User:Zarchne/Mad/Li'l Abner

Li'l Abner was a satirical American comic strip appearing in many newspapers in the United States and Canada, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp (1909-1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through November 13, 1977. ... Read daily by scores of millions of people, the strip's characters and humor had a powerful cultural impact. -- Wikipedia Li'l Abner

Main characters
Li'l Abner Yokum As the hero, it may be most appropriate to compare Abner with Agatha Heterodyne. Has the innocence, and to some extent the physique of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Shares his name with Abner, who has a surprising ability to produce category:poor ideas. Gil's parents tend to contrast with these characters, though. Wikipedia says, "He inherited his strength from his irascible Mammy, and his brains from his less-than-brainy Pappy." This may say something about Klaus' relationship with his wife.

Daisy Mae (Scragg) Yokum. Her pursuit of Abner may be compared to Gil's pursuit of Agatha.

Pappy Yokum: Born Lucifer Ornamental Yokum. Shares first name with Lucifer Mongfish.

Supporting characters and villains
<!-- Marryin’ Sam: A traveling preacher who specializes in $2 weddings. He also offered the $8 "ultra-deluxe speshul", a spectacular ceremony in which Sam officiated while being drawn and quartered by four rampaging jackasses. He cleans up once a year - during Sadie Hawkins Day season, when slow-footed bachelors are dragged kicking and screaming to the altar by their prospective brides-to-be. Sam started out basically a villain, but gradually softened into an opportunistic comic foil. He wasn't above chicanery to achieve his ends, and was warily viewed by Dogpatch menfolk 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 Broadway musical and 1959 film adaptation, Sam was perfectly played by rotund actor Stubby Kaye.
 * Moonbeam McSwine: The unwashed but shapely form of languid, delectable Moonbeam was one of the iconic hallmarks of Li'l Abner - an unkempt, impossibly lazy, corncob pipe-smoking, flagrant (and fragrant), raven-haired, earthly (and earthy) goddess. Beautiful Moonbeam preferred the company of pigs to suitors - much to the frustration of her pappy, Moonshine McSwine.  She was usually showcased luxuriating amongst the hogs, somewhat removed from the main action of the story, in a deliberate travesty of glamour magazines and pinup calendars of the day. Capp designed her in caricature of his wife Catherine (minus the dirt), who had also suggested Daisy Mae's name.
 * Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat: The proud purveyors of "Kickapoo Joy Juice" - a moonshine elixir of such stupefying potency that the fumes alone have been known to melt the rivets off battleships. Concocted in a large wooden vat by the inseparable cave-dwelling buddies Lonesome Polecat (he of the Fried Dog Indian tribe) and Hairless Joe (a hirsute, club-wielding, modern Cro-Magnon - who frequently made good on his oft-repeated threat, "Ah'll bash yore haid in!"). The ingredients are both mysterious and all-encompassing, (much like the contents of their cave, which has been known to harbor prehistoric monsters.) When the brew needs more "body", the pair simply goes out and clubs one, (often a moose) and tosses it in. An officially licensed soft drink called Kickapoo Joy Juice is still produced by the Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta.
 * Joe Btfsplk: The world's worst jinx, Joe Btfsplk had a perpetually dark rain cloud over his head; instantaneous bad luck befell anyone unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity. Though well-meaning and friendly, his reputation inevitably precedes him, so Joe is a very lonely little man. He has an apparently unpronounceable name, but creator Al Capp "pronounced" Btfsplk by simply blowing a "razzberry", or Bronx cheer. Joe's personal black cloud became one of the most iconic images in the strip.
 * Senator Jack S. Phogbound: His name was a thinly disguised variant on "jackass", as made plain in his deathless campaign slogan (see Dialogue and catchphrases). The senator was satirist Al Capp's parody of a blustering anti-New Deal Dixiecrat. Phogbound is a corrupt, conspiratorial blowhard; he often wears a coonskin cap and carries a ramrod rifle to impress his gullible constituents. In one sequence, Phogbound is unable to campaign in Dogpatch - so he sends his aides with an old hot air-filled gas bag that resembles him. Nobody noticed the difference.


 * Available Jones: Dogpatch entrepreneur Available Jones was always available - for a price. He provided anything from a safety pin to a battleship, but his most famous "provision" was his memorable cousin - Stupefyin' Jones.
 * Stupefyin’ Jones: A walking aphrodisiac; Stupefyin' is so petrifyingly, drop-dead gorgeous that men who glimpse her literally freeze dead in their tracks, rooted to the spot - in a word: stupefied!  Statuesque actress Julie Newmar became famous overnight for playing the small role in the 1956 Li'l Abner Broadway musical (and the 1959 film adaptation) without uttering a single line.
 * General Bullmoose: Created by Al Capp in June 1953 as the epitome of a mercenary, cold-blooded capitalist. Bullmoose's bombastic motto (see Dialogue and catchphrases) was adapted by Capp from a statement made by Charles E. Wilson, the former head of General Motors, when it was America's largest corporation. In 1952 Wilson told a Senate subcommittee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice-versa." Wilson later served as Secretary of Defense under President Dwight Eisenhower. Li'l Abner became embroiled in many globetrotting adventures with the ruthless, reactionary billionaire over the years.

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Wolf Gal: Ferretina

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 * Earthquake McGoon: Billing himself as "the world's dirtiest wrassler," the bearded, bloated McGoon first appeared in Li'l Abner as a traveling exhibition wrestler in the late '30s, and was reportedly partially based on real-life grappler Man Mountain Dean. McGoon became increasingly prominent in the Li'l Abner Cream of Wheat print ads of the 1940s, and later, with the early television exposure of gimmicky wrestlers such as Gorgeous George. The randy McGoon often attempted to walk Daisy Mae home "Skonk Hollow style", the lascivious implications of which are never made specific.
 * The (shudder!) Scraggs: Hulking, leering, gap-toothed twin miscreants Lem and Luke, and their needlessly proud pappy, Romeo. Apelike and homicidal, the impossibly evil Scraggs were officially declared inhuman by an act of Congress.  Kinfolk of Daisy Mae, they carried on a blood feud with the Yokums throughout the run of the strip.  A long-lost kid sister named "*@!!*!"-Belle Scragg briefly joined the clan in 1947.  Fetchingly-attired in a prison-striped reform school miniskirt, "*@!!*!"-Belle was outwardly attractive, but just as rotten as her siblings on the inside.  Her censored first name was an expletive, compelling everyone who addressed her to apologize profusely afterwards.
 * Nightmare Alice: Dogpatch's own conjure woman; a hideous, cackling crone who practices Louisiana Voodoo and black magic. Capp named her after the carnival-themed horror film, Nightmare Alley (1947).


 * Ol' Man Mose: The mysterious Mose was reportedly hundreds of "yars" old, and lived like a hermit in a cave atop a mountain. His wisdom was absolute, and his sought-after annual Sadie Hawkins Day predictions - though frustratingly cryptic and infuriatingly misleading - were nonetheless 100% accurate.
 * Evil-Eye Fleegle: Fleegle had a unique and terrifying skill - the evil eye. An ordinary "whammy," as he called it, could stop a charging bull in its tracks. A "double whammy" could fell a skyscraper, leaving Fleegle exhausted. His dreaded "triple whammy" could melt a battleship - but would practically kill Fleegle in the process. The zoot suit-clad Fleegle was a native of Brooklyn, and his hilarious New York accent was unmistakable - especially when addressing his "goil", the zaftig Shoiley. Fleegle was reportedly based on a real-life character, a Runyonesque local boxing trainer and hanger-on named Benjamin "Evil Eye" Finkle.  Finkle and his famous "hex" were a ringside fixture in New York boxing circles during the 1930s and '40s.


 * J. Roaringham Fatback: The self-styled "Pork King" was a greedy, gluttonous, unscrupulous business tycoon. Incensed to find that Dogpatch cast a shadow on his breakfast egg, he had Dogpatch moved - instead of the egg.  The bloated, porcine Fatback was, quite literally, a corporate swine.


 * Gat Garson: Li'l Abner's double - a murderous racketeer, with a predilection for Daisy Mae.


 * Aunt Bessie: Mammy's socialite kid sister was the "white sheep" of the family. Bessie's string of marriages into Boston and Park Avenue aristocracy left her a class-conscious, condescending snob.  Her status-seeking crusade to makeover Abner and marry him off into high society was doomed to failure, however. Aunt Bessie virtually disappeared from the strip after Abner and Daisy Mae's marriage in 1952.


 * Big Barnsmell: Lonely "inside man" at the Skonk Works. Scores have been done in by the toxic fumes of the concentrated "skonk oil" which is brewed and barreled daily by Big Barnsmell and his cousin, "outside man" Barney Barnsmell, for some unspecified purpose. His job played havoc with his social life, and the name of his famous factory entered the culture via the Lockheed Corporation.


 * Soft-Hearted John: Dogpatch's impossibly mercenary, thoroughly blackhearted grocer, the ironically named Soft-Hearted John gleefully swindled and starved his clientele - and looked disturbingly satanic to boot. He had an idiot of a nephew who sometimes ran the store in his stead, aptly named Soft-Headed John.


 * Smilin' Zack: Cadaverous, outwardly peaceable mountaineer with a menacing grin and an even more menacing shotgun. He preferred things quiet. Real quiet, that is - not breathing or anything.  Zack's moniker was a take-off on another comic strip, Smilin' Jack by Zack Mosley.


 * Dr. Killmare: The local Dogpatch physician, who just happened to be a horse doctor. His name was a pun on movie, radio and TV's Dr. Kildare series.
 * Cap’n Eddie Ricketyback: Decrepit World War I aviator and owner / proprietor of the even more decrepit Dogpatch Airlines; Cap'n Eddie's name was a spoof of WWI fighter ace, Eddie Rickenbacker.
 * Weakeyes Yokum: Before Mister Magoo there was Dogpatch's own Cousin Weakeyes, who would tragically mistake grizzly bears for romantically-inclined "rich gals" in fur coats, and end a sequence by characteristically walking off a cliff.


 * Young Eddie McSkonk and U.S. Mule: Ancient, creaky, white-bearded Dogpatch postmaster and his hoary jackass mount. They were usually too feeble to handle the sacks of timeworn, cobweb-covered letters marked "Rush" at the Dogpatch Express post office.
 * J. Colossal McGenius: The brilliant marketing consultant who charged $10,000 per word for his sought-after business advice. McGenius was given to telling long-winded jokes with forgotten punch lines, however - as well as spells of hiccups, belches and sneezes which, at ten grand a pop, usually bankrupted his unfortunate clients.


 * Silent Yokum: Prudent Cousin Silent never utters a word unless it's absolutely, vitally important. Consequently, he hasn't spoken in 40 years.  The arrival of Silent's grim visage in Dogpatch signaled earthshaking news on the horizon.  Capp would milk reader suspense by having Silent "warm up" his rusty, creaking jaw muscles for a few days, before the momentous pronouncement.


 * Happy Vermin: The "world's smartest cartoonist" - a caricature of Ham Fisher - who hired Li'l Abner to draw his comic strip for him in a dimly-lit closet. Instead of using Vermin's tired characters, Abner had inventively peopled the strip with hillbillies. A bighearted Vermin told his slaving assistant: "I'm proud of having created these characters!! They'll make millions for me!! And if they do—I'll get you a new light bulb!!"


 * Big Stanislouse: (aka: Big Julius) Stanislouse was a brutal gangster with a childish fondness for kiddie TV superheroes (like "Chickensouperman" and "Milton the Masked Martian"). Part of a virtual goon squad of comic mobsters that inhabited Li'l Abner and Fearless Fosdick, the oafish Stanislouse alternated with other all-purpose underworld thugs, including "the Boys from the Syndicate", Capp's euphemism for The Mob.


 * The Square-Eyes Family: Mammy's revelatory encounter with these unpopular Dogpatch outcasts first appeared in 1956. The fable-like story was really a thinly veiled appeal for racial tolerance.  It was later issued as an educational comic book - called Mammy Yokum and the Great Dogpatch Mystery! - by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.


 * Appassionata Von Climax: One of a series of predatory, sexually aggressive sirens who pursued Li'l Abner prior to his marriage, and even afterwards, much to the consternation of Daisy Mae. Joining a long list of femmes fatales that included Tenderleif Ericson, Gloria Van Welbilt, Moonlight Sonata and "The Tigress"; Appassionata was memorably portrayed by both Tina Louise (onstage) and Stella Stevens (on film).  Capp always wondered how he ever got her suggestive name past the censors.


 * Princess Minihahaskirt: Decades before Disney's Pocahontas, the sexiest cartoon Indian princesses could be found in Li'l Abner. The latest in a series of lovely native maidens who enticed the normally stoic Lonesome Polecat, the list also included Minnie Mustache, Raving Dove, Little Turkey Wing and Princess Two Feathers.


 * Liddle Noodnik: A typically miserable resident of perpetually frozen Lower Slobbovia, naked local waif Liddle Noodnik was usually employed to recite a farcical poem of greeting to visiting dignitaries, or sing the absurd Slobbovian national anthem, (see Setting and fictitious locales).


 * Pantless Perkins: A very late addition to the strip, Capp introduced Honest Abe's brainy ragamuffin pal Pantless Perkins in a series of kid-themed stories in the seventies, probably to compete with Peanuts. Poor Pantless didn't own a single pair of trousers.  He wore an over-length turtleneck sweater to hide the fact, much to  his embarrassment.


 * Rotten Ralphie: The kiddie version of Earthquake McGoon, Ralphie lived up to his name - he was the perfectly rotten Dogpatch neighborhood bully. Exceedingly large for his age, Ralphie always wore a cowboy outfit that was several sizes too small.


 * Bet-a-Million Bashby: Bashby amassed his colossal fortune by following one simple rule: Always bet on a sure thing, and always bet with a fool. He hadn't reckoned on fool's luck, however.  All through the years Bashby bet on a sure thing, and all through the years Abner won.


 * The Widder Fruitful: Another iconic Dogpatch "regular", often glimpsed in passing or featured in crowd scenes. The ample, fertile widow invariably held 3 or 4 naked newborns under each arm, always carried backside forward, with a healthy brood of earlier offspring following in her wake.


 * Jubilation T. Cornpone: Dogpatch's founder and most famous son, memorialized by a town statue, is confederate General Jubilation T. Cornpone - renowned for "Cornpone's Retreat," "Cornpone's Disaster," "Cornpone's Misjudgment," and "Cornpone's Hoomiliation." The hapless general is really best known for being the namesake of the rousing showstopper in the popular Li'l Abner musical, as sung by Marryin' Sam and chorus.


 * Sadie Hawkins: In the early days of Dogpatch, Sadie Hawkins was "the homeliest gal in them hills" who grew frantic waiting for suitors to come a-courtin'. Her father Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent Dogpatch resident, was even more frantic - about Sadie living at home for the rest of his life. So he decreed the first annual Sadie Hawkins Day, a foot race in which all the unmarried women pursued the town's bachelors, with matrimony as the consequence. A pseudo-holiday entirely created in the strip, it's still observed today in the form of Sadie Hawkins Dances, at which women approach (or chase after) men.


 * Lena the Hyena: A hideous Lower Slobbovian gal, referred to but initially unseen, or only glimpsed from the neck down in Li'l Abner. Capp invited readers to draw Lena in a famous nationwide contest in 1946.  Lena was ultimately revealed in the harrowing winning entry, (as judged by Frank Sinatra, Boris Karloff and Salvador Dali) drawn by noted cartoonist Basil Wolverton.


 * Joanie Phoanie: An unabashed Communist radical who sang revolutionary songs of class warfare - while hypocritically traveling in a limousine and charging outrageous concert appearance fees. Joanie was Capp's notorious parody of protest singer / songwriter Joan Baez. The character caused a storm of controversy in 1966, and many newspapers would only run censored versions of the strips. Baez took Capp's implicit satire to heart, however, as she would admit years later in her autobiography: "Mr Capp confused me considerably.  I'm sorry he's not alive to read this, it would make him chuckle," (from And A Voice To Sing With, 1987)


 * S.W.I.N.E.: Capp used Li'l Abner to satirize current events, fads, and ephemeral popular culture (such as zoot suits in "Zoot Suit Yokum" in 1943). [[Image:Zoot suit yokum.JPG|thumb|left|Li'l Abner as Zoot Suit Yokum, May 1943]] Beginning in the mid-1960s, the strip became a forum for Capp's increasingly conservative political views.  Capp, who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just a stone's throw from Harvard - satirized campus radicals, militant student political groups and hippies during the Vietnam war protest era. The Youth International Party (Y.I.P.) and Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) emerged in Li'l Abner as S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything!)


 * Al Capp claimed that he always strove to give incidental characters in Li'l Abner names that would render all further description unnecessary. In that spirit, the following list of recurring  semi-regulars (and a few one-shots) are unreferenced: Tobacco Rhoda, Joan L. Sullivan, Romeo McHaystack, Hamfat Gooch, Global McBlimp, Concertino Constipato, J. Sweetbody Goodpants, Reactionary J. Repugnant, B. Fowler McNest, Fleabrain, Weakfish, Stubborn P. Tolliver, Idiot J. Tolliver, Battling McNoodnik, Mayor Dan'l Dawgmeat, Slobberlips McJab, One-Fault Jones, Bounder J. Roundheels, Swami Riva, Olman Riva, Sir Orble Gasse-Payne, Black Rufe, Mickey Looney, "Ironpants" Bailey, Priceless and Liceless, Dumpington Van Lump, Hawg McCall, Loverboynik... and a host of others.

Fearless Fosdick
Li'l Abner also featured a comic strip-within-the-strip: Fearless Fosdick was a parody of Chester Gould's plainclothes detective, Dick Tracy. It first appeared in 1942, and proved so popular that it ran intermittently in Li'l Abner over the next 35 years. Gould was also personally parodied in the series as cartoonist Lester Gooch - the diminutive, much-harassed and occasionally deranged "creator" of Fearless Fosdick. The style of the Fosdick sequences closely mimicked Tracy, including the urban setting, the outrageous villains, the galloping mortality rate, the lettering style - even Gould's familiar signature was parodied in Fearless Fosdick. Fosdick battled a succession of archenemies with absurdly unlikely names like Rattop, Anyface, Bombface, the Atom Bum, the Chippendale Chair, and Sidney the Crooked Parrot, as well as his own criminal mastermind father, "Fearful" Fosdick, aka: "The Original". The razor-jawed title character (Li'l Abner's "ideel") was perpetually ventilated by flying bullets until he resembled a slice of Swiss cheese. The impervious Fosdick considered the gaping, smoking holes "mere scratches", however, and always reported back in one piece to his corrupt superior, The Chief, for duty the next day.

Besides being fearless, Fosdick was "pure, underpaid and purposeful," according to his creator. He also had notoriously bad aim, often leaving a trail of collateral damage (in the form of bullet-riddled pedestrians) in his wake. "When Fosdick is after a lawbreaker, there is no escape for the miscreant," Capp wrote in 1956. "There is, however, a fighting chance to escape for hundreds of innocent bystanders who happen to be in the neighborhood - but only a fighting chance. Fosdick's duty, as he sees it, is not so much to maintain safety as to destroy crime, and it's too much to ask any law-enforcement officer to do both, I suppose." Fosdick lived in squalor at the dilapidated boarding house run by his mercenary landlady, Mrs. Flintnose. He never married his own long-suffering fiancée Prudence (ugh!) Pimpleton, but Fosdick was directly responsible for the unwitting marriage of his biggest fan, Li'l Abner to Daisy Mae in 1952. The bumbling detective became the star of his own NBC-TV puppet show that same year. Fosdick also achieved considerable exposure as the long-running advertising spokesman for Wildroot Cream-Oil, a popular men's hair product of the postwar period.

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Lower Slobbovia
<!-- As utterly wretched as existence was in Dogpatch, there was one place even worse: frigid, faraway Lower Slobbovia was fashioned as a pointedly political satire of backward nations and foreign diplomacy. The hapless residents were perpetually waist-deep in several feet of snow, and icicles hung from almost every frostbitten nose. The favorite dish of the starving natives was raw polar bear, and "vice-versa". Lower Slobbovians spoke with burlesque pidgin-Russian accents; the miserable frozen wasteland of Capp's invention abounded in incongruous Yiddish humor.

Conceptually based on Siberia, or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan, Capp's icy hellhole made its first appearance in Li'l Abner in April, 1946. Ruled by King Nogoodnik, also known as King Stubbornovsky the Last, the Slobbovian politicians were even more corrupt than their Dogpatch counterparts. Their monetary unit was the "Rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing, and a large quantity was worth a lot less, due to the trouble of carrying them around. The local children were read harrowing tales from "Ice-sop's Fables", which were parodies of classic Aesop Fables - but with a darkly sardonic bent, (and titles like "Coldilocks and the Three Bares"). Slobbovia even had its own (absurd) national anthem, which went like this:

"We are citizens of Slobbovia / (Oh, that this should be happening to us!) / We are giving you back to the Indians / But they are refusing, of cuss! / PTUI on you, Slobbovia! / We are hating your icebound coast / Of all the countries in the world / WE ARE HATING SLOBBOVIA MOST!!"

Other fictional locales
Skonk Hollow, El Passionato, Kigmyland, the Republic of Crumbumbo, Lo Kunning, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, Pineapple Junction, and most notably, the Valley of the Shmoon.

Shmoos and other mythic creatures
The Shmoo, introduced in 1948, was a fabulous creature whose generous nature and incredible usefulness ironically made it a threat to capitalism, to western society, and perhaps to civilization itself. Li'l Abner featured a whole menagerie of allegorical animals over the years - each one was designed to showcase another disturbing aspect of human nature. They included:
 * Kigmies - masochistic creatures who loved to be kicked, and thereby satisfy all human aggression - up to a point.
 * Nogoodniks - or evil shmoos.
 * The Bald Iggle - a guileless little critter whose soulful gaze compelled everyone to tell the truth, including lawyers, politicians, fishermen, and used car salesmen.
 * Mimikniks - birds who sing like anyone they've ever heard. (Those who've heard Maria Callas are valued. Those who've heard George Jessel are shot.)
 * The Money Ha-Ha - an alien being with a head shaped like a taxi horn, it laid U.S. currency in place of eggs.
 * Turnip Termites - looking like a cross between a locust and a piranha, billions of these insatiable pests swarm once a year to their ancient feeding ground, Dogpatch.
 * Shminks - valued for making "shmink coats". They can only be captured by braining 'em with a kitchen door.
 * Pincushions - alien beings from "Planet Pincus Number 7". They looked like flying sausages, with pinwheels on their butts.
 * Abominable Snow-Hams - delectable but intelligent beings, presenting Tiny Yokum with an ethical dilemma. Does eating one constitute cannibalism?
 * Slobbovian Amp-Eaters - this luminous beast consumed electric currents; a walking energy crisis.
 * Bashful Bulganiks - timid birds that are so skittish they can't be seen by human eyes, and are thus theoretical.
 * Stunflowers - murderous, thoroughly malevolent anthropomorphic houseplants.
 * Fatoceroses - the only defense against a stampede of these bloated pachyderms was a steaming plate of lethally addictive "mockaroni".
 * Bitingales - fiendish little devil birds whose hellish bite causes unbearable heat - for 24 years.
 * Shmeagles - the world's horniest creatures, they pursue their females at the speed of light - sometimes faster!
 * Hammus Alabammus - an adorable species of pig, with a "zoot snoot" and a "drape shape". The only one in existence resides with the Yokums - their beloved pet, Salomey.

Dialogue and catchphrases
His use of language was both unique and universally appealing; and his clean, bold cartooning style provided a perfect vehicle for his creations. Al Capp, a native northeasterner, wrote all the final dialogue in Li'l Abner using his approximation of a mock-southern dialect, (including phonetic sounds, nonstop "creative" spelling and deliberate malapropisms). He constantly interspersed boldface type, and included prompt words in parentheses (chuckle!, sob!, gasp!, shudder!, smack!, drool!, cackle!, snort!, gulp!, blush!, ugh!, etc.) as asides - to bolster the effect of the printed dialogue balloons. Almost every line was followed by two exclamation points for added emphasis.

Outside Dogpatch, characters used a variety of stock Vaudevillian dialects. Mobsters and criminal-types invariably spoke slangy Brooklynese, and residents of Lower Slobbovia spoke pidgin-Russian, with a smattering of Yinglish. Comic dialects were also devised for offbeat British characters - like H'Inspector Blugstone of Scotland Yard (who had a Cockney accent) and Sir Cecil Cesspool, (whose speech was a clipped, uppercrust King's English). Various Asian, Latin, Native American and European characters spoke in a wide range of specific, broadly caricatured dialects as well. Capp has credited his inspiration for vividly stylized language to early literary influences like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Damon Runyon, as well as Old-time radio and the Burlesque stage.

The following is a partial list of characteristic expressions that reappeared often in Li'l Abner.


 * “Amoozin' but confoozin'!”
 * “Yo' big, sloppy beast!!” (also, “Yo’ mizzable skonk!!")
 * “Ef Ah had mah druthers, Ah'd druther...”
 * “As any fool kin plainly see!” (Response: "Ah sees!")
 * “What's good for General Bullmoose is good for everybody!”
 * “Thar's no Jack S. like our Jack S!”
 * “Oh, happy day!”
 * “Pearly gates, open wide!”
 * “Th’ ideel o’ ev’ry one hunnerd percent, red-blooded American boy!”
 * "Ah'll bash yore haid in!!"
 * "Wal, fry mah hide!"
 * “Ah has spoken!”
 * “Good is better than evil, becuz it's nicer!”

Sadie Hawkins Day
An American folk event, Sadie Hawkins Day is a pseudo-holiday entirely created within the strip. It made its debut in Li'l Abner on November 15, 1937. Capp originally created it as a comic plot device, but in 1939, only two years after its inauguration, a double-page spread in Life proclaimed, "On Sadie Hawkins Day Girls Chase Boys in 201 Colleges." By the early 1940s the comic strip event had swept the nation's imagination and acquired a life of its own. By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 known venues. It became a woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained prominence.

Outside the comic strip, the practical basis of Sadie Hawkins Day is simply one of gender role-reversal. Women and girls take the initiative in inviting the man or boy of their choice out on a date - unheard of before 1937 - typically to a dance attended by other bachelors and their assertive dates. When Capp created the event, it wasn't his intention to have it occur annually on a specific date, because it inhibited his freewheeling plotting. However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters he received, Capp made it a tradition in the strip every November, lasting four decades. In many localities the tradition continues.

Additions to the language
Sadie Hawkins Day is one of several terms attributed to Al Capp that have entered the English language. Others include skunk works, double whammy and Lower Slobbovia. The term shmoo has also entered the language; used in defining highly technical concepts in no less than three separate fields of science. In economics, a "shmoo" refers to any generic kind of good that reproduces itself, (as opposed to "widgets" which require resources and active production.) In microbiology, "shmooing" is the biological term for the "budding" process in yeast reproduction. In electrical engineering, a shmoo plot is the technical term used for the graphic pattern of test circuits. (The term is also used as a verb: to "shmoo" means to run the test.)

Capp has also been credited with popularizing many terms, such as "natcherly", schmooze, druthers, and nogoodnik, neatnik, etc. (In his book The American Language, H.L. Mencken credits the postwar mania for adding "-nik" to the ends of adjectives to create nouns as beginning, not with beatnik or Sputnik, but earlier - in the pages of Li'l Abner.)

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 * Li'l Abner has one odd design quirk that has puzzled readers for decades: the part in his hair always faces the viewer, no matter which direction Abner is facing. In response to the question “Which side does Abner part his hair on?", Capp would answer, “Both.”