At the dawn of the 20th century, the phenomenon of the strongman became a fixture in Europe and America. The term referred to an exhibitor of strength (before strength sports were codified into weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding, etc., to become actual athletic competitions) or to circus, carnival, and vaudeville performers who openly displayed their physiques and corresponding muscular capabilities. Strongmen would perform various feats of power such as the bent press (not to be confused with the bench press, which did not exist at the time), supporting large amounts of weight held overhead at arm's length; steel-bending; chain breaking, etc. Large amounts of wrist, hand, and tendon strength were required for these feats, as well as total oblique control.
Strongman would wear abbreviated costumes that displayed their musculature, often with visual references to pre-civilized times (e.g. animal skins and other bodily adornment presumably obtained as hunting trophies) as well of those of classical antiquity (Roman sandals, swords, and togas). Aggressive facial hair was de rigeur, most commonly in the form of a flowing handlebar moustache. Strongmen photographed in full regalia with well-developed biceps bulging were widely sold as souvenirs at their performances.
In Popeye Cartoons
Dell Comic Popeye #48, 1959
The role of the strongman was frequently used as a vehicle for Bluto, both in cartoons and in comics, to display his astounding physical development as a foil to the smaller, scrawnier Popeye and as an infatuation object for Olive Oyl. In King of the Mardi Gras, he combined the traditional retinue of prowess exhibitions with magic tricks (sawing a woman in half) to keep the crowd at rapt attention. Quick on the Vigor's Bluto bent steel bars with his teeth and pressed prodigious amounts of weight. He was fully capable of ripping the towering steel support for a Ferris wheel out of its concrete underpinning, yet for some reason needed to resort to trickery in order to break out of a locked safe.
In later years, Brutus would also be cast in the familiar strongman role but, unlike his predecessors, was revealed as a total fraud in the strength department. In "Muskels Schmuskels", Popeye openly states that which was only implied in the earlier cartoons: "You ain't the strongest man in the woild, 'cuz I yam!"
In the short Baby Wants a Battle, Bluto's father has the massive physique and ferocious moustache growth generally associated with turn-of-the-last-century strongmen, although his occupation is never expressly stated.
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