HAAAACH-acch-acch- acch-acch-acch-acch!!! When you stop and think about it, Popeye is one scary bastard. Popeye the Bogeyman by D. Trull Enigma Editor dtrull@parascope.com Comic books, video games, rap music, Pop Rocks, the Internet... take anything cool that kids love, and in due course it will be unjustly vilified as a dangerous and evil scourge. On those odd occasions when the parental paranoia patrol gets ahold of an unfortunate factual event somehow linked to youth entertainment, all hell can break loose, whether it ought to or not. Case in point: the Japanese cartoon mass-seizure phenomenon. Some animated Nintendo merchandising tie-in causes over 700 people to suffer epileptic seizures, convulsions, vomiting and impaired vision after watching a segment containing five seconds of rapidly flashing lights. The next thing you know, the media whips everyone into a panic over whether King of the Hill can give you brain tumors, before finally settling down to reassure the public knowingly that our American cartoons are just fine. "It's only those bad, awful, nasty Japanese cartoons, which those people over there call 'anime,' that can cause severe neural trauma like that," the moronic reports have told us. "So keep your kids away from this so-called 'anime,' or they'll get cancer and die." Sigh. Talk about your silly symphonies. And even with the comforting panacea of xenophobia to suckle upon, some concerned parents are no doubt still unconvinced that domestic cartoons are perfectly safe. Well, I've got news for you, Ward and June: they ain't! In fact, the most viciously hurtful cartoon character of all time just might be that upstanding U.S. serviceman known the world over as Popeye. It seems that a number of years ago the spinach-slurping sailor man had a regrettable run-in with a young girl in England, as reported by pediatrician Edward Mucklow in a recent medical journal. The three-year-old girl, whose name Mucklow has not disclosed, was perfectly healthy until she developed a sudden and severe case of bronchitis. At first the parents suspected she was allergic to pets at home or at a friend's house, but this was ruled out as the cause. All they could figure out was that the girl's coughing fits worsened when she was at nursery school. Stumped by her symptoms, the family's doctor brought Mucklow on the case. Mucklow observed the little girl at play at her nursery school. Through an impressive feat of deduction, the pediatrician isolated a specific stimulus that gave the girl much distress: it was a pair of shoes worn by a boy in her nursery school class. She had no problem with the boy other than his footwear, and no other shoes besides these seemed to bother her. The only thing special about the boy's shoes was that they had pictures of a squinting cartoon shipmate emblazoned on them. Yep, you guessed it: the little girl was allergic to Popeye. Dr. Mucklow theorized at first that she might be allergic to spinach, but she wasn't. She had developed a deep-seated psychological aversion to Popeye himself. It turned out that she had seen a Popeye cartoon at a friend's house and was terrified of him. It's not hard to understand why, really. Running around with those disfigured canned hams for forearms, all covered in tattoos, one eye gouged out from God only knows what sort of sordid altercation, yabbering incessantly in some undocumented seafarer's patois... he was supposed to be a sailor man, but about all he ever did was eat canned vegetables and kick asses. And that ungodly laugh: "HACCH-acch-acch-acch-acch-acch-acch-ACCH!" When you stop to think about it, that Popeye guy is one scary bastard. Once he identified the root cause of the girl's fear and anguish, Mucklow resolved with stern determination: "She's had all she can stands, she can't stands no more!" And he had a psychiatrist get to work on her with some heavy-duty behavioral therapy. After two months of treatment, she fought to the finish in the manner of those who eat their spinach, and conquered her Popeye phobia once and for all. There was no further recurrence of the bronchitis, and she could now even enjoy watching Popeye cartoons. The girl is now ten years old and perfect health. "Phobias are unjustified or exaggerated fears, which may be recognized by the victim, who is nevertheless powerless to overcome them," Mucklow wrote in the International Journal of Clinical Practice. "This can lead to severe physical and intellectual impairment." Does this mean other kids might also develop serious disorders from watching cartoons? Is Popeye a menace that must be stopped? Gawrshk, no! What we have here is a case of an individual response in individual circumstances that will probably never happen again. If worrywarts who are so concerned about protecting their children would start thinking more like individuals, they'd find there's a lot less crazy stuff to worry about. Popeye is what he is and that's all that he is. That's all, folks. Sources: The Times (London); CNN. © Copyright 1998 ParaScope, Inc. More Fortean Slips! Fortean Slips message board: Share your views