Olive Oyl

Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar in 1919 for his comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was later renamed Popeye after the sailor character that became the most popular member of the cast; however, Olive Oyl was a main character for a decade before Popeye's 1929 appearance.

In the strip as written by Segar, Olive is a scrappy, headstrong young woman (her age varying between her late teens and 26) visually characterized by her exaggeratedly slim build (evolving from its previous more realistically proportioned form by the late 1920s) and her long black hair (usually presented as rolled in a neat bun, like her mother's). She is the youngest sibling of Castor Oyl and Crude Oyl.

Debuting on December 19, 1919, Olive was the childhood sweetheart and more-or-less fiancée of original Thimble Theatre protagonist Harold Hamgravy (Ham Gravy), 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, leading her to (in a storyline run in mid-1928) succumb 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 Hamgravy on-and-off until Popeye's appearance. Olive and Popeye initially greeted each other with animosity (her first words to him being "take your hooks offa me or I'll lay ya in a scupper"), leading them to fight bitterly for weeks before finally realizing that they had feelings for each other. Following a series of Sunday strips run in March 1930, Popeye would definitively supersede Ham as Olive's lover, a position he occupies within the comic into the present; Ham had largely vanished from the daily strip six months earlier, although Popeye and Olive's relationship would nonetheless not be emphasized within the daily strip's continuity until the height of the Clint Gore story arc in January 1931.

The version of Olive Oyl most widely familiar is the coyer and more nervous version from the theatrical animated cartoons created by Fleischer Studios and continued by Famous Studios. Unlike most modern damsels in distress, Olive Oyl is tall and skinny, with tightly wound hair and enormous feet (the latter sometimes used to comedic effect). Popeye's comment about her measurements is that she is a perfect 57... 19-19-19.

In the films and later television cartoons, Olive Oyl is usually Popeye's girlfriend, although she could be extremely fickle, depending on who could woo her the best or had the flashier possessions, and she was prone to become angry with Popeye over seemingly minor issues. She constantly gets kidnapped by Bluto (aka Brutus), who is Popeye's arch-rival for her affections; when she gets angry with Popeye for whatever goes wrong, it's usually as a result of Bluto's trickery, but Popeye always rescues her and wins back her affection in the process.

In the cartoons, she helps take care of a baby named Swee'Pea or she usually asks Popeye to take care of him if she's too busy; it is unknown if Swee'Pea is Olive Oyl's biological or adopted son. 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 or nephew that she has to take care of from time to time.

Like Popeye, there are times where Olive gains superhuman strength from eating spinach.

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, and Castor's estranged wife, Cylinda Oyl; more recently, Olive's nieces Diesel Oyl and Violet Oyl have appeared in the cartoons. Also among Olive's family are her two uncles, Otto (Auto) Oyl and intrepid explorer Lubry Kent Oyl. Lubry Kent's gift to Castor and Olive, a lucky Whiffle Hen, led them into the adventure where they met Popeye. When Bobby London took over the strip from 1986 to 1992, he added the sultry blonde Sutra Oyl, Olive's cousin, and Standard Oyl, a distant relative who was an extremely wealthy corporate magnate.