Al Capp's L'il Abner, started in 1934, chronicled the adventures of 19-year old muscleman Abner Yokum, his elderly parents, and the colorful residents of Dogpatch, U.S.A. It was part of the contemporary hillbilly fad.
Books, movies, and radio programs were presenting the hills (Ozarks or Appalachians) as an untouched wilderness, an Eden inhabited by rustic Adonises whose muscles and rude manners provided a remedy for the ultra-sophistication of Cary Grant and Clark Gable.
The backwoods Adonis became a common image, extending through Jethro of The Beverly Hillbillies to The Dukes of Hazzard.
The prelapsarian state had one drawback, at least for heterosexual readers: no place for heterosexual romance. So uninterested were the men of Dogpatch that Al Capp instituted a Sadie Hawkins Day, an annual festival in which man-hungry spinsters chased "skeered" bachelors, and whoever got "ketched" had to marry.
When they think they are going to die, they hold each other: "I want to die in your arms."They are actually frozen, so two weeks of strips featured two men locked in an embrace, and maybe kissing.
In 1952, changing sociocultural mores -- such as the increasing awareness that a man who is not interested in women may be interested in men -- prompted Al Capp to marry off Abner. Soon he became a father.
Increasingly conservative and unfunny as time progressed, the strip pushed forward in a dwindling number of newspapers until 1977.
There were two movie versions of the strip. Everyone remembers the 1959 version, with Peter Palmer as Lil' Abner, and a plot about a "yokumberry tonic" that turns ordinary men into bodybuilders but has the side effect of making them uninterested in women.
See also: Li'l Abner, the Musical; and I Go Pogo: The Gay Possum of Okefenokee Swamp
In 1952, changing sociocultural mores -- such as the increasing awareness that a man who is not interested in women may be interested in men -- prompted Al Capp to marry off Abner. Soon he became a father.
Increasingly conservative and unfunny as time progressed, the strip pushed forward in a dwindling number of newspapers until 1977.
See also: Li'l Abner, the Musical; and I Go Pogo: The Gay Possum of Okefenokee Swamp
There is a porn version starring Sonny Landham, but only watch in the interest of seeing how depraved the hets are.
ReplyDeleteAbner's marriage ruined all his good 'bachelor' storylines and his 'family man' role didn't work well (Honest Abe notwithstanding). So in 1954, the strip introduced his previously unmentioned brother, 'Tiny' Yokum, perpetually 15 1/2 years old, and even bigger and dumber than Abner. Originally with a bulbous nose and shaggy hair, he eventually got a nose job and buzz cut and a new confirmed bachelor was born. Because of the deathgrip that the owners maintain on the property, it is a little hard to find images of Tiny online, but not impossible.
ReplyDeleteThere's a page on Facebook with a lot of Li'l Abner strips, including complete runs of some years in the 1950s and 1960s, and an album devoted to Tiny Yokum. He seems to fall in love in most of them. In one, he has a date with a person named Harold. His friends make fun of him, until he angrily states that Harold is a girl.
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