Olive Oyl
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Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar in 1919 for his comic strip Thimble Theater. Thimble Theater later became Popeye after the sailor character became the most popular member of the comic strip's cast. Olive Oyl was a character in the strip for 10 years before the first appearance of Popeye in 1929.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
In the strip as written by Segar, Olive was something of a coy flapper whose extremely thin build lent itself well to the fashions of the time; her long black hair was usually rolled in a neat bun, like her mother's. She was the more-or-less fiancée of Harold Hamgravy, a "lounge lizard" or slacker type who did as little work as possible and was always borrowing money. His attraction to other women—particularly if they were rich—naturally incensed Olive, and she once succumbed to a fit of "lunaphobia" (a kind of angry madness) over one of his amours. (When she recovered, she continued to pretend to have the disorder to win him back.) She was not immune to flattery from other men, but remained committed to Ham until Popeye's appearance. The two did not fall in love at once (her first words to him were "Aw, shut up, you bilge rat!"), but instead fought bitterly (and hilariously) for weeks, before realizing they cared for one another.
The version of Olive Oyl most widely familiar is the version from the theatrical animated cartoons, first created by Fleischer Studios, and then produced by Famous Studios. Unlike most modern damsels in distress, Olive Oyl has short hair, is tall, skinny, with enormous feet that have been tickled on several occasions. Once tied up on a ship and having her shoes taken off, milk was spread on her feet and licked of by cat's she was laughing very much. In the films and later television cartoons, Olive Oyl is Popeye's girlfriend, although she could be extremely fickle, depending on who could woo her the best or had the flashier possessions, and was prone to get angry over the tiniest things. She constantly gets kidnapped by Bluto (aka Brutus), who is Popeye's archrival for her affections, but Popeye always rescues her, winning her affection in the end.
In the cartoons, she helps to take care of a baby named Little Swee'Pea; it is not made clear if Swee'Pea is Olive Oyl's own son or an adopted foundling. In the comics, Swee'Pea is a foundling under Popeye's care. Later sources (mostly in the cartoon series) say that Swee'Pea is Olive Oyl's cousin that she has to take care of from time to time.
[edit] History
The voice for Olive Oyl was created by character actress Mae Questel (who also voiced Betty Boop and other characters); Questel styled Olive Oyl's voice after that of actress ZaSu Pitts. (The first two Popeye cartoons, Popeye The Sailor and I Yam What I Yam, however, featured Bonnie Poe as the voice of Olive Oyl.) In 1938, Margie Hines took over as the voice of Olive Oyl, starting with the cartoon Bulldozing The Bull. Questel returned as the voice of Olive Oyl in 1944, starting with the cartoon The Anvil Courus Girl; she would remain so until the King Features Syndicate made-for-TV Popeye shorts in 1960.
Olive Oyl is named after olive oil, used commonly in cooking or in salads. Segar's newspaper strips also featured a number of her relatives named after other oils, including her brother, Castor Oyl, their mother, Nana Oyl (after "banana oil," a mild slang phrase of the time used in the same way as "horsefeathers," i.e. "nonsense"), their father, Cole Oyl, Castor's estranged wife, Cylinda Oyl, and more recently, Olive's niece, Deezil Oyl (a pun on diesel oil) appears in the cartoons. Also among Olive's family are her cousin, Sutra Oyl and her two uncles, Otto Oyl and Lubry Kent Oyl.
Marilyn Schreffler replaced Mae Questel as Olive Oyl when Hanna-Barbera obtained rights to produce new made-for-TV Popeye cartoons for The All-New Popeye Hour in 1978.
In the 1980 film version, Olive is played by Shelley Duvall. One reviewer called her performance "eerily perfect."
[edit] Other Media
In 2006, King Features produced both a radio spot and industrial for the United States Power Squadron featuring Robyn Gryphe as Olive and Allen Enlow as Popeye.
In July 2007, a live-animation TV commercial starring Olive Oyl aired as part of an advertising campaign for Campbell Soup Company’s Prego Italian sauces. Olive’s ad is one in a series of five different ads for Prego, which features Spice Girl Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"), Olympic Silver Medalist Lea Ann Parsley, an average American couple named Rosemary and Herb and an Englishman named Basil. In each 15-second commercial, the "flavorful" characters wonder aloud about what spice to add to their simmering pot of sauce.
Olive Oyl appeared in the Robot Chicken episodes "The Sack" and "Squaw Bury Shortcake" voiced by Kelly Hu.
