Li'l Abner
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| Li'l Abner | |
|---|---|
 A United States postal stamp featuring Li'l Abner, issued in 1995. |
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| Author(s) | Al Capp |
| Current status | Defunct |
| Syndicate(s) | United Feature Syndicate |
| Launch date | August 13, 1934 |
| End Date | November 13, 1977 |
| Genre(s) | Humor, Politics, Satire |
Li'l Abner was a comic strip in United States newspapers, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch. Written and drawn by Al Capp, it ran from 1934 through 1977.
Contents |
[edit] Characters and Settings
[edit] The Yokums
The comic strip starred Li'l Abner Yokum, a dumb, obstinate, strong, and good-natured hillbilly. His main goal was evading the marital designs of Daisy Mae Scragg, his beautiful and faithful girlfriend, and scion of the Yokums' feudal enemies, the Scraggs. Capp finally gave in to reader pressure in 1952 and allowed the couple to marry. This was a major media event, and the happy couple even made the cover of Life magazine. Capp then produced a little brother, Tiny Yokum, out of thin air, to continue the bachelor jokes.
Abner lived at home with his parents, Pansy ("Mammy") and Lucifer ("Pappy") Yokum. Abner inherited his strength from the irascible Mammy, who dominated her family through the force of her personality, and dominated her foes with a knockout punch.
Abner's home town of Dogpatch was peopled with an assortment of memorable characters, including Marryin' Sam, Wolf Gal, Lena the Hyena, Indian Lonesome Polecat, [1] and a host of others, including the statuesque beauties Moonbeam McSwine, Stupefyin' Jones and Appassionata von Climax.
Perhaps Capp's most popular creations were the Shmoo, creatures whose incredible usefulness and generous nature made them a threat to capitalism, and perhaps civilization as we know it.
Another famous character was Joe Btfsplk, who only wanted to be a loving friend but was "the world's worst jinx", and always travelled with a small dark cloud over his head.
[edit] Senator Phogbound
Senator Jack S. Phogbound was another memorable Dogpatch regular. A blustering Southern politician ("There's no Jack S like our Jack S!") who wore a coonskin cap and carried a rifle to impress his constituents, Phogbound is Capp's parody of the Southern Democrats who opposed the New Deal, of which Capp was a supporter. At one instance in the strip, Phogbound was unable to campaign in Dogpatch, so he sent his aides with a large balloon filled with hot air -- and nobody really noticed the difference.
[edit] Fearless Fosdick
Li'l Abner also featured a comic-strip within the comic-strip, titled Fearless Fosdick (a parody of Dick Tracy). The razor-jawed title character ("Li'l Abner's Ideel") might take a bullet in the chest and declare the gaping tunnel a mere "flesh wound".
[edit] Travel Settings
Situations often took the characters to other parts of the globe, including New York City, tropical islands, and a miserable frozen land of Capp's invention, "Lower Slobbovia." Conceptually based on Siberia, or Russia in general, the worthless land was ruled by "King Stubbornovsky the Last". Their monetary unit was the "Razzbucknik", of which one was worth nothing, and a large quantity was worth a lot less, due to the trouble of carrying them around.
[edit] Topicality
Capp used his strip to satirize current events and fads, such as Zoot Suits in "Zoot Suit Yokum," in 1943.
[edit] Popularity and Production
At its peak, Li'l Abner was read daily by 70 million Americans (when the US population was only 180 million). Many communities staged "Sadie Hawkins Day" events, after an annual race in the strip in which the unmarried women were allowed to keep any man they could catch.
Capp had a platoon of assistants in later years but always drew the faces and hands himself. The most notable may have been Frank Frazetta, who drew the beautiful full-bodied women in the strip's later years before his own fame as a fantasy artist. The unseen Lena the Hyena, "the ugliest woman in the world," sparked a nationwide art contest; the winning design came from the then-unknown Basil Wolverton (later an artist for MAD).
Li'l Abner lasted until Capp's retirement on November 13, 1977, and Capp died two years later.
In 1988 and 1989 many newspapers ran reruns of Li'l Abner comic strip episodes, mostly from the 1940s run, distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association and Capp Enterprises. Following the 1989 revival of the Pogo comic strip, a revival of "L'il Abner" was also planned in 1990. Drawn by cartoonist Steve Stiles, the new Abner was approved by Capp's widow and brother, Elliott Caplin, but Al Capp's daughter, Julie Capp, objected at the last minute and permission was withdrawn.
[edit] Beyond the comic strip
With John Hodiak in the title role, the Li'l Abner radio serial ran weekdays on NBC from November 20, 1939 to December 6, 1940.
The first Li'l Abner movie was made in 1940, starring Jeff York (credited as Granville Owen), Martha O'Driscoll, Mona Ray and Johnnie Morris. Although this movie lacked the political satire and Broadway polish of the 1959 version, it gave a fairly accurate portrayal of the various Dogpatch characters. Of particular note is the appearance of Buster Keaton as Lonesome Polecat. Naturally, the story is about Daisy Mae trying to catch Lil Abner on Sadie Hawkins Day. Since this movie predated their comic strip marriage, Abner makes a last-minute escape.
A musical comedy adaptation of the strip, also entitled Li'l Abner, opened on Broadway in 1956 and was made into a 1959 movie musical with Peter Palmer, Leslie Parrish, Julie Newmar, Stella Stevens, Donna Douglas, and a cameo by Jerry Lewis.
In 1968 a theme park named Dogpatch USA featuring Capp's characters opened in northwest Arkansas and remained a popular attraction until it closed in 1993. Several attempts have been made to reopen the park but at present it lies abandoned.
The original Dogpatch is a historical part of San Francisco dating back to the 1860s that escaped the earthquake and fire of 1906.
The Shmoo character was used in two Hanna-Barbera produced Saturday morning cartoon series in the 1970s and 1980s. First in the 1979 The New Shmoo cartoon series (later incorporated into Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo) and then from 1980 to 1984 in the Flintstone Comedy Show in the Bedrock Cops segment.
In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps. The strip also won its creator, Al Capp, the Reuben Award in 1948.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe (who was anything but hairless) were the brewers of "Kickapoo Joy Juice", presumably based on the real patent medicine "Kickapoo Indian Sagwa", a product of the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company of Connecticut completely unrelated to the real Kickapoo Indian tribe of Oklahoma
[edit] See also
- Salomey, the Yokums' pet pig.
