The character first appeared on January 17, 1929, in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, but the one-eyed sailor quickly became the lead character, and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular properties during the 1930s.

Following Segar’s death in 1938, Thimble Theatre was continued by several writers and artists, most notably Segar’s assistant Bud Sagendorf. It was formally renamed Popeye. The strip continues to appear in first-run installments on Sundays, written and drawn by R.K. Milholland. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories.In 1933, Max Fleischer adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures.

These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and Fleischer Studios, which later became Paramount’s own Famous Studios, continued production through 1957.

Cartoons produced during World War II included Allied propaganda, as was common among cartoons of the time. These cartoon shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by its sister company Warner Bros.