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...Shit, in yesterday's thread I forgot to include America's favorite angry spinster. 
Olive Oyl is perpetually 39-ish, unattractively scrawny, in hobnail boots, flat-chested, and big-nosed. She's dating an ancient, toothless, one-eyed sailor because, let's be honest, what are her other prospects?
That's it. That's the joke.
That's it. That's the joke.
And like a lot of spinsters in media of the time, she was kind of a shitty person. You never had to wonder why she wasn't married.
Her creation predates Popeye's in the original "Thimble Theater" comic; she was the fiancee of Ham Gravy, and the sister of Crude and Castor Oyl. (Yeah.)
She dumps Ham for Popeye. Most folks don't even remember him nowadays.
She dumps Ham for Popeye. Most folks don't even remember him nowadays.
One of the biggest disservices she's even been done was being reduced from a fickle, cantankerous, two-fisted, hard-to-love, downright-mean-at-times sass-master to... one of those weird, husbandless-housewife, perpetual kidnapping victims of the cartoons.
She was once a fully realized character with her own motivations and personality. She was kind of a crap person, and that was funny.
Now, she's basically Popeye's Girlfriend Who Gets Kidnapped A Lot.
Which sucks.
Now, she's basically Popeye's Girlfriend Who Gets Kidnapped A Lot.
Which sucks.
If you're only familiar with the passive tug-of-war victim of the cartoons, I strongly suggest you check out of of the Thimble Theatre collections of EC Segar's original strip (before it was renamed "Popeye.")
