 8 hours of cartoons, but once again, I can't seem to find out what episodes are on it.

Obviously, I'm only interested in the Famous Studios episodes, because they're the only ones with a big, buff Bluto. I agree that there's nothing interesting about the cartoon without Bluto, but I don't personally enjoy seeing him beat up. I much prefer the scenes where the big muscleman beats the everliving shit out of Popeye. Now THAT is worth watching.

[hulkmuscle]

Originally Posted by loopyrhino2001

Hey, where did you find that pic of me and Hulkmuscle?

OMG!?! Now that's funny...

[norvabear]

I have the 70 Years of Popeye DVD and it's not all that wonderful. It's mostly cartoons that are in the public domain and have been around for years. The quality of the picture is much better than these cartoons have had for years, though, thanks to the restoral of them that's been done for this DVD. The best of the cartoons on this disc is "Out to Punch", where Bluto keeps trying to tire out Popeye before their big championship fight. Otherwise, it's not worth buying. You might want to rent it, though, just to see what's on it.

[musqlure]

Well, from the sound of it, that DVD isn't worth the trouble. Wish I could find a collection of just the Famous Studios cartoons someplace. That's something I'd spend a little money on.

[6-5 stachedude]

There seems to be so much interest out there that a "Best Of Bluto" DVD would make somebody a ton of money. But, unfortunately, such a thing does not exist at present, and finding hot cartoons usually involves hours of sitting through Popeye's misadventures with gophers and other such rot. But the raw material is definitely out there so that it could be done and done well.

Don't discount "Out To Punch," though. It involves a little more than Bluto trying to slow Popeye down--check out this review: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/popeye...ies/message/26

[musqlure]

Hmmmm . . . a "Best of Bluto" DVD? Now that would be hot. I'd settle for a complete collection of the Famous Studios cartoons.

Not sure why I find Bluto so hot. I mean, he's a big, muscular hunk and all, but he is, after all, only a cartoon character. Must have something to do with seeing these cartoons at a young age and being aroused by them, but not having any idea why. I can still remember seeing "For Better or Nurse" as a young kid and committing the title to memory because I thought it was so hot. Decades later, I still remember the name of that episode!

I guess I'm a little weird -- a cartoon villan gives me a hard on.

[6-5 stachedude]

Bluto's effect on you was not happenstance. Bluto was deliberately created to appeal to gay men.

Paramount Studios took over the Popeye series from the bankrupt Fleischer brothers in 1944. Ratings had tanked and a total revamp of the characters was ordered. Popeye was changed from a scrappy champion of the underdog to an anachronistic chump; Olive went from frumpy beanpole to appealing cutie; and Bluto transformed from an overstuffed monodimensional bully to what a notorious in-house memo termed a "faggot's dream."

The first of the new cartoons was "The Anvil Chorus Girl," where Bluto must have sent theater-going men streaming to the restroom stalls for relief as he showed off his new physique and flexed his tremendous bicep (can you cite me one instance from any movie of the '40s when a man did a bicep pose?). The second of the new series was "She-Sick Sailors," with Bluto now clad in a black speedo and a muscle shirt so tight that his powerful pecs and delts were on continual display and his miniscule waist and six-pack were revealed. Again, who in 1944 dressed in this manner? And remember, the most advanced bodybuilders of the day weighed all of 200 pounds and had 44" chests, a far cry from Bluto's maybe 80" and 25" arms. The animators were inventing modern bodybuilding and showboating as they went.

Take another look at Little Arm's pic, which dates from 1952. Did Steve Reeves' bod hold a candle to that? Bluto's black swim briefs, dark tan, full beard, and muscles on top of muscles--this was no Tab Hunter or Gordon MacRae, designed to appeal to the ladies. The way Bluto so easily and totally dominates Popeye, and then gets creamed in the end with his breathtaking bod so thoroughly and absolutely vanquished, was MEANT to give you a boost in your trousers.

"Beaus Will Be Beaus" (1947) shows already huge muscle getting bigger as we watch. Could this have been the invention of muscle growth?

[musqlure]

What? There's a memo saying that Bluto was a "faggot's dream"? How do you find out things like this?

Of course, now that you mention it, Bluto's hypermasculine, hypermuscular, exaggerated physique and the muscle flexing are all quite obviously homoerotic, and even in the 1940's and 50's, this can't have escaped the notice of viewers. Clearly, whoever created the concept and drew the cartoons had a gay sensibility.

I'm going to redouble my efforts to find some of these cartoons on DVD or VHS.

[6-5 stachedude]

There is such a thing as the Official Popeye Fan Club, and they do publish a fanzine (How, one wonders, could they take a subject so exciting and make it so completely boring ad nauseum? I guess because, like most 'official' Popeye fan stuff, they steer entirely clear of Bluto altogether). Anyway, back in the early '90s they interviewed one of the last surviving animators who was in his 90s (I believe it was Myron Waldman) who gave us a tantalizing glimpse of the origins of the "revamped" Bluto character and what someone in the Paramount Studios (Famous Studios was the cartoon subsidiary) hierarchy wanted done with him. The artists took their cue and gave us what may be the first thoroughly homoerotic character in mass media history.

How homoerotic was he? Take a look at this one cartoon review if you can stand it:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/popeye...ies/message/15

[musqlure]

Pretty amazing that such a thing would be done back in the 1940's. It must have been quite a thrill for the gay man or men who conceived the whole idea to see it on screen.

I wonder if there are other cartoon characters who were designed for similar reasons. The Incredible Hulk, perhaps?

[glammaman2000]

...our only,iconic,beloved Bugs(Bunny)!

[6-5 stachedude]

Bluto was unique, revolutionary, and decades ahead of his time. What other 60+ year-old images still remain capable of exciting us in our image-saturated age?

Hulk had muscle, yes, but it was never presented in a sexually suggestive manner. And Bugs Bunny (Little Arm's avatar notwithstanding) was all about employing a conniving mind to outwit an opponent.

Consider:

Bluto was given clothing that nobody actually dared to wear in his day. There was, for example, his red stretch tee shirt in GYM JAM that highlighted every spectacular muscle; his skin-tight white jeans in TAR WITH A STAR that revealed outrageously developed thighs and a perfect bubble butt; equally form-fitting black jeans, cowboy boots, and a red muscle shirt that made you really take notice of his strapping physique in RODEO ROMEO, and of course the black speedoes they were forever finding occasion for him to wear. Even his everyday white sailor suit was cut so low in front that it showed off the defined cleavage between his huge pillow pecs. Bluto's creators presaged Tom of Finland in many ways, and probably were a major source of Tom's inspiration.

And then there was the highly suggestive disposition of Bluto's devastated carcass after Popeye was through beating him up--the big man's underwear-clad buttocks branded and paddled by a windmill in JOB FOR A GOB; knocked out, face down, and spreadeagle on the back of a carousel horse in PITCHING WOO AT THE ZOO; bound and trapped at the top of a phallus-like pole (clad only in a pair of posing briefs!) while Popeye pummels away at his useless muscles in QUICK ON THE VIGOR.

Bluto had a tattoo of a battleship in BEACH PEACH and FOR BETTER OR NURSE that would express his potent manliness by firing off its massive cannons. And in GYM JAM, Popeye is openly smitten with Bluto and pursues him romantically (Bluto is thinly disguised as a woman here, but his face stubble and protruding musculature are plainly in evidence), something he NEVER did with Olive Oyl.

The creators gave us a character that epitomized male sexuality and had him hotly destroyed at the conclusion of every episode. They escaped the censors of the period by thinly disguising their erotic creation as a morality play. Their work remains to this day the gold standard of cartoon dynamite.

[Mdlftr]

...Not to disagree with my learned friend, Stache Dude, BUT!

...... there are other cartoons which still inspire to this day,
and which contain muscle and violence and were allegedly "JUST" for kids.

What about "The Mighty Hercules" cartoon? Of the famous theme song ("standing there with pride....") from the 1960s??

He was beaten up on occasion by the evil Daedalus, who left him in a heap. When
Herc came back, his iconic biceps (after the lightening flash to his power ring) would flex and bulge as he struck Daedalus and then followed through, every ripple clearly shown. Daedalus and his scrawny physique, the epitome of evil jealousy, would go flying backwards, to crash ignominiously.

Hercules' toga was cut to fully display each of his mighty arms, and give a tantilizing view of his chest. His face, clearly modeled on Steve Reeves in the Hercules films, was classically movie-star handsome

Finally, who could forget the sight of his well-muscled thighs and calves as he leapt skyward at the end of each episode, leaving Daedalus and the his little Centaur friend, Newton, staring worshipfully upward? [What WAS he wearing under that toga!! ]

Bluto has classical company!

---As for Bugs, he's in a class by himself! Who could forget his soaring duet with Elmer Fudd, "Who Killed the Wabbit", when Bugs played Sieglinde to Elmer's Siegfried, in "It's All About Opera, Doc!" Truly unmatched!

As for Bugs and muscle, who could forget his serious pump in "Space Jam" opposite the wooden Michael Jordan? Bugs is the true renaissance man!....er...rabbit!


Mdlftr

[glammaman2000]

I never said that Bugs was HOT,just that he was gay&an inspiration to many.

[glammaman2000]

May I point out that for the 1st.third of most of these cartoons Olive is SERIOUSLY into Bluto?(who can blame her?)Is it possible that the oxylate-induced thrashings of the one-eyed runt are a thinly veiled warning to a certain wandering-eyed beanpole temptress?(Not such a nice guy now;is he?)

[6-5 stachedude]

When I call Bluto "unique" I mean in the context of the time of his creation. Yes, there are innumerable examples of muscular display in cartoons (ranging from Mdlftr's 'Mighty Hercules' to the Duff Beer Man) post-Bluto but none--absolutely NONE--pre-Bluto. Bluto's creators in 1944 were hypothesizing about what a supremely developed male physique might look like decades before such a 280-pound human pinnacle of perfection actually existed. They succeeded in creating a look we today take for granted (check out the 'Bluto's Tight Shirts' photo album at the Yahoo group), inventing it out of whole cloth.

Yes, Olive came on to Bluto and let him know that his big muscles were a major turn-on. She would caress his flexed bicep and gush over his "unique physique" and "mess of muscle" and call him a "handsome monstrosity" and "handsome Samson." She wood lustily declare "strong men are my weakness" as Bluto would do an explosive double-bi pose wearing a speedo and bulging tank top low-cut down to his navel. Again, there was no precedent in mass media history for this type of extreme male sensuality, and the Hercules cartoon series was entirely bereft of this sort of vainglorious display. It was Bluto--not Herc, and not Bugs--who paved the way for a new and more open era.

It must be noted that Popeye cartoons (at least the pre-KFS ones) were definitely NOT created for children. The themes are rife with adult sexual themes and extreme violence. Come to think of it, it is a wonder that our parents did not howl with indignation that they were being broadcast for the consumption of their impressionable six-year-olds!

[musqlure]

I agree with you, Stache Dude, that Popeye cartoons were not created for children. But then, none of the cartoons of the era really were. If you look at a Bugs Bunny cartoon from the same epoch, there's loads of adult humor, including references to high culture and (then) current events that would go way over the heads of most kids. Now, this humor wasn't necessarily sexual, but it was clearly aimed at adults and not children.

You're probably right that Bluto was the most overtly (homo) erotic character of the time. And it's certainly true that what you call the "vainglorious display" of Bluto's physique was absent from other cartoons both at that time and perhaps later. I'd bet that with sufficient research you could find a PhD thesis on all of this somewhere.

In any event, you could probably make a fortune with a truly "adult" themed Bluto cartoon now. Imagine a XXX Bluto cartoon with Bluto as a porn star. I'm sure lots of gay men who grew up watching Popeye cartoons would find themselves more aroused by these cartoon characters then by "real" porn stars.

[6-5 stachedude]

That's such a hot idea I can't believe no one has come up with it (or at least acted on it) before! Look at Little Arm's pic again--the man wouldn't even need a whole lot in the way of updating to be as contemporary as tomorrow. But to me Bluto would have to be more than just a mere porn star--how about one who juggles professional bodybuilding (as the carny barker noted in QUICK ON THE VIGOR, 'Each and every muscle on his herc-u-le-an physique vibrates') and pro wrestling (Bluto without a lusty fight scene would be no more than an animated Pete Kuzak) with his 'film' career. Maybe he could be a biker in his off-hours, too--Bluto and chaps and biker boots and leather jackets and stomping little people seem like a natural adjunct to his personality. There are endless possibilities here....

[musqlure]

Yeah, Bluto would have to have the fight scenes or he wouldn't be Bluto. But I think we could come up with far better endings to them. How about this -- instead of the typical ending being Bluto getting beaten up by Popeye after Popeye eats his spinach, we could have Bluto beating the shit out of Popeye and then fucking the ugly little runt in the ass.

And while we're on the topic of Popeye, Bluto, and homoeroticism, has it struck anyone else that Olive Oyl is the least female looking woman in the world? I mean, she has no breasts, no hips, and big feet. In short, she looks like nothing so much as an underfed boy. I don't think it's a coincidence that Popeye and Bluto's love object is so utterly androgynous.

[6-5 stachedude]

You are coming to the same conclusions I have reached about the "real" intent behind the Popeye cartoons. There is but one stick of sexual dynamite in the cast of characters and it sure ain't Olive Oyl. Think about it--if she had been on any kind of a par with Big Bad Bluto as a sex bomb she would have had to have looked, well, as hot as Bluto in drag in "Gym Jam." Now, THAT was one heck of a woman!!(?)

Bluto destroying Popeye for our lustful titillation: an excellent idea rife with possibilities. There was a scene in "Safari So Good" (where they gave the big guy nothing but a tight and skimpy black loincloth to wear) where Tarzan Bluto extracts milk from a coconut by easily squeezing it between his enormous rock-hard bicep and his powerful forearm. Imagine him using the same technique on Popeye's brains (who wouldn't pay ten dollars to see that??).

Now, some of us find the very thought of Bluto doing the actual deed with a wimp as unworthy as Popeye to be sacrilege. But Bluto slowly and elaborately squeezing the juices out of Popeye in an agonizing bearhug as a pre-sex turn-on for The Champ from "Punch And Judo" or the lifeguard from "Beach Peach" sure would be explosive. Bluto relieving his throbbing five-pound salami in Popeye's emaciated glory-hole might be accceptable, however, provided he was concurrently beholding in a mirror the arousing spectacle of his own sweaty muscles posed while engorged from administering that savage beating that finally destroyed the cheating runt.

[musqlure]

Oh yeah, Bluto should definitely be impressed with his own magnificent physique.

And he really needs to beat the shit out of Popeye. I won't feel true relief until I see it happen.

[6-5 stachedude]

Relief. That is something you will not find in the two "holy grail" cartoons where Bluto does spinach and "defeats" Popeye.

In both cartoons Popeye controls Bluto. He grabs the big man's head and yanks his mouth open and forces the spinach into him. How likely is it that a 280-pound gorilla would allow a 104-pound wimp to do that to him without resistence?

Then the "fight" itself is in both instances nothing to compare to Popeye's spinach-induced thrashings of Bluto. Bluto merely does a handful of pitiable and robotic left-right jabs to Popeye's face as Popeye laughs at him--maybe three lousy seconds of third-rate "action." In "Beaus Will Be Beaus," where we have previously witnessed the mass and definition of Bluto's muscle spectacularly displayed in a bathing suit, insult is added to injury: No sooner is he through with Popeye than Olive Oyl nails him with a right hook and knocks the big man into a trash basket (which he is utterly powerless to escape). Not exactly an occasion for Bluto fans to rejoice.

The best of the cartoons show Bluto employing extreme muscular control and highly imaginitive punishments against Popeye. Bluto savors Popeye's destruction every step of the way (I like the cigar smoking thing), and holds back from the full deployment of his immense power so that he can extend the length of the one-sided battle. In "How Green Is My Spinach" we get a full 90 seconds of Bluto in a total romp before the pained voice of the announcer pleads "Bluto is hitting Popeye with everything but the kitchen sink!" To the horror of Popeye supporters Bluto comes up with just such an object and clocks the long-since-demolished little man right in the skull. This is complete carnage. This is what we all want!

[LittleArm]

Can you blame Olive for being so excited watching Bluto display his magnificent bicep?



I must admit, Popeye was pretty impressive as a baby:

[6-5 stachedude]

Little Arm, as always, your stuff rocks. Its brilliance is that it captures exactly in one little cap the essence of what makes Bluto still a huge force sixty-one years after his creation.

Your work and that of the other great luminaries like Norvabear, O's powerful drawings, and the computer art of Blathering Bear are the collective lodestone of the burgeoning Blutovian Revival movement. Bluto is at last getting the recognition he has so long deserved as a pivotal character on the road toward open appreciation of the beauty and power of the developed male physique. No other "bodybuilding star" of his day has stood the test of time nearly so well.

That being said, I must take issue with one of your statements: that Popeye looks "pretty impressive." Post-spinach Popeye, whether infant or adult, has oversized biceps and nothing else! No delts, no lats, no chest, no legs, NOTHING!!

In looking over the hundreds of Bluto pics at the PopeyesBisexualTendensies Yahoo Group I am always struck by the fact that the animators way back when knew exactly what constituted an outrageously built man. Bluto had it all from traps to quads and everything in between. Yet these same creators never applied this anatomical knowledge to the spinached-up Popeye.

Seems to me like a deliberate attempt to keep Bluto, even when he was subjugated by Popeye, the real star of the show.

[musqlure]

Today I happened to catch some Popeye cartoons on the Cartoon Network. One of them was "Vacation With Play." I noticed something in the cartoon that struck me as a little odd. In this episode, Bluto is an athletic instructor at a resort hotel. He makes an announcement over a loudspeaker asking all the attractive women who desire athletic instruction to report to the pool area. Several voluptuous beauties soon arrive, and we are treated to a lineup of curvaceous, relatively realistic looking women. Along with them is Olive Oyl, who is, as usual, stick thin, flat chested, and hipless. Yet, it is Olive Oyl who catches Bluto's eye, despite the far more obvious beauty of the other women.

Clearly, the writers of this episode were playing it very tongue-in-cheek. Rather than going for one of the women drawn to look like a 1940's movie star, Bluto goes for Olive Oyl, an androgynous waif with a boyish body. What are we to conclude from that?

[6-5 stachedude]

"Vacation With Play" was one of a fair number of Popeye cartoons (others that come to mind are 'Quick On The Vigor,' 'Rodeo Romeo,' and 'Popeye Meets Hercules') that start out with the same pretext: Bluto is provocatively attired, with his chiseled physique blatantly displayed, and he is surrounded by beautiful women who each want his studly bod in the worst way. Should he happen to strike a beefcake pose they all literally melt in ecstasy. Inexplicably, of the stunning array of beauties available to him, he selects Olive Oyl for the day's conquest.

Consider: If Bluto had instead selected the Betty Grable lookalike there would have been no involvement with Popeye, no denouement where the spinach is consumed, and no sound thrashing of the boastful bodybuilder--all sine qua nons of the Popeye formula. I believe the animators felt stultified by these license-mandated constraints and telegraphed their displeasure by making Bluto a far more appealing character than Popeye and by underscoring the implausibility of scenes like the one you describe.

[hunksquared]

check this websitehttp://www.archive.org/search.php?qu...3A%22popeye%22

[Lacho]

I have a scene in the episode For Better or Nurse
http://www.tu.tv/videos/bluto-musculo

[bigmag2]

Originally Posted by Lacho

I have a scene in the episode For Better or Nurse
http://www.tu.tv/videos/bluto-musculo

wow i searched for a while to find that clip. thanks

[HawkShark]

There was a commercial for Snapple Twists or something like that like eight years ago that had normal looking people with popeye forearms... I remember at the time thinking it was ridiculous but kinda hot, anyone seen that video around?