<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Few comic strips have been as intensely popular and controversial as Li’l Abner, the unlikely hillbilly hit created by Alfred Gerald Caplan (1909-1979) under the pen name Al Capp, which began on August 13, 1934.

Although Capp took a trip through Appalachia as a young man, and sought to give his strip more cultural credibility by citing this experience, the real genesis of the strip was in vaudeville routines about hayseeds, with a nod to earlier strips like Frederick Opper’s And Her Name Was Maud! that featured rural backgrounds. Early in his career, Capp was an assistant to Ham Fisher on the popular boxing strip Joe Palooka, but became far more successful than his boss had ever been. A Jewish boy from Boston, educated at Boston University, Capp proved to be a prolific and talented scripter whose sharp wit and captivating plots shone through the de rigeur dialect. He used his rural Candide, Abner Yokum, as a foil for social satire, aiming from the left until the 1960's when the strip took a sharp turn to the right. Set in the mythical community of Dogpatch, the strip also starred the tough-minded but rigorously honest Mammy Yokum, her devoted milquetoast husband Pappy, and Abner’s girlfriend Daisy Mae. Abner and Daisy’s marriage in March 1952 garnered enormous publicity, including the cover of Life magazine.

Two of Capp’s creations are remembered today. Sadie Hawkins Day was a holiday celebrated every October in the strip when the maidens of Dogpatch could propose to any eligible bachelor they chose, leading to a wild chase as the unwilling husbands-to-be fled their suitors. Sadie Hawkins Day dances remain popular in colleges and high schools, but the Abner connection is forgotten. While never abandoning his big-foot style roots, Capp’s art grew more modern and animation-inflected over the years. He was a master at creating memorable mythical animals, and when he launched the shmoo, a round-bodied, utterly cute critter, it became a merchandising sensation. Shmoos offer themselves up as any kind of food or drink a person needs, breeding faster than rabbits so there’s an endless supply of them. The lovable creatures were banished when humanity threatened to succumb to utter sloth and corruption, but they returned from time to time in the strip, and appeared as Saturday morning TV cartoons in the 1970s. A similar creature, the Bald Iggle, was destroyed by the government when it was found that people have to tell the truth in their presence.

Around the turn of the century, early comic strips had been adapted for vaudeville, but Abner became the first smash-hit comic strip Broadway musical in 1956, leading the way for Superman, Charlie Brown, and Little Orphan Annie. Starring Peter Palmer and Edie Adams (Mrs. Ernie Kovacs) as Abner and Daisy, the show launched Julie "Catwoman" Newmar's career with her role as Stupefyin’ Jones; the film version of 1959 had Leslie Parrish as Daisy. Capp alienated many of the younger readers of the strip in the 1960's when he attacked the nascent counterculture, parodying hippies and featuring characters like folksinger Joanie Phoanie, satirizing Joan Baez. Capp retired and ended the strip in 1977.