History
Alice The Goon made her debut in the Sunday, December 10th, 1933 comic strip Thimble Theatre, part of the Plunder Island storyline by Elzie Crisler Segar. Alice worked as the guard to the Sea Hag, a deadly pirate, and the last remaining sorceress on the planet. Initially, Alice’s gender was unknown, until the January 14th, 1934 release of Thimble Theatre, when she was ordered by the Sea Hag to capture Wimpy. Alice is an Amazonian giantess with superhuman strength that rivals Popeye’s at his peak but with far less agility and imagination than the scrappy sailor. At eight feet tall, Alice is completely bald, with the exception of her prominently hairy calves, and forearms. Alice has a rather large nose, similar to that of a Proboscis Monkey, or the character Rastapopoulos from TinTin.
Alice first appeared when the Sea Hag journeyed to Sweethaven in search of
her former slave, Cringly, as he was the only one who knew the whereabouts of Plunder Island, which happened to be the Sea Hag’s lair. At this time, Alice was both nameless and genderless, until Wimpy was captured and imprisoned in the deck of the Black Barnacle, the Sea Hag’s sailing vessel. The Sea Hag orders the giantess to “Keep an eye on him, Alice!”, and from this point on, the characters and the readers realize that Alice is a female. Popeye and Alice engaged in a violent battle upon the sailor’s arrival on Plunder Island, and Popeye nearly threw Alice off of a cliff, until Alice’s child “name and gender unspecified” appeared, and proclaimed Alice as it’s “Mama!”. Popeye releases Alice when he realizes that he is fighting a woman, which went against his principles, and Popeye learned that Alice was an unwilling slave of the Sea Hag.
Popeye learned that the Sea Hag had threatened the life of Alice’s baby if she did not work as her slave, and aided Alice earn her freedom from the sorceress. Popeye learns that Alice is the leader of an entire race of superhuman Goons, enslaved by the Sea Hag on their home, Goon Island, and helps Alice lead her people in a battle against the Sea Hag, in which they emerged victorious. Initially, protective mothers were concerned about Alice’s frightening physical appearance, causing creators to tone down her look, making her appear more matronly, and feminine. After being liberated from the Sea Hag, Alice came to live with Olive Oyl, becoming a superhumanly strong nursemaid to baby Swee’Pea. She began wearing dresses and a flowered hat as a way to acculturate herself to her new life in the United States. Alice’s language is unintelligible to everyone except Wimpy, the reason for this being unknown to this day.
Animated
Alice was one of the main characters in the Private Olive Oyl shorts, where she and Olive joined the army with humorous, and sometimes disastrous, results.