What branch of service were Popeye & his friends members of?
The comic strip Popeye created by Segar was never in the Armed Forces. The animated cartoons put Popeye and Bluto both in the navy because of WWII. Although in one Fleischer cartoon, Many Tanks, and one Famous Studios’ toon, Spinach-Packin’ Popeye, Bluto was in the army!! As was Popeye in Fleischer’s I’m In The Army Now!! Fleischer’s Popeye Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves found Popeye serving in the Coast Guard, as did a KFS cartoon (I think – maybe it was a Hanna-Barbara one) where he fought the Sea Hag. (Thanks, Terah and CPO Matthew Boyle, for that Coast Guard info!) After the war, it was never clearly stated what branch of the service the boys were in, though they kept their white sailor uniforms. In a few cartoons, they were pictured aboard the living quarters on a ship, or disembarking after a tour at sea. In the majority of the cartoons, the whole Armed Services theme was never brought up. The Ocean comic books, which most fans view as apocryphal because they changed so much of P
