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With adult readers far outnumbering juveniles, Li'l Abner forever cleared away the concept that humor strips were solely the domain of adolescents and children. Engineers from Skunk Works subsequently developed the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 . The meaning of the phrase has evolved, and today it means something broader outside of aeronautics; that causes confusion, which further fosters poor managerial decisions. It has also developed. 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. It all turned out to be a collaborative hoax, however cooked up by Capp and his longtime pal Saunders as an elaborate publicity stunt. There are conflicting observations about the birth of Skunk Works. In the fourth type, according to MacLean, there were only two: Pogo and Li'l Abner. And then they would deliver. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp's satirical, hillbilly comic strip Lil Abner, which was immensely popular from 1935 through the 1950s. Li'l Abner made its debut on August 13, 1934, in eight North American newspapers, including the New York Mirror. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works - MilitaryLeak There was, however, one fellow (whose name I forget) who ran the "skunk works" skinning dead skunks (the unpleasant animal). Capp is also the subject of an upcoming PBS American Masters documentary produced by his granddaughter, independent filmmaker Caitlin Manning. With John Hodiak in the title role, the Li'l Abner radio serial ran weekdays on NBC from Chicago, from November 20, 1939, to December 6, 1940. Li'l Abner himself was a mattress tester, and most others were either moonshiners or bootleggers. The term shmoo has also entered the lexicon used in defining highly technical concepts in no fewer than four separate fields of science. The History of Skunkworks [3] Theirs is the official Lockheed Skunk Works story: The Air Tactical Service Command (ATSC) of the Army Air Force met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to express its need for a jet fighter. Lockheed was chosen to develop the jet because of its past interest in jet development and its previous contracts with the Air Force. 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. The formal contract for the XP-80 didnt arrive at Lockheed until Oct. 16, 1943, four months after work had already begun. Fosdick battled a succession of archenemies with absurdly unlikely names like Rattop, Anyface, Bombface, Boldfinger, the Atom Bum, the Chippendale Chair, and Sidney the Crooked Parrot, as well as his own criminal mastermind father, "Fearful" Fosdick (aka "The Original"). He was also a periodic panelist on ABC and NBC's Who Said That? People magazine ran a substantial feature, and even the comics-free New York Times devoted nearly a full page to the event," according to publisher Denis Kitchen. In the comic, there was a hidden place deep in the woods called the "skonk works" which was where they brewed a strong alcoholic beverage. Kurtzman carried that forward and passed it down to a whole new crop of cartoonists, myself included. Mobsters and criminal-types invariably spoke slangy Brooklynese, and residents of Lower Slobbovia spoke pidgin-Russian, with a smattering of Yinglish. There was not much industry in Dogpatch. About - SKONKWERKS.ORG "Nearly all comic strips, even today, are owned and controlled by syndicates, not the strips' creators. 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. Everybody almost dead.. When the Army Air Forces officially asked for a range extension solution it was ready. Ironically, this highly irregular policy has led to the misconception that his strip was "ghosted" by other hands. One day, when the Department of the Navy was trying to reach the Lockheed management for the P-80 project, the call was accidentally transferred to Culvers desk. [66] The storylines and villains were mostly separate from the comic strip and unique to the show. The comic derivation is true, said Dianne Knippel, director of communications for Lockheed Martin Co. She directed us to LockheedMartin.com, where we learned that the name came about during World War II when engineer Kelly Johnson brought together a select team to develop new aircraft. Li'l Abner's success also sparked a handful of comic strip imitators. Our Services. 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. Other fictional locales included Skonk Hollow, El Passionato, Kigmyland, the Republic of Crumbumbo, Lo Kunning, Faminostan, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, Pineapple Junction and, most notably, the Valley of the Shmoon. One day, Culvers phone rang and he answered it by saying Skonk Works, inside man Culver speaking. The joke was not lost on his coworkers and soon the employees adopted the name for their mysterious part of Lockheed. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp's hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was popular in the 1940s and '50s. About Mind Works Counseling | Anxiety Counseling | San Antonio, TX 78230 Mammy was regularly seen scrubbing Pappy in an outdoor oak tub ("Once a month, rain or shine"). [18] The company also holds several registrations of it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Skunkworks Robotics - Our Inspiration - WildApricot Shortly after, the go-ahead was given for Lockheed to start developing the United States' first jet fighter. was the reply Ralph Kramden told his wife Alice (concerning a comment made by Ralph's mother in-law) in Episode #2, Al Capp designed the 23-foot-high (7.0m) statue of Josiah Flintabattey Flonatin ("Flinty") that graces the city of, "Natcherly", Capp's bastardization of "naturally", turns up occasionally in popular culture even without a specifically rural theme. Taking action to help you protect what matters most. 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. During the entirety of the Cold War, the Skunk Works was located in Burbank, California, on the eastern side of Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (341203N 1182107W / 34.200768N 118.351826W / 34.200768; -118.351826). Skonk Works. Whew it's been a while huh? | by Aslan French | Medium Skunk Works was responsible for several innovative aircraft designs, beginning with the P-38 Lightning in 1939, followed by the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. (Although it is also the approximate Northern European pronunciation of the name "Joachim".) Tiny initially sported a bulbous nose like both of his parents, but eventually, (through a plot contrivance) he was given a nose job, and his shaggy blond hair was buzz cut to make him more appealing. The NCS had originally disallowed female members into its ranks. One month after the ATSC and Lockheed meeting, the young engineer Clarence L. Kelly Johnson and other associate engineers hand delivered the initial XP-80 proposal to the ATSC. After a series of successful test flights beginning in 1977, the Air force awarded Skunk Works the contract to build the F-117 stealth fighter on November 1, 1978. And virtually all cartoonists remain content with their diluted share of any merchandising revenue their syndicates arrange. The F-22 is the worlds preeminent air dominance fighter and a proven strategic deterrent. Kelly Johnson and his team designed and built the XP-80 in only 143 days, seven less than was required. The Schertz Public Library has received the 2022 Achievement of Library Excellence Award from the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association (TMLDA). Capp was a genius. [4] The "Skonk Works" was a dilapidated factory located on the remote outskirts of Dogpatch, in the backwoods of Kentucky. Jasper Jooks by Jess "Baldy" Benton (1948'49), Ozark Ike (1945'53) and Cotton Woods (1955'58), both by Ray Gotto, were clearly inspired by Capp's strip. In the same neighborhood was a plastic factory that produced a terrible odor that permeated the tent. Zugang! Li'l Abner - Cast of Characters - Supporting Characters and Villains In addition, Capp was a frequent celebrity guest. The once informal nickname is now theregistered trademarkof the company: Skunk Works. I have seen this epithet before, usually in the phrase skunk works, meaning a semi-official project team that is tacitly licensed to bend the rules and think outside the box. [12] Pursued by local lovelies Hopeful Mudd and Boyless Bailey, Tiny was even dumber and more awkward than Abner, if that can be imagined. The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!! The radio show was not written by Al Capp but by Charles Gussman. Designed to help the U.S. and allies leverage emerging technologies to create a resilient multi-domain network. In one storyline, he lives up to his nickname when during a nationwide search for a pair of socks sewn by Betsy Ross; after finding that his father was the current owner and preparing to trade them for the reward (a handshake from the President of the United States), he confesses at the last second that they were not his to give. Mencken credits the postwar mania for adding "-nik" to the ends of adjectives to create nouns as beginning not with beatnik or Sputnik, but earlier in the pages of Li'l Abner. A plump, juicy Hammus Alabammus is the rarest and most vital ingredient of "ecstasy sauce", an indescribably delicious gourmet delicacy. Capp himself originated the stories, wrote the dialogue, designed the major characters, rough penciled the preliminary staging and action of each panel, oversaw the finished pencils, and drew and inked the faces and hands of the characters. The U-2 ceased overflights when Francis Gary Powers was shot down during a mission on May 1, 1960, while over Russia. A Mach-3 aircraft that could fly continuously for hours on end and literally outrun missiles. 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". Li'l Abner Yokum was a hillbilly who lived in Dogpatch somewhere in the mountains. Taking action to help you protect what matters most. The term Skunk Works is synonymous with the research and development department of the Lockheed Martin Co. Through Li'l Abner, the American comic strip achieved unprecedented relevance in the postwar years, attracting new readers who were more intellectual, more informed on current events, and less likely to read the comics (according to Coulton Waugh, author of The Comics, 1947). Slobbovia is an iceberg, which (as real icebergs do) continually capsizes as its lower portions melt. In his essay "The Decline of the Comics", (Canadian Forum, January 1954) literary critic Hugh MacLean classified American comic strips into four types: daily gag, adventure, soap opera, and "an almost lost comic ideal: the disinterested comment on life's pattern and meaning." However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters he received, Capp made it a tradition in the strip every November, lasting four decades. [13] The first YP-38 was built there before the team moved back to Lockheed's main factory a year later. Capp introduced Tiny to fill the bachelor role played reliably for nearly two decades by Li'l Abner himself, until his fateful 1952 marriage threw the carefully orchestrated dynamic of the strip out of whack for a period. 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. Auto GCAS improves the safety of aircraft and pilots by helping to eliminate the leading cause of F-16 pilot fatalities in military aviation: crashing an undamaged aircraft into the ground. as asides, to bolster the effect of the printed speech balloons. The name skunkworks originates from a cartoon series called " Li'l Abner " by Al Capp. A rapidly growing German jet threat gave Lockheed an opportunity to develop an airframe around the most powerful jet engine that the allied forces had access to, the British Goblin. Since this movie predates their comic strip marriage, Abner makes a last-minute escape (natcherly!). Al Capp was reportedly not pleased with the results, and the series was discontinued after five shorts. Pappy Yokum wasn't always feckless, however. White, David Manning, and Robert H. Abel, eds. First in the 1979 The New Shmoo (later incorporated into Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo), and again from 1980 to 1981 in the Flintstone Comedy Show, in the Bedrock Cops segments. Conceptually based on Siberia, or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan, Capp's icy hellhole made its first appearance in Li'l Abner in April 1946. A team engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's comic strip, "Li'l Abner," in which there was a running joke about a mysterious place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works." There, a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients. Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays - Wikipedia She had married the inconsequential Pappy Yokum in 1902; they produced two strapping sons twice their own size. But Lockheeds chief engineer, Clarence Kelly Johnson, simply fielded all requests and relayed to his handpicked band of Skunk Works employees what needed to be done. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it pop. ", was a devastating satire of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's notorious exploitation by DC Comics over Superman (see above excerpt). 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. [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. Johnson promised the Pentagon theyd have their first prototype in 150 days. This aircraft first flew in 1966 and remained in service until 1998. Li'l Abner visits the corrupt Squeezeblood comic strip syndicate in a classic Sunday continuity from October 12, 1947. But in 1947 Capp sued United Feature Syndicate for $14 million, publicly embarrassed UFS in Li'l Abner, and wrested ownership and control of his creation the following year."[51]. [1][2][3] The Sunday page debuted six months after the daily, on February 24, 1935. As utterly wretched as existence was in Dogpatch, there was one place even worse. [citation needed]. [1] Lockheed took over the building but the sour smell of bourbon mash lingered, partly because the group of buildings continued to store barrels of aging whiskey. FactSnippet No. The name skunkworks came about by accident. Designed to help the U.S. and allies leverage emerging technologies to create a resilient multi-domain network. Capp provided specialty artwork for civic groups, government agencies and charitable or non-profit organizations, spanning several decades. The CIA agreed. Li'l Abner also featured a comic strip-within-the-strip: Fearless Fosdick was a parody of Chester Gould's plainclothes detective, Dick Tracy. After a fatal mid-air collision on the fourth launch, the drones were re-built as D-21Bs, and launched with a rocket booster from B-52s. (Response: ", "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for, "Th' ideel o' ev'ry one hunnerd percent, red-blooded American boy! Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. The bumbling detective became the star of his own NBC-TV puppet show that same year. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp's satirical, hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was immensely popular in the 1940s and '50s. Capp had a platoon of assistants in later years, who worked under his direct supervision. Capp originally created it as a comic plot device, but in 1939, only two years after its inauguration, a double-page spread in Life proclaimed, "On Sadie Hawkins Day Girls Chase Boys in 201 Colleges". However, Gussman consulted closely with Capp on the storylines. On July 3, 1963, the plane reached a sustained speed of Mach 3 at an astounding 78,000 feet, and remains the worlds fastest and highest-flying manned aircraft. Li'l Abner was also the subject of the first book-length, scholarly assessment of a comic strip ever published. The original "Skonk Works" was a liquor still where something was always brewing in Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner. [53] According to Tom Roberts, author of Alex Raymond: His Life and Art (2007), Capp authored a stirring monologue that was instrumental in changing the restrictive rules the following year. In 1964, Capp left United Features and took Li'l Abner to the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.[52]. Initially known as "Mysterious Yokum" (there was even an Ideal doll marketed under this name) due to a debate regarding his gender (he was stuck in a pants-shaped stovepipe for the first six weeks), he was renamed "Honest Abe" (after President Abraham Lincoln) to thwart his early tendency to steal. Li'l Abner - Wikipedia Fearless Fosdick premiered on Sunday afternoons on NBC; 13 episodes featuring the Mary Chase marionettes were produced. Consequently, Salomey is frequently targeted by unscrupulous sportsmen, hog breeders and gourmands (like J.R. Fangsley and Bounder J. Roundheels), as well as unsavory wild boars with improper intentions (such as Boar Scarloff and Porknoy). Her most familiar phrase, however, is "Good is better than evil becuz it's nicer!" The Skunk Works Legacy | Lockheed Martin By 1960, Soviet radar and surface-to-air missile technology had caught up with the U-2. Fellow employees quickly adopted the name for their mysterious division of Lockheed and eventually "Skonk Works" became "Skunk Works.". [7] In 1952, Abner reluctantly proposed to Daisy to emulate the engagement of his comic strip "ideel", Fearless Fosdick. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA.