I have to admit, it has been a while since I saw a Popeye cartoon. I was just a child. I don’t even know if they show it on TV anymore.
Anyways, the cartoons long out-date me. Many of them are even in black and white. That is how old they are.
But I do remember this one thing from the cartoon. Popeye would be walking down a street, usually with Olive Oyl. And they would reach a pole, about to separate them on their way. Then Popeye would suddenly stop, and say “Bread and butter” and make sure the pole didn’t separate them. I assume he was referring to some old superstition, or something like that.
But what superstition was he referring to? And what saying (I assume) with “Bread and butter”? What was the whole saying?
A lot of old sayings and superstitions just go away, I suppose. Maybe we should do better to preserve the memory of some of them.
I’m picturing a (color) cartoon from the 40s, perhaps Loony Tunes but not any of their main characters, with a scene from a zoo, where two tigers (or were they lions?) pace back and forth in a cage repeatedly saying “bread and butter”.
My wife and I do that all the time now when we’re walking and take separate paths around a pole or low fence or something. And we were both born in the 80s. So, perhaps an old superstition, but it’s still got practitioners.
Okay, I know that when Popeye says, “Blow me down,” he’s referring to the sea chantey Blow the Man Down. I don’t know many of the verses, but it starts:
"I’ll sing you a song, a good song of the sea,
To me way, aye, blow the man down.
I trust you will join in the chorus with me.
Give me some time to blow the man down.
My question is, just what is blowing the man down? It seems like maybe it refers to punching someone? I mean, that’s what Popeye did a lot. But why would you need time to do that? You’d think that could be done in seconds.
So, I guess it means something else? What?
And yes, I know Popeye was created way after the song.
And I don’t mean to hijack, or shanghai this thread. I was just wondering.
Pro tip: Don’t google “blow the man down” at work.
My grandmother taught me to say “bread and butter” when we were walking together. I sometimes say it now when I’m cutting between two people, but no one ever seems to pick up on it.
This was mentioned (in a slightly different form) in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy and Barney were walking down the sidewalk and walked on opposite sides of a light pole. Barney said “Pins!” and was upset that Andy didn’t immediately say “Needles!”. Barney lectured Andy that it was bad luck to get separated while walking together and that it was necessary for each of them to say one of two words that went together to avert the bad luck. He explained that if he had said “Bread!” Andy would be expected to reply “Butter!”
I remember people doing the Bread and Butter thing when I was a child, and something else I can’t remember that may have Pins and Needles. Also like saying ‘Jinx’ when people say the same thing at the same time. I’m not sure what consequences of failing to perform the ritual would be but it’s probably not a spinal injury to your mother because that’s the result of something else.
As I recall, Wimpy was a cheapskate and a scam artist, so his promise to repay the lender on Tuesday was an empty one. He also sometimes said, “I’d like to invite you over to my house for a duck dinner. You bring the ducks.”
He probably could pay for his own hamburgers, but why buy your own if you can con some poor sap into paying instead?
