Back in our conker-playing, football sticker-collecting days, my primary schoolmates and I were in clear and enthusiastic agreement as to the funniest thing ever dreamed up by humankind: The campfire farting scene in Blazing Saddles. It had no serious competition (although a joke involving a passenger having a poo out a train window did, at one time, run it reasonably close).
Though farts and poos remain, of course, potent comic muses, the sad reality is that they just don’t occasion as much hilarity as they once did. When last I saw Blazing Saddles, for example, I sat stone-faced and disappointed throughout much of it. Even the copious wind-breaking left me cold.
The reason why childhood/childish humour is on my mind is as follows. Last weekend, for some reason, "The Sailor’s Hornpipe" began heavy and insistent rotation in/on my mental jukebox (and once tunes pop in like this it can be tough work to pop them back out). Before long I was tunelessly whistling it. Not long after that the words "I’m Popeye the Sailor Man" inevitably tagged themselves on. I defy anyone to (mentally or aurally) hear said melody without one thing inexorably leading to the other.
Much the same can be said for the paintings of Piet Mondrian. Who (of a certain age) can view their rectangular forms without thinking immediately of VO5 hair gel? Poor Mondrian himself, God rest his soul, probably spins in his grave (also thinking of hair gel).
After happily singing a few verses of "Popeye", detailing the connection between being "strong to the finich" and "eating spinach", my mind flashed back to this playground classic:
I'm Popeye the sailor man
I live in a caravan
When I go swimmin'
I kiss all the women
I'm Popeye the sailor man!
Believe it or not that ditty was once capable of making tears steam down even the most mirthless child's cheeks. The chief alternative version I recall went something like:
I'm Popeye the sailor man
I live in a frying pan
I turned on the gas
And burnt my ass
I'm Popeye the sailor man!
A cursory bit of (Googly) research reveals that there were/are many other versions: He lives in a watering can, he sleeps with his granny, when it gets chilly he tickles his willy etc. The one quality all the versions share is a pronounced unfunniness, at least to my (reasonably) adult eyes. Yet back in the early/mid-80s such mildly bawdy rhyming would have sounded (to my pals and I) like edgy, taboo-busting humour of the most uproarious kind.
All of which, I suppose, just goes to show that though young children are often poetically imagined to be icons of freedom and unpolluted wildness they actually have (in most cases) a clear sense of moral/social propriety. That, I imagine, partly accounts for the popularity of scatological, gently ribald humour in playgrounds. There's nothing quite like talk of farts and mickies to deliver the po-faced adult world of "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" a much-needed kick in the pants.
One wonders if new versions of the Popeye song continue to be created. Are they still out there, evolving and adapting to reflect the ostentatious 'marvels' of contemporary Ireland?
I'm Popeye the actuary
I drive a big SUV…
A few final notes -
Though I've always been a fan of E.C. Segar's gurning old sea dog, it wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I got to experience Popeye in some of his earlier, less-diluted, forms. Fantagraphics' recent decision to (handsomely) reprint all of Segar's Popeye-related Thimble Theatre strips would be cause for celebration if I wasn't so broke. I'm finding it tough enough keeping up with their wonderful Krazy Kat series without another dangly, sugar-coated carrot of comic goodness being held in front of me.
Must get money. Money good.
I discovered further evidence of my need for deeper pockets the other day with the anouncement that:
The first 60 Fleischer Popeye cartoons (from 1933 to 1938), restored from the original negatives, uncut, all Paramount titles restored, will be released as a 4 disc collector’s edition DVD set this summer.
Major Fleischer Studios' releases like this are must haves. Not only did they capture Popeye in all hs surreal, mutterin'/mumblin' glory, they also produced the most sumptuous Superman cartoons ever created. I'm sick of not having the cash to buy such wonderful things.
It's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more…
We own a two-disc “sampler” of those oldies with several Popeye episode and a rake of those lovely Superman cartoons from the 40’s.
My eldest kids (nearly 4 and 2 1/2)are absolutely enthralled by them.
Given the choice of last year’s “Superman Returns”(not a bad fillum at all) and these they go for old ones every time.
Wise heads on old shoulders and all that.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:07 amBollix! I meant to say Wise heads on young shoulders or something to that effect.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:10 amMy anti-spam word was ‘buster’by the way.
Hangar Q, Glad to hear that the chiddlers opt for the ol’ Fleischers over Superman Returns (which I thought was a very, very, very bad fillum).
The anti-spam word in question is the name of one of our cats. Named in honour of Mr. Keaton.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:39 pmHow the memories come flooding back: I too remember lyrics to this tune that were equally random, unfunny and had me in painful stitches of laughter as a child. Amazingly, the version I best recall isn’t in your post or the popeye website although you did allude to one of the key rhymes in your piece. In the version that most made me laugh, Popeye asserted his existence, told us he lived in a pot of jam which, it turned out, was so ’sticky’ that it stuck to his…I suppose I’d better write it for anyone unfamiliar with Irish slang… here goes.. mickie or mickey.I never knew how to spell it, As a child I could never understand why the world was not in knots at Wlat Disney’s creation and poster-mouse, I thought the actoer Mickey Rooney was very dirty and, needless to say, I chuckled all through gangster movies featuring characters of that name… I was so certain I got the joke: never fully understood why others didn’t laugh. I was ‘in the know’…I’m rambling.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:21 amNice post Fústar
Cnuimh