I didn't remember Popeye dancing very much, but apparently he was quite light on his feet. And I don't believe I ever saw anyone dance The Popeye, but I did hear songs on the radio that instructed me (not me, personally, me as a listener of Top 40 radio) to do The Popeye. I took no particular notice of this instruction, because edicts on which dance craze was tres hip emerged with remarkable frequency. Now that I think about it, why was there a dance called The Popeye? Did the spinach-ingesting sailor man have some characteristic choreographic moves? Some innate rhythm? Was I supposed to puff on an imaginary pipe with one hand while punching a larger fellow with the other? Was I supposed to dance only with females who were scarily skinny? I have no answers for you, I'm sorry to say. There are some notable Popeye records, made mostly in New Orleans in the early 1960s. 'Check Mr. Popeye' (followed by 'Hey Let's Popeye') by Eddie Bo is a favorite (covered by Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes), as is Huey 'Piano' Smith's strangely hyphenated 'Pop-Eye.' Don Covay fused two dances together to come up with 'The Popeye Waddle,' and The Mar-Keys did the same, creating 'The Popeye Stroll.' Even Joe Meek got into this Popeye-Plus mode, cutting 'The Popeye Twist' with The Tornadoes, and Steve Douglas of Spector's Wall of Sound band did 'Popeye The Twistin' Man.' To compound the confusion, we are offered 'Popeye (With A Touch of the Twist)' by Don Julian & The Meadowlarks. Bruce Johnston combined The Popeye with The Mashed Potatoes ('Mashin' The Popeye). Could The Popeye not stand on its own two feet? The Sherries asserted that the 'Pop-Pop-Popeye' was the dance of the day. That corpulent dancemeister Chubby Checker would not be left out of the hubbub, and recorded 'Popeye The Hitchhiker.' This, I do not understand. Why would Mr. Popeye be hitchhiking? One website traces the fleeting Popeye craze to the Big Easy's Ernie 'Mother-In-Law' K-Doe, who came up with the dance when his kid told him he walked like Popeye, and thus 'Popeye Joe' was born. That's right: Popeye Joe. Or maybe 'Popeye, Joe.' Since Eddie Bo calls him 'Mr. Popeye,' possibly Joe is his first name. It occurs to me that I have never typed the name 'Popeye' so many times in my entire life.