The Spooky Swabs were a group of sword-wielding ghosts with English accents that lived on deserted ship adrift on the ocean. The ship is called the "Sea Witch," which has been adrift at sea since 1678. The ghosts like the peace and quiet of being adrift at sea so the captain of the ghost crew would order the others to get rid of any boarders in order to keep their peaceful life at sea intact.

Popeye and Olive Oyl encountered the ghosts when after being on a life raft playing checkers, they spotted the haunted ship adrift and think they are rescued not knowing the ghosts are aboard.

Soon afterwards, as Popeye starts to sail the ship in the direction towards land, two ghosts appear behind Olive (resting in the anchor rope) and toss the anchor overboard (to stop the ship in place), which unravels the rope and sends Olive flying and spinning. Olive then flies towards Popeye and, with her spinning legs, knocks him through the ship's wheel, much to the amusement of the ghosts. Olive manages to pull the wheel off Popeye, but gets stuck in the wheel herself, generating more laughter from the ghosts.

Later, while Olive repairs the wheel, Popeye starts pulling up the anchor, which gets the ship moving again, but one ghost paints grease on the last few yards of the rope and another ghost tangles some of the anchor rope around Popeye's leg. As soon as the anchor is almost aboard, the greased part of the rope slips through Popeye's hands and the anchor stops the ship again and pulls Popeye overboard into the water. While Popeye struggles underwater trying to free himself from the rope, Olive tries to pull the anchor back up, but isn't strong enough. The ghosts (now invisible) blindfold Olive and force her to the plank. Back underwater, Popeye manages to grab a swordfish and use its snout to cut the rope, allowing him to swim back to the surface and back on to the ship, which has now started moving again.

At this point, the ghosts (still invisible and holding a sword) force Olive to walk the length of the plank while Olive cries out for Popeye. The sword disappears just as Popeye sees Olive almost about to walk off the edge of the plank. He picks it up and redirects it so that Olive ends up landing face first into a bucket of water. Olive cries out that she's drowning, but Popeye reassures her she's all right and goes to steer the ship. Just as soon as Olive spits out some water, she suddenly feels herself being carried along the deck. The moment Olive begins to state her suspicions about the ship, two ghosts (carrying her) appear, holding her by her arms.

Olive then freaks out and manages to escape the ghosts' grip, running past Popeye while screaming "Ghosts!," and immediately dives overboard, but Popeye catches her just in time and pulls her back aboard. Popeye tries to assure her that ghosts aren't real, but a ghost cuts loose a sail above them and the sail falls onto Popeye. Seeing Popeye covered by the sail, Olive shrieks (thinking Popeye is a ghost), grabs a quartermaster's baton, and starts clubbing Popeye with it, but Popeye's shouts make her realize her mistake.

Seeing that all their haunting isn't working, the ghosts run towards Popeye and Olive while wielding swords and shouting out what they intend to do with them. Olive flees to another part of the ship while Popeye runs into the ship's galley. While inside, he sees a jar of "ye king's spinach" and runs back out to face the attacking ghosts. Popeye immediately consumes the spinach and becomes invisible. Popeye then appears in ghost form and punches all the ghosts so hard that they become solid. The now solid ghosts then crash into a wall, which allows Olive to sew them together into a new sail. Popeye and Olive then sail off in the sunset as the cartoon ends.

* Spooky Swabs (1957)

* Spooky Swabs is the last Famous Studios cartoon to be in the public domain.
* It was also the final theatrical Popeye production until 1980, when Paramount released the musical live-action feature film.
* The ghosts have a strikingly similar appearance to the Ghostly Trio from the Casper the Friendly Ghost franchise.

*[https://popeye.fandom.com/wiki/Spooky_Swabs Popeye Wiki]
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooky_Swabs Wikipedia]
Category:Animated Characters
Category:Paramount Characters
Category:1957 Debuts
Category:I. Sparber - Creator
Category:Larz Bourne - Creator
Category:Popeye Characters
Category:Ghost Characters
Category:Pirate Characters
Category:Swashbucklers
Category:Villains