If you thought Donald Duck's nephews had silly names, wait until you hear about Popeye's crew. The spinach-loving sailor has four nephews who are quadruplets, and their names are absolutely real: Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye. Yes, one of them is literally named Poopeye.

These pint-sized troublemakers first appeared in 1940 in the Fleischer Studios cartoon "Wimmin is a Myskery," though in that initial outing they were actually Popeye's children in a dream sequence. The names were slightly different too—"Pepeye" stood in for "Poopeye," presumably because someone had a moment of clarity about naming a character after excrement.

From Dream Kids to Permanent Nephews

The quadruplets proved popular enough that animators brought them back as Popeye's nephews in the 1942 short "Pip-eye, Pup-eye, Poop-eye an' Peep-eye." This clever retcon allowed the characters to join the regular cast without disrupting the Popeye-Olive Oyl-Bluto love triangle. After all, giving Popeye four kids would raise some uncomfortable questions.

The nephews were voiced by Jack Mercer—the same actor who voiced Popeye himself—with his voice sped up to create their higher-pitched sound. While they only appeared in two Fleischer Studios shorts, they became more prominent during the Famous Studios era that followed.

Chips Off the Old Spinach Can

You'd think that being related to Popeye would mean these kids love spinach, right? Wrong. Despite idolizing their uncle and mimicking his mannerisms, the nephews absolutely hate spinach. This created some amusing conflict in the cartoons, as Popeye would try to convince them that spinach was the secret to strength while they ran in the opposite direction.

The quadruplets had distinct visual differences to tell them apart:

Pipeye wore blue
Peepeye wore pink
Pupeye wore yellow
Poopeye wore green

Though in some cartoons, only two or three nephews would appear with absolutely no explanation for where the others went. Maybe they were grounded for refusing to eat their spinach.

The Golden Age of Absurd Names

The nephews' ridiculous names fit perfectly into the Golden Age of animation, when characters were regularly given alliterative, rhyming, or just plain weird monikers. Donald Duck had Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Bugs Bunny fought Beaky Buzzard. And Popeye? He got stuck babysitting four kids whose names sound like a pediatrician's nightmare.

What makes the names even funnier is how seriously the cartoons treated them. Characters would introduce "Poopeye" with a straight face, as if it were perfectly normal to name your child after bathroom humor. In fairness, this was the same era that gave us a character who gained superhuman strength from canned vegetables, so realism wasn't exactly a priority.

Today, the nephews remain a beloved piece of Popeye lore, even if they don't appear in modern adaptations as frequently. But their legacy lives on every time someone discovers that yes, there really was a cartoon character named Poopeye, and yes, the animators knew exactly what they were doing.

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