Popeye

 
 
Popeye loved a good brawl, and would eat a can of spinach to give himself enough strength to secure victory. In 1933 Popeye made his way to animated cartoons (appearing first in a Betty Boop short), and that's where his supernatural spinach habit really became famous, along with screwball sayings like "I yam what I yam" and "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!" Hundreds of Popeye short subjects were made, and Popeye cartoons were a fixture in movie theaters and television well into the 1960s. The comic strip continued right into the 21st century, handled by a succession of artists. (Popeye's creator, Elzie Segar, died in 1938.) Popeye was played by Robin Williams in the 1980 feature film Popeye, which co-starred Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and was directed by Robert Altman.

According to the King Features website, "Spinach growers credited Popeye with a 33 percent increase in U.S. spinach consumption and saving the spinach industry in the 1930s!"... The Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurant chain is named not for Popeye the Sailor, but rather (according to the fast-food company) for the Popeye Doyle character played by Gene Hackman in The French Connection... Bluto was called Brutus in some later animated cartoons... Wimpy was an incorrigible moocher whose regular promise was, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."