Li'l Abner - Licensing, Advertising and Promotion

Licensing, Advertising and Promotion

Al Capp was a master of the arts of marketing and promotion. Publicity campaigns were devised to boost circulation and increase public visibility of Li'l Abner, often coordinating with national magazines, radio and television. In 1946 Capp persuaded six of the most popular radio personalities (Frank Sinatra, Kate Smith, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, Fred Waring and Smilin' Jack Smith) to broadcast a song he'd written for Daisy Mae: (Li'l Abner) Don't Marry That Girl!! Other promotional tie-ins included the Lena the Hyena Contest (1946), the Name the Shmoo Contest (1949), the Nancy O. Contest (1951), the Roger the Lodger Contest (1964) and many others.

Capp also excelled at product endorsement, and Li'l Abner characters were often featured in mid-century American advertising campaigns. Dogpatch characters pitched consumer products as varied as Grape-Nuts cereal, Kraft caramels, Ivory soap, Oxydol, Duz and Dreft detergents, Fruit of the Loom, Orange Crush, Nestlé's cocoa, Cheney neckties, Pedigree pencils, Strunk chainsaws, U.S. Royal tires, Head & Shoulders shampoo and General Electric light bulbs. There were even Dogpatch-themed family restaurants called "Li'l Abner's" in Louisville, Kentucky, Morton Grove, Illinois and Seattle, Washington.

Capp himself appeared in numerous print ads. A lifelong chain-smoker, he happily plugged Chesterfield cigarettes; he appeared in Schaeffer fountain pen ads with his friends Milton Caniff and Walt Kelly; pitched the Famous Artists School (in which he had a financial interest) along with Caniff, Rube Goldberg, Virgil Partch, Willard Mullin and Whitney Darrow, Jr; and, though a professed teetotaler, he personally endorsed Rheingold Beer, among other products.

• Cream of Wheat: Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Li'l Abner was the spokesman for Cream of Wheat cereal in a long-running series of comic strip-format ads that appeared in national magazines including Life, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies' Home Journal. The ads usually featured Daisy Mae calling for "halp" against a threatening menace — in the person of Earthquake McGoon or, just as often, a gorilla, grizzly bear, rampaging moose, "Injun" attack, or some natural disaster like an avalanche, fire or flood. Abner is dispatched to rescue her, but not before enjoying a "dee-lishus" enriched bowl of hot Cream of Wheat which, the reader is assured, is "ready in just 5 minutes!"

• Wildroot Cream-Oil: Fearless Fosdick was licensed for use in an advertising campaign for Wildroot Cream-Oil, a popular men's hair tonic. Fosdick's iconic profile on tin signs and advertising displays became a prominent fixture in barbershops across America — advising readers to "Get Wildroot Cream-Oil, Charlie!" A series of ads appeared in newspapers, magazines and comic books featuring Fosdick's farcical battles with "Anyface" — a murderous master of disguise. (Anyface was always given away by his telltale dandruff and messy hair, however.)

• Toys and licensed merchandise: Dogpatch characters were heavily licensed throughout the 1940s and 1950s: the main cast was produced as a set of six handpuppets and 14-inch (360 mm) dolls by Baby Barry Toys in 1957. A 10-figure set of carnival chalkware statues of Dogpatch characters was manufactured by Artrix Products in 1951, and Topstone introduced a line of 16 rubber Halloween masks prior to 1960. Licensing would reach an apex, however, with the unexpected (and almost unprecedented) postwar merchandising phenomenon that followed Capp's introduction of the Shmoo. As in the strip, shmoos suddenly appeared to be everywhere in 1948 and 1949. A garment factory in Baltimore turned out a whole line of shmoo apparel — including "Shmooveralls." Shmoo dolls, clocks, watches, jewelry, earmuffs, wallpaper, fishing lures, air fresheners, soap, ice cream, balloons, ashtrays, comic books, records, sheet music, toys, games, Halloween masks, salt and pepper shakers, decals, pinbacks, tumblers, coin banks, greeting cards, planters, neckties, suspenders, belts, curtains, fountain pens, and other shmoo paraphernalia were produced. In a single year, shmoo merchandise generated over $25 million in sales. Close to a hundred licensed shmoo products from 75 different manufacturers were produced, some of which sold five million units each, (Sources: Newsweek September 5, 1949 and Editor & Publisher July 16, 1949). More recently, Dark Horse Comics issued four figures of Abner, Daisy Mae, Fosdick and the Shmoo in 2000 as part of their line of Classic Comic Characters — statues #8, 9, 17 and 31, respectively.

• Kickapoo Joy Juice: The lethal brew known as Kickapoo Joy Juice, featured in the strip and characterized as moonshine or bootleg liquor (it could also remove hair, paint and tattoos) has been a licensed brand in real-life since 1965. The National NuGrape Company first produced the beverage, which was acquired in 1968 by the Moxie Company, and eventually the Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta, Ga. As with Mountain Dew, another euphemism for moonshine, the actual product is a soft-drink. To this day the label features Capp's characters Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat. Distribution currently includes the United States, Canada, Singapore, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand.

• Dogpatch USA: In 1968, an 800-acre (3.2 km2) $35 million theme park called Dogpatch USA opened at Marble Falls, Arkansas, based on Capp's work and with his support. The gift shops sold "hillbilly" souvenirs like corncob pipes and moonshine jugs. In addition to the newly constructed rides and attractions, many of the buildings in the park were authentic 19th century log structures purchased by general manager James H. Schermerhorn. The logs in each building were numbered, catalogued, disassembled and reassembled at the park. Dogpatch USA was a popular attraction during the 1970s, but was closed in 1993 due to mismanagement and financial difficulties. Several attempts have been made to reopen the park but at present it lies abandoned. As of late 2005, the area once devoted to a live-action facsimile of Dogpatch (including a lifesize statue in the town square of Dogpatch "founder" Jubilation T. Cornpone) has been heavily stripped by vandals and souvenir hunters, and is today slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding Arkansas wilderness.