Li'l Abner was a comic strip in United States
newspapers, featuring a fictional clan of
hillbillies in the town of Dogpatch. Written and
drawn by Al Capp, it ran from 1934 through 1977.

The comic strip starred Li'l Abner Yokum, the
dumb but good-natured hillbilly whose main goal
was evading the marital goals of Daisy Mae
Scraggs, his well-endowed girlfriend. Capp finally
gave in to reader pressure and allowed the couple
to marry. This was such big news, the happy couple
made the cover of Life magazine.

Abner's home town of Dogpatch was peopled with an
assortment of memorable characters, including
Marryin' Sam, Wolf Gal, Lena the Hyena, Indian
Lonesome Polecat (creator of "Kickapoo Joy
Juice", presumably based on the real patent
medicine "Kickapoo Indian Sagwa", a product of
the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company of
Connecticut completely unrelated to the real
Kickapoo Indian tribe of Oklahoma), and a host of
others, including the statuesque beauties Moonbeam
McSwine, Stupefyin' Jones and Appassionata von
Climax.

Perhaps Capp's most popular creations were the
Shmoo, creatures whose incredible usefulness and
generous nature made them a threat to civilization
as we know it. Another famous character was Joe
Btfsplk, who wanted to be a loving friend but was
"the world's worst jinx", and always had a
small dark cloud over his head.

Senator Jack S. Phogbound was another memorable
character. A blustering Southern politician
("There's no Jack S like our Jack S!") who wore
a coonskin cap and carried a rifle to impress his
constituents, Phogbound is Capp's parody of the
Southern Democrats who opposed the New Deal, of
which Capp was a supporter. At one instance in the
strip, Phogbound was unable to campaign in
Dogpatch, so he sent his aides with a large
balloon filled with hot air -- and nobody really
noticed the difference.

Li'l Abner also featured a comic-strip within the
comic-strip, titled Fearless Fosdick (a parody of
Dick Tracy). The razor-jawed title character
("Li'l Abner's Ideel") might take a bullet in
the chest and declare it a mere "flesh wound".

Situations often took the characters to other
parts of the globe, including New York City,
tropical islands, and a miserable frozen land of
Capp's invention, "Lower Slobbovia."
Conceptually based on Siberia, or Russia in
general, the worthless land was ruled by "King
Stubbornovsky the Last". Their monetary unit was
the "Razzbucknik", of which one was worth
nothing, and a large quantity was worth a lot
less, due to the trouble of carrying them around.

At its peak, Li'l Abner was read daily by 70
million Americans (when the US population was only
180 million). Many communities staged "Sadie
Hawkins Day" events, after an annual race in the
strip in which the unmarried women were allowed to
keep any man they could catch. The unstatuesque
and plain Sadie Hawkins inspired the race.

With John Hodiak in the title role, the Li'l
Abner radio serial ran weekdays on NBC from
November 20, 1939 to December 6, 1940. A musical
comedy adaptation of the strip, also entitled
Li'l Abner, opened on Broadway in 1956 and was
made into a 1959 movie musical with Peter Palmer,
Leslie Parrish, Julie Newmar, Stella Stevens and
Donna Douglas.

In 1968 a theme park named "Dogpatch USA"
featuring Capp's characters opened in northwest
Arkansas and remained a popular attraction until
it closed in 1993. Several attempts have been made
to reopen the park but at the present time it lies
abandoned.

Capp had a platoon of assistants in later years
but always drew the faces and hands himself. Lena
the Hyena was designed by MAD artist Basil
Wolverton. Frank Frazetta, later famous as a
fantasy artist, drew the beautiful full-bodied
women in the strip's later years. Li'l Abner
lasted until November 13, 1977, and Capp died two
years later.

A planned 1990 revival of the strip in the capable
hands of cartoonist Steve Stiles was approved by
Capp's widow and brother, Elliott Caplin, and all
parties involved were ready to sign with a
syndicate when Al Capp's daughter, Julie Capp,
objected at the last minute and permission was
withdrawn.

In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the
Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative
postage stamps. Li'l Abner is also the name of a
famous steak house in Tucson, Arizona. Named after
the comic strip character, its only options are
one and two-pound steaks.