By design, the Atari 2600 eats up more processing power when programmed to display a playfield where the second half of the screen isn't either a repeat or a mirror of the first half. Sometimes that extra processing power cannot be spared if the system has too many other objects to keep track of. That may be why the second screen in Atari 2600 Popeye is different from its arcade cousin.

(This screenshot was taken with the Stella Atari 2600 emulator.)