"I was a really picky eater as a child. Because I was obsessed by Popeye, my mum and aunts would put my food in a can to represent spinach and we'd hum the Popeye tune and then I'd happily eat it"
About this Quote
Childhood is irrational, and Paul O'Grady treats that irrationality like a stage prop: if the kid won’t eat, change the set. The genius of this anecdote isn’t the Popeye reference itself; it’s the quiet acknowledgment that persuasion is often theatre, especially inside a family. His mum and aunts don’t “correct” his pickiness with lectures or toughness. They manufacture a tiny fiction - a can, a tune, a ritual - and let him walk into it willingly. That’s caretaking as performance, the kind working-class households have always done instinctively: make do, make it funny, keep things moving.
O'Grady’s comic intent is deceptively soft. He’s telling a story about getting one over on himself, and that self-mockery is the point. The child is “obsessed,” not just a fan, and the adults exploit the obsession with affectionate cunning. There’s no sentimentality about parenting here, just an amused respect for how kids actually operate: symbols beat arguments. A can is more convincing than a plate; a jingle is more powerful than a command.
The subtext threads into O’Grady’s broader persona - the comedian who understood camp, character, and the consoling lie. Popeye, a cartoon of instant transformation via spinach, becomes an early lesson in the magic of presentation. Later, comedy works the same way: change the packaging, hum the tune, and people will swallow what they swore they couldn’t.
O'Grady’s comic intent is deceptively soft. He’s telling a story about getting one over on himself, and that self-mockery is the point. The child is “obsessed,” not just a fan, and the adults exploit the obsession with affectionate cunning. There’s no sentimentality about parenting here, just an amused respect for how kids actually operate: symbols beat arguments. A can is more convincing than a plate; a jingle is more powerful than a command.
The subtext threads into O’Grady’s broader persona - the comedian who understood camp, character, and the consoling lie. Popeye, a cartoon of instant transformation via spinach, becomes an early lesson in the magic of presentation. Later, comedy works the same way: change the packaging, hum the tune, and people will swallow what they swore they couldn’t.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
|---|
More Quotes by Paul
Add to List
