Li'l Abner - Cast of Characters - Supporting Characters and Villains

Supporting Characters and Villains

• Marryin' Sam: A traveling (by mule) preacher who specializes in $2 weddings. He also offered the $8 "ultra-deluxe speshul," a spectacular ceremony in which Sam officiates 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, whose face and figure were reportedly modeled after New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, started out as a stock villain but gradually softened into a genial, 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 celebrated 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 equally lazy pappy, Moonshine McSwine. She was usually showcased luxuriating among 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, later known as the Polecats, "the one tribe who have never been conquered,") 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 of the brew are both mysterious and all-encompassing, (much like the contents of their cave, which has been known to harbor prehistoric monsters.) When a batch "needs more body," the formidable pair simply goes out and clubs one (often a moose), and tosses it in. Over the years, the "recipe" has called for live grizzly bears, panthers, kerosene, horseshoes and anvils, among other ingredients. An officially licensed soft drink called Kickapoo Joy Juice is still produced by the Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta, Georgia. Lonesome Polecat was also the official team mascot of the Sioux City Soos (1940–1960), a former Minor League baseball franchise of Sioux City, Iowa.

• 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 "raspberry," or Bronx cheer. Joe's personal storm 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 had many sidelines, including minding babies, (Dry — 5¢, Other kinds — 10¢). 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' was stunning — literally. So drop-dead gorgeous that any male who glimpsed her froze petrified in his tracks and rooted to the spot — in a word, stupefied! While she was generally favored by the males of Dogpatch, she could be deadly for a confirmed bachelor to encounter on Sadie Hawkins Day. 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, Bashington T. Bullmoose was the epitome of a mercenary, cold-blooded capitalist tyrant. 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 United States Secretary of Defense under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bullmoose had a simple boyhood dream: to possess all the money in the world. He very nearly did. Bullmoose Industries seemed to own or control everything. He had a milksop of a son named Weakfish, and was sometimes accompanied by his delectable "secretary," Bim Bovak, (whose name was a pun on both "bimbo" and bombshell actress Kim Novak). Li'l Abner became embroiled in many globetrotting adventures with the ruthless, reactionary billionaire over the years.

• Wolf Gal: A feral, irredeemable, Amazonian beauty who was raised by wolves and preferred to live among them; she lured unwary Dogpatchers to their doom to feed her ravenous pack. Wolf Gal was possibly, and even probably a cannibal — although the point was never stressed since she considered herself an animal, as did the rest of Dogpatch. One of Capp's more popular villains, Wolf Gal was briefly merchandised in the fifties with her own comic book, doll, handpuppet, and even a latex Halloween mask.

• 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 1930s, and was reportedly partially based on real-life grappler Man Mountain Dean. He also has a look-alike cousin named Typhoon McGoon. 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. Earthquake is the nastiest resident of neighboring Skonk Hollow — a nightmarish, notoriously lawless community where no sane Dogpatcher dares set foot. 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 gleefully homicidal, the impossibly evil Scraggs were officially declared inhuman by an act of Congress. The Scraggs were so awful, they burned down orphanages just to have light to read by, (although the joke was on them when they remembered they couldn't read!) Distant 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 "conjurin' woman," a hideous, cackling crone who practiced Louisiana Voodoo and black magic. Capp named her after the carnival-themed horror film, Nightmare Alley (1947). Alice employs witchcraft to "whomp up" ghosts and monsters to do her bidding. She was occasionally assisted by Doctor Babaloo, a witch doctor of the Belgian Congo, as well as her demon-child niece Scary Lou, who specializes in vexing voodoo dolls that resemble Li'l Abner.

• Ole Man Mose: The mysterious Mose was reportedly hundreds of "y'ars" old, and lived like a hermit in a cave atop a mountain. (He obstinately refused to "kick the bucket," which was conveniently positioned just outside his cave door.) His wisdom is absolute ("Ole Man Mose — he knows!"), and his sought-after annual Sadie Hawkins Day predictions — though frustratingly cryptic and infuriatingly misleading — are nonetheless 100% accurate.

• Evil-Eye Fleegle: Fleegle has 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 burlesque New York accent was unmistakable — especially when addressing his "goil," the zaftig Shoiley. Fleegle was so popular, licensed plastic replicas of Fleegle's face were produced in the 1950s, to be worn like lapel pins. Battery-operated, the wearer could pull a string and produce a flashing light bulb "whammy." 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 1940s. Fleegle was vividly portrayed by character actor Al Nesor in the aforementioned stage play and film.

• 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 is, quite literally, a corporate swine.

• Gat Garson: Li'l Abner's doppelgänger — a murderous racketeer, with a predilection for Daisy Mae.

• Aunt Bessie: Mammy's socialite kid sister, the Duchess of Bopshire, 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: The lonely "inside man" at the "Skonk Works" — a dilapidated factory located on the remote outskirts of Dogpatch. Scores of locals are done in yearly by the toxic fumes of concentrated "skonk oil," which is brewed and barreled daily by Barnsmell and his cousin ("outside man" Barney Barnsmell) by grinding dead skunks and worn shoes into a smoldering still, for some unspecified purpose. His job played havoc with his social life ("He has an air about him," as Dogpatchers tactfully put it), and the name of his famous facility entered the modern lexicon via the Lockheed Skunk Works project.

• 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, The Adventures of 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 proprietor/sole operator of the even more decrepit Dogpatch Airlines. Cap'n Eddie's name was a spoof of decorated World War I flying 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 and "idea man" 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 and belches which, at ten grand a pop, usually bankrupted his unfortunate clients. (He had a regrettable fondness for gassy soft drinks like "Burpsi-Booma" and "Eleven Urp.") He was aided by his lovely and meticulously efficient secretary, Miss Pennypacker.

• 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 dishy femmes fatales and spoiled debutantes that included Gloria Van Welbilt, Moonlight Sonata, Mimi Van Pett 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.

• Tenderleif Ericson: Discovered frozen in the mud where her Viking ship sank in 1047, Tenderleif was Leif Ericson's beautiful, teenaged kid sister, (complete with breastplate armor, Viking helmet and burlesque Norwegian accent.) As soon as she saw Li'l Abner, however, she started warming up and breathing hard. "She's seventeen y'ars old," explains Mammy, "and she hain't had a date fo' nine hunnerd y'ars!"

• 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). Like many terms in Li'l Abner, Noodnik's name was derived from Yiddish. Nudnik is a slang term for a bothersome person or pest.

• 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.

• Marcia Perkins: Innocent, outwardly normal teenager whose lips give off 451° degrees of electromagnetic heat, frying the brain of any boy who kisses her. Declared a walking health hazard, poor Marcia must wear a public warning sign ("Do Not Kiss This Girl, by Order of the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare"). Her notoriety precedes her everywhere except Dogpatch — where she meets and falls for Tiny Yokum.

• 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 sure things, 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 three or four naked newborns under each arm, always carried backside forward, with a healthy brood of earlier offspring following in her wake.

• Loverboynik: In 1954, Capp sent a letter to Liberace addressing his intention to spoof him in Li'l Abner as "Liverachy." Liberace had his lawyers threaten to sue. Capp went ahead anyway, with a significant name change. Billed as the "Sweetheart of the Piano," Loverboynik is a blonde "dimpled darling" pianist and TV heartthrob. According to Capp, Liberace was "cut to the quick" when the parody appeared. Capp insisted that Loverboynik was not Liberace because Loverboynik "could play the piano rather decently and rarely wore black lace underwear."

• Rock Hustler: Unscrupulous publicity agent-turned-marketing mogul. He masterminds an ad campaign promoting the miracle diet food "Mockaroni," carefully neglecting to disclose that it's both addictive and lethal. "The more you crave, the more you eat. The more you eat, the thinner you get — until you (shudder!) float away..."

• Dumpington Van Lump: The bloated, almost catatonic heir to the Van Lump fortune, Dumpington can only utter one syllable ("Urp!") ...until he sets sight on Daisy Mae. A somewhat subhuman fiend, his favorite book is the disturbingly-titled "How to Make Lampshades Out of Your Friends." Capp chose the Dumpington sequence to illustrate his lesson on continuity storytelling in the Famous Artists Cartoon Course.

• Sam the Centaur: A "mythical critter" with a classic, chiseled profile and Apollo-like blonde mane, Sam is a Greek centaur who occasionally roams the mountains of Dogpatch instead of the mountains of Thessaly. Available Jones, "th' most book-educated varmint in Dogpatch," pronounces: "He hain't real!"

• 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." Cornpone was such a disastrously incompetent military leader that he came to be considered an important asset of the opposing side. According to the stage play, the statue was commissioned by a grateful President Abraham Lincoln! (In one storyline, the General's statue is filled with Kickapoo Joy juice, which brings it to "life." It then goes on a rampage, beheading all the statues of Union Army generals. As the U.S. Army can't destroy it — since it's a National Monument — Kickapoo Joy Juice is poured into a Union statue, which then charges the Cornpone statue. When the smoke clears, the animated statues have annihilated each other.) 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, grew 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. Lena was so ugly that anyone who saw her was immediately driven mad. No sane person, therefore, could tell you what she looked like. After weeks of teasing his readers by hiding Lena's face behind "censored" stickers and strategically placed dialogue balloons, Capp invited fans 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 Dalí) drawn by noted cartoonist Basil Wolverton.

• Joanie Phoanie: An unabashed Communist radical and agitator, who sang revolutionary songs of class warfare (with burlesque titles like "Molotov Cocktails for Two") — while hypocritically traveling via Limousine and charging outrageous concert appearance fees to impoverished orphans. 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: A Memoir, 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," 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 (YIP) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) 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, Jinx Rasputinburg, J. Sweetbody Goodpants, Reactionary J. Repugnant, B. Fowler McNest, Fleabrain, Stubborn P. Tolliver, Idiot J. Tolliver, Battling McNoodnik, Mayor Dan'l Dawgmeat, Slobberlips McJab, One-Fault Jones, Swami Riva, Olman Riva, Sir Orble Gasse-Payne, Black Rufe, Mickey Looney, "Ironpants" Bailey, Henry Cabbage Cod, Flash Boredom, Priceless and Liceless, Hopeless and Soapless, Disgustin' Jones, Skelton McCloset, Hawg McCall, "Good old" Bedly Damp ...and a host of others.