CARTOON VAGANZA

Li’l Abner (Picture 4)
Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 4. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 4.
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 crosshatched shadows, 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, Boldfinger, the Atom Bum, the Chippendale Chair, and Sidney the Crooked Parrot, as well as his own criminal mastermind father, "Fearful" Fosdick (a.k.a. "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. Li’l Abner (Picture 4). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 4. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 4. 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 (they've been engaged for 17 years), 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. Li’l Abner (Picture 4). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 4. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 4.

Li’l Abner (Picture 3)
Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 3. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 3.
Hooray for Jubilation T. Cornpone!-one of my favorite songs from the movie, along with "Put 'em back they way they was" (they were dumb, they were stupid but at least they was human!) Pappy Yokum: Born Lucifer Ornamental Yokum, pint-sized Pappy had the misfortune of being the patriarch in a family that didn't have one. Pappy was so lazy and ineffectual, he didn't even bathe himself. Mammy was regularly seen scrubbing Pappy in an outdoor oak tub ("Once a month, rain or shine.") Ironing Pappy's trousers fell under her wifely duties as well, although she didn't bother with preliminaries, like waiting for Pappy to remove them first. While Mammy was the unofficial mayor of Dogpatch and could read, Pappy remained illiterate. Pappy was dull-witted and gullible, but not completely without guile. Li’l Abner (Picture 3). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 3. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 3. He had an unfortunate predilection for snitching "presarved tarnips", and smoking corn silk behind the woodshed—much to his chagrin when Mammy caught him. Honest Abe Yokum: Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae's little boy was 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 was stuck in a pants-shaped stovepipe for the first six weeks), he was renamed "Honest Abe" (after President Abraham Lincoln) to thwart his early tendency to steal. His first words were "po'k chop", and that remained his favorite food. Though his uncle Tiny was perpetually frozen at 15½ "y'ars" old, Honest Abe gradually grew from infant to grade school age, and became a dead ringer for Washable Jones, the star of Capp's early "topper" strip. He would eventually acquire a couple of supporting character friends for his own semi-regularly featured adventures in the strip. Li’l Abner (Picture 3). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 3. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 3.

Li’l Abner (Picture 2)
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Yes, I remember the movie, and my school did a stage production of it (it had been a Broadway play), and I was in it ... Dr. Rasmussen T. Finsdale, the scientist who was responsible for the physical change in the husbands. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't catch the movie until many years later, on TV. Daisy Mae (née Scragg) Yokum: Beautiful Daisy Mae was hopelessly in love with Dogpatch's most prominent resident throughout the entire 43-year run of Al Capp's comic strip. During most of the epic, the impossibly dense Abner exhibited little romantic interest in her voluptuous charms, (much of it visible daily thanks to her famous polka-dot peasant blouse and cropped skirt). In 1952, Abner reluctantly proposed to Daisy to emulate the engagement of his comic strip "ideel", Fearless Fosdick. Fosdick's own wedding to longtime fiancée Prudence Pimpleton turned out to be a dream, but Abner and Daisy's ceremony, performed by Marryin' Sam, was permanent. Once married, Abner became relatively domesticated. Li’l Abner (Picture 2). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 2. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 2. Like Mammy Yokum and other "wimmenfolk" in Dogpatch, Daisy Mae did all the work, domestic and otherwise, while the useless menfolk generally did nothing whatsoever. Mammy Yokum: Born Pansy Hunks, Mammy was the scrawny, highly principled "sassiety" leader and bare knuckle "champeen" of the town of Dogpatch. She married the inconsequential Pappy Yokum in 1902; they produced two strapping sons twice their own size. Mammy dominated the Yokum clan through the force of her personality, and dominated everyone else with her fearsome right uppercut (sometimes known as her "Goodnight, Irene" punch), which helped her uphold law, order and decency. She was consistently the toughest character throughout Li'l Abner. A superhuman dynamo, Mammy did all the household chores—and provided her charges with no fewer than eight meals a day of "po'k chops" and "tarnips" (as well as local Dogpatch delicacies—like "candied catfish eyeballs" and "trashbean soup"). Her authority was unquestioned, and her characteristic phrase, "Ah has spoken!" signaled the end of all further discussion. Her most famous phrase, however, was "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.) Li’l Abner (Picture 2). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 2. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 2.

Li’l Abner (Picture 1)
Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 1. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 1.
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, 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. It was distributed by United Feature Syndicate. Read daily by scores of millions of people, the strip's characters and humor had a powerful cultural impact. I remember seeing it back in the very early 60s. I don't recall who all the characters were, and the actors that protrayed them, but got a kick out of Mammy Yocum. (sp?) Would like to know who played her character as well. Get those cogs and wheels circulating! Li'l Abner Yokum: The star of Capp's classic comic strip was hardly "little"; Abner was 6' 3" in his stockinged feet (if he wore stockings), and perpetually 19-years old. Li’l Abner (Picture 1). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 1. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 1. A naïve, simple-minded and sweet-natured hillbilly boy, he lived in a ramshackle log cabin with his pint-sized parents. He inherited his strength from his irascible Mammy, and his brains from his less-than-brainy Pappy. Capp derived their family name "Yokum" by combining yokel with hokum. In Capp's satirical and often complex plots, Abner was a country bumpkin Candide—a paragon of innocence in a sardonically dark and cynical world. A priceless rube, Abner was so gullible that he could be tricked by a small child. The loutish Abner typically had no visible means of support, but sometimes earned his livelihood as a "crescent cutter" for the Little Wonder privy company, (later changed to "mattress tester" for the Stunned Ox mattress company.) Abner's main goal in life was evading the marital designs of Daisy Mae Scragg, the virtuous, voluptuous, barefoot Dogpatch damsel and scion of the Yokums' blood feud enemies—the Scraggs, her bloodthirsty, semi-evolved kinfolk. For 18 years, Abner slipped out of Daisy Mae's marital crosshairs time and again. When Capp finally gave in to reader pressure and allowed the couple to tie the knot, it was a major media event. It even made the cover of Life magazine on March 31, 1952—illustrating an article by Capp entitled "It's Hideously True!! The Creator of Li'l Abner Tells Why His Hero Is (SOB!) Wed!!" Li’l Abner (Picture 1). Li’l Abner cartoon images gallery 1. Li’l Abner cartoon pictures collection 1.