History ComicStrip / LilAbner

A seminal and [[LongRunner long-running]] (1934–77) newspaper [[http://www.lil-abner.com/ comic strip]] by Al Capp, which detailed the bizarre lives and loves of the hillbilly inhabitants of Dogpatch, USA. The title character was the perpetually 19-year-old big-hearted lunkhead, the son of spitfire Pansy "Mammy" Yokum and the dull-witted useless Lucifer "Pappy" Yokum. For many of the early years of the strip, the marriage-fearing Abner was pursued aggressively by the lovely Daisy Mae Scragg; in 1952, Capp gave in and let her finally marry Abner. The strip was known for its vicious satire of current events, initially from a more liberal perspective though switching to a conservative bent in its twilight years as Capp grew older. Many of the storylines focused on the innocent Abner being placed in positions where he was easy prey for corrupt villains.

A seminal and long-running (1934–77) newspaper [[http://www.lil-abner.com/ comic strip]] by Al Capp, which detailed the bizarre lives and loves of the hillbilly inhabitants of Dogpatch, USA. The title character was the perpetually 19-year-old big-hearted lunkhead, the son of spitfire Pansy "Mammy" Yokum and the dull-witted useless Lucifer "Pappy" Yokum. For many of the early years of the strip, the marriage-fearing Abner was pursued aggressively by the lovely Daisy Mae Scragg; in 1952, Capp gave in and let her finally marry Abner. The strip was known for its vicious satire of current events, initially from a more liberal perspective though switching to a conservative bent in its twilight years as Capp grew older. Many of the storylines focused on the innocent Abner being placed in positions where he was easy prey for corrupt villains.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Even Al Capp openly wondered how he got Appassionata Von Climax past the censors. Not only did she appear in the strip as one of the many sexually aggressive femmes fatale pursuing Abner, but also as a villain in the musical... meaning her name snuck past the Hays Code as well.

%% * ChasteHero: Abner, to a comical {{Asexual}} degree.

%% * FarmersDaughter: Pretty much all of the women.
%% * FunetikAksent: Everyone that doesn't speak plain English, especially the main characters.

%% * HalfWittedHillbilly: Several, though Pappy Yokum probably leads the pack. Lil' Abner himself wavers between this and KindheartedSimpleton.

%% * HeadTurningBeauty:
%% ** Stupefyin' Jones is the most evident.
%% ** To a lesser degree, there were a wide variety of [[ImpossibleHourglassFigure shapely]] girls that would attract [[DistractedByTheSexy attention]] from the menfolk. [[IncorruptiblePurePureness Except Little Abner himself, of course.]]

** Apner's younger brother Tiny manages to be even ''more'' of a MrFanservice, being even taller and better built. Early on he looked more comical since he had inherited his father's big nose, but then his nose was broken, he got surgery and he ended up as traditionally handsome as Abner.

%% * OnlyAFleshWound: Fearless Fosdick

%% * WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: Wolf Gal

%% * ATankardOfMooseUrine: Kickapoo Joy Juice.

%% * CowboyCop: Fearless Fosdick

%% * GeneralFailure: Jubilation T. Cornpone

[[quoteright:260:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/l_Abner_Original_Cast_Recording_8885.jpg]]

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Sadie Hawkins and Lena the Hyena.
* AmbidextrousSprite: A rare non-video game example; ; Li'l Abner had an odd design quirk where the part in his hair always faces the viewer, no matter which direction Abner is facing. When asked “Which side does Abner part his hair on?," creator Al Capp answered, [[TakeAThirdOption “Both.”]]

* ATankardOfMooseUrine: Kickapoo Joy Juice.

* ButterFace: Sadie Hawkins
* ChasteHero: Abner, to a comical {{Asexual}} degree.
* CoolOldLady: Pansy Yokum
* CowboyCop: Fearless Fosdick
* CrapsackWorld: Lower Slobbovia. Dogpatch itself is only slightly better.

* DistractedByTheSexy: Stupefyin' Jones
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Daisy Mae goes barefoot, as do many of the other Dogpatch residents. (This may actually be a different trope, BarefootPoverty.)
* DeepSouth: Dogpatch (couldn't get much deeper..)

* FarmersDaughter: Pretty much all of the women.
* FunetikAksent: Everyone that doesn't speak plain English, especially the main characters.

* HayseedName: Just about everybody in Dogpatch, including Abner himself
* GargleBlaster: Kickapoo Joy Juice
* GeneralFailure: Jubilation T. Cornpone

* HalfWittedHillbilly: Several, though Pappy Yokum probably leads the pack. Lil' Abner himself wavers between this and KindheartedSimpleton.

* HeadTurningBeauty:
** Stupefyin' Jones is the most evident.
** To a lesser degree, there were a wide variety of [[ImpossibleHourglassFigure shapely]] girls that would attract [[DistractedByTheSexy attention]] from the menfolk. [[IncorruptiblePurePureness Except Little Abner himself, of course.]]
* HonestJohnsDealership: Available Jones

* IssueDrift: See Creator Breakdown
* LetsMeetTheMeat: The Shmoos

* MsFanservice: Daisy Mae, and a whole bunch of others. Stupefyin' Jones is a ''weaponized'' variant.

* MultipurposeMonoculturedCrop: The schmoo take the "multipurpose" aspect of this trope UpToEleven.

* OnlyAFleshWound: Fearless Fosdick

* PersonalRaincloud: Joe Btfsplk
* ThePigPen: Moonbeam [=McSwine=]

* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: The Schmoos, which spawned a merchandising mania... until Capp finally got so tired of them overshadowing his strip that he had them all killed off.
* {{Ruritania}}: Lower Slobbovia

* StrawmanPolitical: Again, lots of them.

* TakeThat: Whatever or whomever had recently pissed off Al Capp.
* TastesLikeChicken: Fried Shmoo.

* [[WeWantOurJerkBack We Want Our Nutcase Back]]: Lester Gooch was once cured of his insanity, leading to horrible ''Fearless Fosdick'' plotlines and his readers bailing. His syndicate eventually put him through various forms of torture, ending with making him watch soap operas, until he finally went insane again.

* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: Wolf Gal

* HelloNurse: Stupefyin' Jones is the most evident.

* OfficialFanSubmittedContent: Lena the Hyena's face was finally selected by holding a contest for fans of the strip.

** Capp's work [[UnbuiltTrope pre-dated the expression "fan service,"]] but this strip is a very strong example. The strip didn't rely on RuleOfSexy - it was genuinely humorous quite aside from the eye candy - but unlike almost any other media in TheFifties, it [[RefugeInAudacity revelled]] in fan service.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: All celebrity parodies had their names changed, mainly so Capp could use them whenever he wanted. One of the more notorious was ''Fearless Fosdick'' author Lester Gooch, a parody of ''ComicStrip/DickTracy'' author Chester Gould. Gooch was frequently portrayed as mentally deranged, and only capable of writing well when he ''was'' insane.

** Abner himself might qualify as MrFanservice. He may be a big chaste doofus but he's nonetheless a cute, hunky, young guy with jet-black hair and a [[WalkingShirtlessScene great physique]]. YMMV.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: One of the first strips to do this regularly. The [[ShowWithinAShow strip within a strip]] ''Fearless Fosdick'' was often used to comment on the conventions of the actual strip. Taken UpToEleven in the story of Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae's marriage, which came about because Abner took a vow to do whatever Fosdick did in his strip, and Fosdick ended up marrying. Notably, this story also poked fun at the perpetual [[StatusQuoIsGod status quo]] of most comic strips: while Fosdick eventually [[JustADream wakes up and realizes that he wasn't married after all]], returning to status quo, the same was not true for ''Li'l Abner''!

During the strip's run, it was adapted into two films, a Broadway musical (which served as the basis for the second film), a radio serial that ran from 1939 to 1940 and five short animated films made by Creator/ColumbiaCartoons in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1944]]. While the series itself never became a television show (despite an unsold pilot airing just once on NBC in 1967), ''Fearless Fosdick,'' a ruthless parody of ''ComicStrip/DickTracy'', briefly spun-off into his own 13-episode puppet show that was swiftly canceled, while the Shmoo appeared in two Saturday Morning Cartoon series for Hanna-Barbera in 1979 and again in 1980–84 (both times sharing billing with [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble]]). A theme park, Dogpatch, USA, opened in 1968, though it was largely unsuccessful for most of its life and closed in 1993 ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpatch_USA though most it is still standing]]). The strip is also credited with introducing several colloquialisms into the English language, including "schmooze", "irregardless", "druthers", and even the word "schmoo" has entered into at least four separate fields of science. The strip was also the original source of "Sadie Hawkins Day" dances.

* BreakoutCharacter: The Shmoo species has been incredibly popular in the series. It soon spun off it's own comic. Creator/HannaBarbera gave one of them a series in 1979. It was a Scooby Doo knockoff but hey he was the main attraction. The next year he was in the Flintstone Comedy Show in the segment Bedrock Cops.

* FunWithAcronyms: The student group SWINE

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Even Al Capp openly wondered how he got Appassionata Von Climax past the censors. Not only did she appear in the strip as one of the many sexually aggressive femme fatales pursuing Abner, but also as a villain in the musical... meaning her name snuck past the Hays Code as well.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: One of the first strips to do this regularly. The [[ShowWithinAShow strip within a strip]] ''Fearless Fosdick'' was often used to comment on the conventions of the actual strip. Taken UpToEleven in the story of Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae's marriage, which came about because Abner took a vow to do whatever Fosdick did in his strip.

A seminal and long-running (1934–77) newspaper [[http://www.lil-abner.com/ comic strip]] by Al Capp, which detailed the bizarre lives and loves of the hillbilly inhabitants of Dogpatch, USA. The title character was the perpetually 19-year-old big-hearted lunkhead, the son of spitfire Pansy "Mammy" Yokum and the dull-witted useless Lucifer "Pappy" Yokum. For much of the early years of the strip, the marriage-fearing Abner was pursued aggressively by the lovely Daisy Mae Scragg; in 1952, Capp gave in and let her finally marry Abner. The strip was known for its vicious satire of current events, initially from a more liberal perspective though switching to a conservative bent in its twilight years as Capp grew older. Many of the storylines focused on the innocent Abner being placed in positions where he was easy prey for corrupt villains.

* BreakoutCharacter: The Shmoo species has been incredibly popular in the series. Creator/HannaBarbera gave one of them a series in 1979. It was a Scooby Doo knockoff but hey he was the main attraction. The next year he was in the Flintstone Comedy Show in the segment Bedrock Cops.

* Breakout Character: The Shmoo species has been incredibly popular in the series. Creator/HannaBarbera gave one of them a series in 1979. It was a Scooby Doo knockoff but hey he was the main attraction. The next year he was in the Flintstone Comedy Show in the segment Bedrock Cops.

* PovertyForComedy: One of the staples of the comic. Everyone in Dogpatch is ridiculously poor and on the brink of starvation, and it's all PlayedForLaughs. Al Capp himself grew up poor and took a fair bit of inspiration from his childhood -- just exaggerated to comical extremes. Taken UpToEleven woth Lower Slobbovia, which makes Dogpatch seem downright wealthy in comparison.

'''(After Abner proposes)'''\\

'''(After Abner proposes)\\

'''Kid:''' Be that as it may, Brother Yokum - yo' took a oath t'do whutever Fosdick does!\\
'''Abner:''' Shore! Cain't do me no harm! Daisy Mae! Will yo' - ha! ha! - marry me?\\
'''Daisy Mae:''' Ah will! (Oh, how mizzuble all this is! Th'biggest moment in mah life, an' it's jest a joke fum a comical strip!)

'''Abner: Shore! Cain't do me no harm! Daisy Mae! Will yo' - ha! ha! - marry me?\\