Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies living in the impoverished fictional mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and illustrated by Al Capp (1909–1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977."Looking Back at the Class of '34" , Hogan's Alley #1, 1994. The Sunday page debuted on February 24, 1935, six months after the daily. It was originally distributed by United Feature Syndicate and later by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.
Before Capp introduced Li'l Abner, his comic strips typically dealt with northern urban American experiences. However, Li'l Abner was his first strip based in the Southern United States. The comic strip had 60 million readers in over 900 American newspapers and 100 foreign papers across 28 countries.
Characters Main characters
Li'l Abner Yokum: Abner is portrayed as a simple-minded, gullible, and sweet-natured country bumpkin. He is tall and perpetually 19 years old. He lives in a ramshackle log cabin with his parents. Capp derived the surname "Yokum" as a combination of "yokel" and "hokum". Abner represents the archetype of a Candide — a paragon of innocence in a sardonically dark and cynical world.Li'l Abner "biography" at deniskitchen.com Abner has no consistent profession but was a "crescent cutter" for the Little Wonder Privy Company and later a "mattress tester" for the Stunned Ox Mattress Company. In one post-World War II storyline, Abner became a US Air Force bodyguard of Steve Cantor (a parody of Steve Canyon) against the evil bald female spy Jewell Brynner (a parody of actor Yul Brynner).Parody of Steve Canyon! Sept 15, 1957 Early in the strip's history, Abner's primary goal was evading the marital designs of Daisy Mae, the virtuous, voluptuous, barefoot scion of the Yokums' blood feud enemies: the Scraggs. When Capp finally gave in to reader pressure after 18 years and allowed the couple to tie the knot, it was a major media event, even making the cover of Life magazine on March 31, 1952 — with an article titled "It's Hideously True!! The Creator of Li'l Abner Tells Why His Hero Is (SOB!) Wed!!" Daisy Mae Yokum (née Scragg): Daisy Mae is hopelessly in love with Abner throughout the entire 43-year run of the comic strip. During most of the run, the dense Abner exhibited little romantic interest in her. She is curvaceous and sports a famous polka dot peasant blouse and cropped skirt.Daisy Mae "biography" at deniskitchen.com In 1952, Abner reluctantly proposes to Daisy to emulate the engagement of his comic strip ideal, Fearless Fosdick. Fosdick's wedding to longtime fiancée Prudence Pimpleton turns out to be a dream — but Abner and Daisy's ceremony, performed by Marryin' Sam, is binding. Abner and Daisy Mae's nuptials were a major source of media attention, landing them on the aforementioned cover of Life magazine's March 31, 1952, issue. Once married, Abner becomes relatively domesticated. Like Mammy Yokum and the other women in Dogpatch, Daisy Mae does all the work, domestic and otherwise — while the men generally do nothing whatsoever. Mammy Yokum: Born Pansy Hunks, Mammy, Abner's mother, is the scrawny, highly principled society leader and bare-knuckle champion of the town of Dogpatch. She married Pappy Yokum in 1902; they produced two sons twice their own size. Mammy dominates the Yokum clan through the force of her personality and dominates everyone else with her fearsome right uppercut (sometimes known as her "Goodnight, Irene" punch), which helps her uphold law, order and decency. She is consistently the toughest character throughout Li'l Abner. Mammy does all the household chores and provides her charges with no fewer than eight meals a day of pork chops and turnips (as well as local Dogpatch delicacies like "candied catfish eyeballs" and "trashbean soup"). Her authority is unquestioned, and her characteristic phrase, "Ah has spoken!", signaled the end of all discussion. Her most familiar phrase, however, is "Good is better than evil becuz it's nicer!" Upon his retirement in 1977, Capp declared Mammy to be his personal favorite of all his characters. She is the only character capable of defeating Abner in hand-to-hand combat. Pappy Yokum: Born Lucifer Ornamental Yokum, Pappy is the patriarch of a family. Pappy is so lazy and ineffectual he doesn't even bathe himself. Mammy is regularly seen scrubbing Pappy in an outdoor oak tub ("Once a month, rain or shine"). Ironing Pappy's trousers falls under her purview as well, although she doesn't bother to wait for Pappy to remove them first.Pappy Yokum "biography" at deniskitchen.com Pappy is dull-witted and gullible (in one story he is conned by Marryin' Sam into buying vanishing cream because he thinks it makes him invisible and he picks a fight with his nemesis Earthquake McGoon), but not completely without guile. He had a predilection for snitching "preserved turnips" and smoking corn silk behind the woodshed — Mammy catches him doing so, much to his chagrin. After his lower wisdom teeth grow so long that they squeeze his cerebral Goodness Gland and emerge as forehead horns, he proves himself capable of evil. Mammy solves the problem with a tooth extraction. Honest Abe Yokum: Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae's son is born in 1953 "after a pregnancy that ambled on so long that readers began sending me medical books", wrote Capp. Initially known as "Mysterious Yokum" (there was even an Ideal doll marketed under this name) due to a debate regarding his gender (he is stuck in a pants-shaped stovepipe for the first six weeks), he is renamed "Honest Abe" (after President Abraham Lincoln) to thwart his early tendency to steal.Honest Abe "biography" at deniskitchen.com His first words are "po'k chop", and they remain his favorite food. Though his uncle Tiny is perpetually frozen at 15 years old, Honest Abe gradually grows from infant to grade school age and looks very much like Washable Jones — the star of Capp's early "topper" strip. He eventually acquires a couple of supporting character friends for his own semi-regularly featured adventures in the strip. In one story, he lives up to his nickname when there is a nationwide search for a pair of socks sewn by Betsy Ross; after finding that his father is their current owner and is preparing to trade them for the reward (a handshake from the President of the United States), Abe confesses that they are not his to give. Tiny Yokum: "Tiny" is an ironic misnomer; Li'l Abner's kid brother remains perpetually innocent and 15 years old — despite being tall. Tiny is unmentioned in the strip until September 1954, when a relative who has been raising him reminds Mammy that she'd given birth to a second child while visiting her 15 years earlier. (The relative explains that she would have dropped him off sooner, but waited until she happened to be in the neighborhood.) Capp introduced Tiny to fill the bachelor role played for nearly two decades by Li'l Abner, until his 1952 marriage threw the dynamic of the strip out of whack for a period.Tiny Yokum "biography" at deniskitchen.com Pursued by local lovelies Hopeful Mudd and Boyless Bailey, Tiny is even dumber and more awkward than Abner. Tiny initially sports a bulbous nose like both of his parents, but eventually, (through a plot contrivance) he is given a nose job, and his shaggy blond hair is buzz cut to make him more appealing. Salomey: The Yokums' beloved pet pig. Her moniker is a pun on salami and Salome. Cute, lovable and intelligent (arguably smarter than Abner, Tiny or Pappy), she is accepted as part of the family ("the youngest", as Mammy introduces her). Gourmet experts claim she is an insanely valuable 100% "Hammus alabammus" — a fictional species of pig, and the last female known in existence. A plump, juicy Hammus alabammus is the rarest and most vital ingredient of "ecstasy sauce", an indescribably delicious gourmet delicacy. Consequently, Salomey is frequently targeted by unscrupulous sportsmen, hog breeders and gourmands (like J.R. Fangsley and Bounder J. Roundheels), as well as wild boars (such as Boar Scarloff and Porknoy).
Supporting characters and villains Marryin' Sam: A traveling preacher (by mule) who specializes in $2 weddings. He also offers the $8 "ultra-deluxe" special, a ceremony which he officiates while being drawn and quartered by four rampaging jackasses. He cleans up once a year — during Sadie Hawkins season when bachelors are dragged to the altar by their prospective brides.Marryin' Sam "biography" at deniskitchen.com Sam, whose face and figure were reportedly modeled after New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia,"Speaking of Pictures", Life, 12 June 1944 starts out as a stock villain but gradually softens into a genial, opportunistic comic foil. He isn't above chicanery to achieve his ends and is warily viewed by Dogpatch men as a traitor to his gender. Sam was prominently featured on the cover of Life in 1952 when he presided over the wedding of Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae. In the 1956 Li'l Abner Broadway musical and 1959 Li'l Abner film adaptation, Sam is played by actor Stubby Kaye. Moonbeam McSwine: The unwashed but curvy Moonbeam is one of the iconic hallmarks of Li'l Abner — an unkempt, lazy, corncob pipe-smoking, flagrant (and fragrant), raven-haired, earthly (and earthy) woman. Beautiful Moonbeam prefers the company of pigs to suitors — much to the frustration of her equally lazy father, Moonshine McSwine. She is usually showcased luxuriating among the hogs, somewhat removed from the main action of the story, in a deliberate parody of glamour magazines and pinup calendars of the day. Capp designed her in a caricature of his wife Catherine, who had also suggested Daisy Mae's name. In one comic, it is revealed that she bears a striking resemblance to Gloria Van Welbuilt, a famous socialite. She is generally portrayed as good-natured and kind, as shown when she runs to Dogpatch carrying two shmoos under her arms to save them from going extinct, wondering if humanity would ever be good enough for them. She also tells Abner to stop worrying about being a father. Moonbeam seems to have an interest in romance as in some strips, she is seen flirting with and even kissing various male characters, including Abner. She once expresses the desire to have a family of her own and discusses the matter of trapping a husband with Abner. In one strip, it is revealed that Moonbeam was in love with Abner when they were children. In the same strip, it is shown that Moonbeam's disposition for filth was born out of a failure to understand Abner's interests when he was a child. She actually disliked hogs as a child, but after seeing Abner ignoring the openly romantic advances of a clean Daisy Mae, she dived headfirst into a mud hole where some hogs were wallowing to earn his love, believing that if Abner didn't like clean girls, he must like them dirty. Much to her disappointment, this failed to capture his attention. Moonbeam is also unknowingly the star of a horror movie directed by Rock Pincus, head film director of a species called the Pincushions, from planet Pincus 7. This venture ends when Rock is unknowingly grilled, put into a hot dog bun and devoured while still alive.