# Popeye's Accent **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 14, 2002, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286 "2002-10-14T22:43:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fhios](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@fhios](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fhios)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/1 "2002-10-14T22:43:44Z")
So, just where was Popeye supposed to be from? A friend of mine thinks he’s suppossed to be from New Orleans, but I can’t place his way of talking at all. ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/2 "2002-10-14T23:23:58Z")
Popeye’s voice is often used as an example of what the Kargyraa technique of Tuvan throat singing sounds like. This could provide a clue. The juxtaposition of a sailor and Tuva - the “Center of Asia”, so far removed from the sea could suggest a much deeper meaning to Popeye. Perhaps we should drink some Araka, fermented mare’s milk, the national alcoholic drink of Tuva and ponder the possibilities of Popeye. Was he just a sailor man or was he actually a lost Tuvan throat singer far from home. ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/3 "2002-10-14T23:24:35Z")
I would say it is more of a New England whaler type of accent, with heavy doses of English “pirate”, like Long John Silver, mixed in. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/4 "2002-10-15T13:31:46Z")
Accent? I thought it was a _speech impediment_, caused by his deformed jaw. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/5 "2002-10-15T14:06:08Z")
I asked this very question some time ago in Cafe Society and got no answer, so I’m curious if anyone has one now. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/6 "2002-10-15T14:19:14Z")
The closest _human_ in terms of accent I can think of is Burgess Meredith, who was born in Cleveland Ohio. Was it Lake Erie Popeye sailed on all those years? ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/7 "2002-10-15T14:29:19Z")
The speech pattern is the result of the excess consumption of a mixture of spinach and olive oil. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/8 "2002-10-15T14:29:23Z")
**Fibonnacci** is right, insofar as anyone is right. But, really, truly, the answer is: **Popeye’s accent is not supposed to sound like any particular accent.** It was, at most, meant to be funny. That’s it. End of story. Why exactly do people think it has to represent a real accent? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/9 "2002-10-15T14:32:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NurseCarmen \* > The closest _human_ in terms of accent I can think of is Burgess Meredith… _Wah! Wah! Waaaah!_ ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/10 "2002-10-16T05:35:12Z")
Oy! I thought by the time the outage was over and I had come back, somebody would have a supported answer! Here is my post that I had finished just before the board went down. **h.sapiens** could be on the right track: One big fan claims to have the closest answer: Pastor Steve’s Popeye page: [http://www.mtcnet.net/~bierly/popeye.htm](http://www.mtcnet.net/~bierly/popeye.htm) In the FAQ page I found this: [http://www.mtcnet.net/~bierly/popfaq.htm](http://www.mtcnet.net/~bierly/popfaq.htm) > [@](#): > > This is all speculation, but I’ve always thought that the animated cartoon Popeye was a New Englander. In the cartoon, She-Sick Sailors, there’s a sign at the train station near Olive’s house that says Bridgeport, Connecticut. In the Famous Studios’ cartoons, Olive sometimes has a slight New York Jewish accent. Maybe Olive’s ancestors were Russian Jews who came to America. > An emailer pointed out to me that in the live-action movie, the Oyls sounded sort of Slavic. I don’t know that Popeye’s creator, E.C. Segar, ever really said what ethnic group the Oyls or Popeye himself belonged to. > > And in the Famous Studios’ cartoons, Bluto is said to be from Brooklyn, and many Fleischer cartoons certainly take place in Depression-era NYC, with all the characters living there. > > So Bluto and Olive seem to be New Yorkers, now (during the Famous Studios’ time frame) living in Connecticut, while Popeye seems to be a New Englander, who once lived in the Big Apple. And in some Famous Studios’ cartoons, they all seem to be back in NYC (maybe for a visit or to conduct business). See The Royal Four-Flusher and Symphony In Spinach for example. Now **fhios** , what New Orleans has to do with it? I think your friend is thinking of Popeye’s Chicken restaurant, which originated there. ---
**Author:** ![waxzad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/74df32/32.png) [@waxzad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waxzad)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/11 "2017-09-05T05:30:41Z")
I think his dialect is Newfoundland english but not his accent ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/12 "2017-09-05T10:30:22Z")
if anything, the Irish tend to speak in the croaky voice. But otherwise its a drunken (or elderly persons) slur with a smokers raspy voice. Maybe the sailer got strep throat cold or flu too many times. The sound probably suits an obese sailor, but they show him as quite fit. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/13 "2017-09-05T10:39:19Z")
> [@waxzad](#): > > I think his dialect is Newfoundland english but not his accent Do Newfoundlanders really say “fisks” instead of “fists”? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/14 "2017-09-05T11:22:11Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Do Newfoundlanders really say “fisks” instead of “fists”? I dass say they do. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/15 "2017-09-05T12:06:59Z")
I had a friend with a speech impediment who used to challenge people to identify her "accent’. People came up with the wildest things, and usually ended up embarrassed when she told them the truth. As with others in this thread, I don’t think that Popeye’s way of speaking was supposed to be an accent, or even a speech impediment. It’s just the gravelly way they voiced him. > [@](#): > > William “Billy” Costello, Jack Mercer as Popeye the Sailor (substitutes: Harry Foster Welch, Mae Questel, Floyd Buckley, Jackson Beck). Costello had a gruff, gravelly quality in voicing the character. It is generally thought that Costello became difficult to work with after becoming overly confident from the success of the first few cartoons.[1] Jack Mercer was working in the in-between department of Fleischer Studios doing imitations of Costello, and, after practicing at home for a week, replaced Costello as the voice of Popeye beginning with King of the Mardi Gras (1935).[2] Historians believe the character came into his own when Mercer became the voice artist, employing acting and emotion into the character. Mercer voiced the character until his death in 1984. Harry Welch substituted in several wartime cartoons, when Mercer left to serve in World War II. > **[Popeye the Sailor (film series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_the_Sailor_(animated_cartoons))** > > Popeye the Sailor is an American animated series of short films based on the Popeye comic strip character created by E. C. Segar. In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer's Fleischer Studios, based in New York City, adapted Segar's characters into a series of theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. The plotlines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler than those presented in the comic strips, and the characters slightly different. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye's "swee... The different actors don’t really sound the same, and you can distinguish between them. Mercer probably did it longer than anyone, and I do prefer his take on the voice. Costello sounds rougher and more gravelly. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/16 "2017-09-05T12:35:25Z")
It’s easy enough to explain away Popeye having an inconsistent accent/dialect. His pappy was a sailor before him, and he was raised at sea, always going from one port to the next. So he ended up picking up bits and pieces of the speech patterns of all the coastal cities in the world. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/17 "2017-09-05T12:45:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I had a friend with a speech impediment who used to challenge people to identify her "accent’. People came up with the wildest things, and usually ended up embarrassed when she told them the truth. > As with others in this thread, I don’t think that Popeye’s way of speaking was supposed to be an accent, or even a speech impediment. It’s just the gravelly way they voiced him. > > [Popeye the Sailor (film series) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_the_Sailor_(animated_cartoons)) > > The different actors don’t really sound the same, and you can distinguish between them. Mercer probably did it longer than anyone, and I do prefer his take on the voice. Costello sounds rougher and more gravelly. Billy West also voiced Popeye, as well as Poopdeck Pappy, in 2004’s [Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest For Pappy](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400743/). He described it as a buzzsaw in his throat. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/18 "2017-09-05T13:03:35Z")
I always assumed the comic strip character to be sort of Irish-American. Segar was all about the stereotypes, after all. Wikipedia says that the original voice belongs to a vaudeville actor named Billy Costello, and based on a raspy-voiced character who appeared on the Betty Boop radio show named Gus the Gorilla. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/19 "2017-09-05T15:16:39Z")
Since this is about a cartoon character, let’s move it to Cafe Society. Note that this thread was started in 2002. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286/20 "2017-09-05T15:42:14Z")
> [@h.sapiens](#): > > with heavy doses of English “pirate”, like Long John Silver, mixed in. Arrrrrmen! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popeyes-accent/132286.md?page=2)