li'l abner skunk works li'l abner skunk works

On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Wed!! FactSnippet No. The phrase, used then as an informal nickname, comes from " Skonk Works" the Kickapoo Joy Juice bootleg brewing operation in Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comic strip. Taking action to help you protect what matters most. Initially owned and syndicated through United Feature Syndicate, a division of the E.W. Using sheets of titanium coated with heat-dissipating black paint, engineers created the SR-71 Blackbird. There was, however, one fellow (whose name I forget) who ran the "skunk works" skinning dead skunks (the unpleasant animal). As a Skunk Works program manager aptly stated, The problem with Skunk Works programs is that they typically get credit for changing history long after they actually change history., 2023 Lockheed Martin Corporation. Cute, lovable and intelligent (arguably smarter than Abner, Tiny or Pappy), she was accepted as part of the family ("the youngest", as Mammy invariably introduces her). The Lightning team was temporarily moved to the 3G Distillery, a smelly former bourbon works where the first YP-38 (constructor's number 2202) was built. Of the 552 public libraries in Texas, only 73 received this award in 2022. Comic strips typically dealt with northern urban experiences before Capp introduced Li'l Abner, the first strip based in the South. Sign up here. All Rights Reserved. I wonder what the derivation is? The odor put out by Skonk Works was so hideous people avoided the area and the people who worked there. In 1947, Will Eisner's The Spirit satirized the comic strip business in general, as a denizen of Central City tries to murder cartoonist "Al Slapp", creator of "Li'l Adam". According to publisher Denis Kitchen, Capp's "hapless Dogpatchers hit a nerve in Depression-era America. Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire by Arthur Asa Berger (Twayne, 1969) contained serious analyses of Capp's narrative technique, his use of dialogue, self-caricature and grotesquerie, the strip's overall place in American satire, and the significance of social criticism and the graphic image. Brown, Rodger, "Dogpatch USA: The Road to Hokum" article, Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 05:42, explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, 418 Search and Rescue Operational Training Squadron, "This Day in Jewish History / Al Capp, Choleric Creator of Li'l Abner, Dies an Embittered Man", Li'l Abner "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Daisy Mae "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Mammy Yokum "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Pappy Yokum "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Honest Abe "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Tiny Yokum "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Marryin' Sam "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Kickapoo Joy Juice page at deniskitchen.com, Joe Btfsplk "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary Michael Schumacher, Denis Kitchen Google Books, General Bullmoose "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Earthquake McGoon "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Evil-Eye Fleegle "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Sadie Hawkins "biography" at deniskitchen.com, Fearless Fosdick "biography" at deniskitchen.com, The Shmoo "biography" at deniskitchen.com. Over the years, the Skunk Works division in Palmdale, California, was given a more official moniker, Lockheeds Advanced Development Programs, but its mission remained unchanged: build the worlds most experimental aircraft and breakthrough technologies in abject secrecy at a pace impossible to rival. Although it lacks the political satire and Broadway polish of the 1959 version, this film gives a fairly accurate portrayal of the various Dogpatch characters up until that time. "How to Read Li'l Abner Intelligently" from. Designed to help the U.S. and allies leverage emerging technologies to create a resilient multi-domain network. His philosophy is spelled out in his 14 Rules and Practices. Before long he was in hundreds more, with a total readership exceeding 60,000,000. The Skunk Worksis the proud home of eight Collier Trophies, awarded annually by the National Aeronautic Association for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America during the preceding year. Not taking anything away from Kurtzman, who was brilliant himself, but Capp was the source for that whole sense of satire in comics. Though his uncle Tiny was perpetually frozen at 15.mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}12 "y'ars" old, Honest Abe gradually grew from infant to grade school age, and became a dead ringer for Washable Jones the star of Capp's early "topper" strip. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it pop. It has also developed. [6] The range modifications were performed in Lockheed's Building 304, starting with 100 P-38F models on April 15, 1942. The name "Skunk Works" and the skunk design are now registered trademarks of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Then look at Mad's "Teddy and the Pirates," "Superduperman!" He constantly interspersed boldface type, and included prompt words in parentheses (chuckle!, sob!, gasp!, shudder!, smack!, drool!, cackle!, snort!, gulp!, blush!, ugh!, etc.) [61] The following titles are all single-issue, educational comic books and pamphlets produced for various public services: In addition, Dogpatch characters were used in national campaigns for the U.S. Treasury, the Cancer Foundation, the March of Dimes, the National Heart Fund, the Sister Kenny Foundation, the Boy Scouts of America, Community Chest, the National Reading Council, Minnesota Tuberculosis and Health Association, Christmas Seals, the National Amputation Foundation and Disabled American Veterans,[63] among others. By 1960, Soviet radar and surface-to-air missile technology had caught up with the U-2. "A wish is a wish," says the genie. He left it at Dogpatch USA so there would be no headaches and problems. "What?" Local attractions that reappeared in the strip included the West Po'k Chop Railroad; the "Skonk Works", a dilapidated factory located on the remote outskirts of Dogpatch; and the General Jubilation T. Cornpone memorial statue. Most of the old Skunk Works buildings in Burbank were demolished in the late 1990s to make room for parking lots. By the early 1940s the comic strip event had swept the nation's imagination and acquired a life of its own. Comparing Capp to other contemporary humorists, McLuhan once wrote: "Arno, Nash, and Thurber are brittle, wistful little prcieux beside Capp!" Famous quotes containing the words supporting, characters and/or villains: " It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make a sally against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a total regeneration. Kelly Johnson headed the Skunk Works until 1975. Charlton published the short-lived Hillbilly Comics by Art Gates in 1955, featuring "Gumbo Galahad", who was a dead ringer for Li'l Abner, as was Pokey Oakey by Don Dean, which ran in MLJ's Top-Notch Laugh and Pep Comics. Exile in Dogpatch: The Curious Neglect of Cartoonist Al Capp, Town to Honor Famous Cartoonist Who Lived, Worked in Amesbury, "Al Capp's biography card from the National Cartoonists Society", The Hooded Utilitarian: Comics contributions to colloquial English, 18 December 2010, "REVIEWS: Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary,", TCJ.com: "Tales of the Founding of the National Cartoonists Society Part III" from, "Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine: 464: "Li'l Melvin", "Presarvin' Freedom: Al Capp, Treasury Man,", "Egyptians draw inspiration from Civil Rights Movement comic book. This vital reconnaissance, unobtainable by other means, averted a war in Europe and a nuclear crisis in Cuba. [11] His first words were "po'k chop", and that remained his favorite food. He would eventually acquire a couple of supporting character friends for his own semi-regularly featured adventures in the strip. [38] Other promotional tie-ins included the Lena the Hyena Contest (1946), the Name the Shmoo Contest (1949), the Nancy O. The secret facility was housed in a large tent at what is now Burbank Airport. Humorously enough, many states tried to claim ownership to the little town (Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc. Beginning in 1944, Li'l Abner was adapted into a series of color theatrical cartoons by Screen Gems for Columbia Pictures, directed by Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham and Howard Swift. His appearances on NBC's The Tonight Show spanned three emcees; Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. (also, "Wal, cuss mah bones!") Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. They have filed several challenges against registrants of domain names containing variations on the term under anti-cybersquatting policies, and have lost a case under the .uk domain name dispute resolution service against a company selling cannabis seeds and paraphernalia, which used the word "skunkworks" in its domain name (referring to "Skunk", a variety of the cannabis plant). Kelly Johnson set them apart from the rest of the factory in a walled-off section of one building, off limits to all but those involved directly. [1] In November 1941, Kelsey gave the unofficial nod to Johnson and the P-38 team to engineer a drop tank system to extend range for the fighter, and they completed the initial research and development without a contract. A much more successful musical comedy adaptation of the strip, also entitled Li'l Abner, opened on Broadway at the St. James Theater on November 15, 1956, and had a long run of 693 performances,[68] followed by a nationwide tour. Capp derived the family name "Yokum" as a combination of yokel and hokum. Mobsters and criminal-types invariably spoke slangy Brooklynese, and residents of Lower Slobbovia spoke pidgin-Russian, with a smattering of Yinglish. In his seminal book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan considered Li'l Abner's Dogpatch "a paradigm of the human situation". The U-2 ceased overflights when Francis Gary Powers was shot down during a mission on May 1, 1960, while over Russia. Even the trademark comic "signs" that clutter the backgrounds of Will Elder's panels had a precedent in Li'l Abner, in the residence of Dogpatch entrepreneur Available Jones, though they're also reminiscent of Bill Holman's Smokey Stover. John Updike, calling Li'l Abner a "hillbilly Candide", added that the strip's "richness of social and philosophical commentary approached the Voltairean. (The relative explained that she would have dropped him off sooner, but waited until she happened to be in the neighborhood.) I've never heard anyone mention this, but Capp is 100% responsible for inspiring Harvey Kurtzman to create Mad Magazine. At the San Diego Comic Con in July 2009, IDW and The Library of American Comics announced the upcoming publication of Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays: Vol. Flying Mach 3.2 at 100,000 ft. , the SR-71 operated in hostile airspace with complete impunity. This drone was launched from the back of a specially modified A-12, known as M-21, of which there were two built. [4] It was originally distributed by United Feature Syndicate and, later by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. ", signaled the end of all further discussion. Lena the Hyena makes a brief animated appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Skonk Works evolved into Skunk Works and is now a registered trademark of the company: Skunk Works. Lower Slobbovia and Dogpatch are both comic examples of modern dystopian satire. Long before today's widespread use of drones, the Skunk Works built an unmanned aerial vehicle that could hitch a ride aboard an A-12. In one storyline Dogpatch's "Cannonball Express" train, after 1,563 tries, finally delivers its "cargo" to Dogpatch citizens on October 12, 1946, Receiving a 13-year stack of newspapers, Li'l Abner's family realizes that the Great Depression is on and that banks should close; they race to take their money out of the bank before realizing they have no money to begin with. Skunk Works history started with the P-38 Lightning in 1939[1][2] and the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. Capp has credited his inspiration for vividly stylized language to early literary influences like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Damon Runyon, as well as Old-time radio and the Burlesque stage. [57] "When he retired Li'l Abner, newspapers ran expansive articles and television commentators talked about the passing of an era. [12] Pursued by local lovelies Hopeful Mudd and Boyless Bailey, Tiny was even dumber and more awkward than Abner, if that can be imagined. Within three years Abner's circulation climbed to 253 newspapers, reaching over 15,000,000 readers. In 1988 and 1989 many newspapers ran reruns of Li'l Abner episodes, mostly from the 1940s run, distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association and Capp Enterprises. The name "Skunk Works" was taken from the moonshine factory in the comic strip "Li'l Abner." Where it was originally spelled "Skonkworks" and their swill was made from old boots and dead skunks. Warren M. Bodie, journalist, historian, and Skunk Works engineer from 1977 to 1984, wrote that engineering independence, elitism and secrecy of the Skunk Works variety were demonstrated earlier when Lockheed was asked by Lieutenant Benjamin S. Kelsey (later air force brigadier general) to build for the United States Army Air Corps a high speed, high altitude fighter to compete with German aircraft. I stayed on longer than I should have," he admitted. Li'l Abner was a comic strip with fire in its belly and a brain in its head. Capp appeared as a regular on The Author Meets the Critics. Conceived in 1943, the Skunk Works divisiona name inspired by a mysterious locale from the comic strip Li'L Abner was formed by Johnson to build America's first jet fighter. Today's column maps the scope of change. But where did the term come from? The demise of KSP in 1999 stopped the reprint series at Volume 27 (1961). By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 known venues. Known locations include United States Air Force Plant 42 and United States Air Force Plant 4. [14], During the development of the P-80 Shooting Star, Johnson's engineering team was located adjacent to a malodorous plastics factory. Supposedly done in retaliation for Capp's "Mary Worm" parody in Li'l Abner (1956), a media-fed "feud" commenced briefly between the rival strips. The Skunk Works name was taken from the "Skonk Oil" factory in the comic strip Li'l Abner. Similarities between Li'l Abner and the early Mad include the incongruous use of mock-Yiddish slang terms, the nose-thumbing disdain for pop culture icons, the rampant black humor, the dearth of sentiment and the broad visual styling. Designed to help the U.S. and allies leverage emerging technologies to create a resilient multi-domain network. Written by Clare Sarah Goodridge Our flagship flow training, Zero to Dangerous helps you accomplish your wildest professional goals while reclaiming time, space, and freedom in your personal life. Join 110,000 readers each month and get the latest news and entertainment from the world of general aviation direct to your inbox, daily. (Response: ", "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for, "Th' ideel o' ev'ry one hunnerd percent, red-blooded American boy! "The Comics on the Couch" by Gerald Clarke, "Gallery of vintage ads featuring Li'l Abner as spokesman", Filmmakers host premiere for Dogpatch USA documentary. Later, Capp licensed and was part-owner of an 800-acre (3.2km2) $35 million theme park called Dogpatch USA near Harrison, Arkansas. In the fourth type, according to MacLean, there were only two: Pogo and Li'l Abner. There have been many stories over the years about the names origin: It evolved from a comic strip or the color of a tent it was housed in or because what was inside that tent smelled so bad. Comic dialects were also devised for offbeat British characters like H'Inspector Blugstone of Scotland Yard (who had a Cockney accent) and Sir Cecil Cesspool (whose speech was a clipped, uppercrust King's English). When the starving and broke Capp first sold Li'l Abner in 1934, he gladly accepted the syndicate's standard onerous contract. An American folk event, Sadie Hawkins Day is a pseudo-holiday entirely created within the strip. Capp claimed that he found the right "look" for Li'l Abner with, "I didn't start this Mammy Yokum did." Goldstein, Kalman, "Al Capp and Walt Kelly: Pioneers of Political and Social Satire in the Comics" from, Inge, M. Thomas, "Li'l Abner, Snuffy and Friends" from, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 05:42. In the same neighborhood was a plastic factory that produced a terrible odor that permeated the tent. Pappy Yokum utters this tagline when, thinking he is dreaming, actually commands a bottle genie to do his bidding. During most of the epic, the impossibly dense Abner exhibited little romantic interest in her voluptuous charms (much of it visible daily thanks to her famous polka-dot peasant blouse and cropped skirt). Mammy solved the problem with a tooth extraction and ended the episode with her most famous dictum. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunk_Works&oldid=1140117891, Lockheed Martin-associated military facilities, Research organizations in the United States, Research and development in the United States, Buildings and structures in Burbank, California, Buildings and structures in Palmdale, California, Science and technology in Greater Los Angeles, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 14:51. Learn how we are strengthening the economies, industries and communities of our global partner nations. It all turned out to be a collaborative hoax, however cooked up by Capp and his longtime pal Saunders as an elaborate publicity stunt. A total of six Collier trophies, the most prestigious award in the aeronautics industry, have been collected by the Skunk Works division since 1943, but its quite possible the divisions most impressive legacy has yet to be written. I'll never knock his talent."[56]. In 1976, the Skunk Works began production on a pair of stealth technology demonstrators for the U.S. Air Force named Have Blue in Building 82 at Burbank. Publicity campaigns were devised to boost circulation and increase public visibility of Li'l Abner, often coordinating with national magazines, radio and television. Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs ( ADP ), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp 's satirical, hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was immensely popular from 1935 through the 1950s. (Although it is also the approximate Northern European pronunciation of the name "Joachim".) [46][47] According to the Boston Globe (as reported on May 18, 2010), the town has renamed its amphitheater in the artist's honor, and is looking to develop an Al Capp Museum. The comprehensive series titled Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays, is planned to be a reprinting of the complete 43-year history of Li'l Abner[60] spanning a projected 20 volumes, began on April 7, 2010. On paper, the specifications read like works of pure fantasy: a spy plane capable of taking crystal-clear photographs from 70,000 feet. In the comic, there was a running joke about a mysterious and malodorous place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works," where a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. And what does a non-flying woodland creature have to do with aviation? After Capp's death, the Shmoo was used in two Hanna-Barbera produced Saturday morning cartoon series for TV. The first overflight took place on July 4 1956. The respondent company argued that Lockheed "used its size, resources and financial position to employ 'bullyboy' tactics against a very small company. The D-21 drone, similar in design to the Blackbird, was built to overfly the Lop Nur nuclear test facility in China. A superhuman dynamo, Mammy did all the household chores and provided her charges with no fewer than eight meals a day of "po'k chops" and "tarnips" (as well as local Dogpatch delicacies like "candied catfish eyeballs" and "trashbean soup"). Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into Li'l Abner," wrote comics historian Rick Marschall in America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1989). Today, the Skunk Works appears to be working on another unconventional project to build a (likely unmanned) hypersonic spy/bomber jet unofficially dubbed the SR-72. Capp was also caricatured as an ill-mannered, boozy cartoonist (Capp was a teetotaler in real life) named "Hal Rapp" in the comic strip Mary Worth by Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst. Hilda Terry was the first woman cartoonist to break the gender barrier when the NCS finally permitted female members in 1950. January 8, 2021 What is Skunk Works? The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!! "[15][16][17], At the request of the comic strip copyright holders, Lockheed changed the name of the advanced development company to "Skunk Works" in the 1960s. Natural landmarks included (at various times) Teeterin' Rock, Onneccessary Mountain, Bottomless Canyon, and Kissin' Rock (handy to Suicide Cliff). "If you have any sense of humor about your strip and I had a sense of humor about mine you knew that for three or four years Abner was wrong. Kellys 14 Rules and Practices" are still in use today as evidenced by our small, empowered teams, streamlined processes and culture that values attempting to do things that havent been done before.