Back in the day I would record television basically 24/7 and still have a pretty enormous collection of VHS tapes of television circa late 90's early 2000s. For over a decade now, I've been routinely ripping these tapes to my own home media server as backups so I can get rid of the original tapes. Recently, I found a VHS tape full of one of my favorite shows cartoon network ever aired, The Popeye Show. The Popeye Show was an anthology show which would show 3 episodes of Popeye the sailor man, but would bookend the episodes with tons of trivia or facts. Each episode had a theme, like one would be about world war II era popeye shorts or something. One of the episodes I saw today while ripping this tape was on the origins of popeye. For example, they showed the Betty Boop cartoon that was Popeye's animated debut (in film, popeye is a spinoff of betty boop). Anyways, near the end of the episode, they talk about the original design pages for popeye and throw this fact out, and it blew my mind.
Now, I admit, for years, I've actually noticed popeye doesn't have any teeth in the show. Unlike every other character, popeye is always shown with pink gums when he smiles:
You can see this in cartoons, too:
The episode explains why -- apparently this is old-school sailor humor. Popeye is intended to have scurvy from being at sea constantly. The episode explains that losing your teeth is a common effect of having scurvy. Over time, particularly in the later 60's and beyond popeye cartoons, they sort of dropped this trait, but if you look at old popeye cartoons, you'll notice he's toothless.
What a weird design.
Now, I admit, for years, I've actually noticed popeye doesn't have any teeth in the show. Unlike every other character, popeye is always shown with pink gums when he smiles:
You can see this in cartoons, too:
The episode explains why -- apparently this is old-school sailor humor. Popeye is intended to have scurvy from being at sea constantly. The episode explains that losing your teeth is a common effect of having scurvy. Over time, particularly in the later 60's and beyond popeye cartoons, they sort of dropped this trait, but if you look at old popeye cartoons, you'll notice he's toothless.
What a weird design.