Popeye

Popeye was a comic strip featuring a character of the same name. Malcolm enjoyed reading it when he was six years old in 1963. It had a character named Wimpy, who lent his name to London's Wimpy Bar. (PROSE: Time and Relative)

There was also a single character, who was referred to as both Bluto and Brutus, sometimes within the same story. Years later, some ignorant writers used "Brutus" and "Bluto" as two separate, but similar, characters. This eerily foreshadowed less-than-knowledgeable Doctor Who writers using "The Monk", "The War Chief" and "The Master" as three separate characters, despite all evidence to the contrary, simply for being listed under different names in the Radio Times.

The Fourth Doctor whistled the theme to Popeye while visiting a Shanghai dock in 1937. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

The Tenth Doctor described Popeye as being "hopelessly addicted to spinach and skinny women." Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oyl had a brother called Castor, leading the Doctor to joke that the spaceship Castor may have been named after him. (PROSE: Wooden Heart)