My two cents - Li’l Abner jargon has faded from today’s language

em>Jerry Jones, Gazette editorJerry Jones, Gazette editor

This week’s rollicking presentation of Li’l Abner on the Colfax High School stage promises to feature a lot of well directed talent. The annual Colfax fall musical rates as one of the top stage bargains in the Palouse and offers a double feature, the show itself and the fun of watching local talent show.

Director Cary Cammack this year has opted to bring Dogpatch, Ky., to the Colfax stage for the first time, and the cast seems to relish bringing the characters to life. For them it’s a process of discovery.

For members of the audience who were around when Li’l Abner was still in the comic section of newspapers, it’s a process of re-discovery and a realization that a whole collection of Dogpatch terms, derived from the lineup of characters, have vanished.

Al Capp, the creator of Li’l Abner died 30 years ago and he stopped writing Li’l Abner about two years before he died. When he retired, he confessed he should have stop producing the strip four or five years earlier.

Over the three decades since Abner departed, the Abner terms have faded.

Lower Slobovia, Fearless Fosdick, Joe Btfsplk, Col. Bullmoose, and the Shmoos are all part of the Li’l Abner comic strip, and they all, to some extent, were a part of the common language.

When you walked down the halls of a junior high in the 1950s and describe one of your pals, or not-so-pals, “strictly Slobovia,” no translation was needed. It came right from Li’l Abner.

If you described somebody as a Btfsplk, it was instantly funny. It was also fun to attempt to pronounce Btkfsplk. One of the tips was to actually start with the classic “raspberry” configuration of the lips.

According to a Wikipedia computer biography, Capp toughed it out in New York during the Great Depression and managed to sell his Li’l Abner creation to a comic features syndicate for a 1934 launch. His creation of hillbilly characters, said to have been derived from hitch hiking trips across Appalachia, became a hit at a time when a big part of the American entertainment scene was the comic sections of newspapers.

Of course, the Dogpatch population was entertaining on the surface, but the real fun derived from how they dealt with the world. Capp liked to move the location around, and introduce satirical characters which were a takeoff of real people in the news. Sometimes the process got him in trouble.

Sen. Jack Phogbound and General Bullmoose were creations who were forced to navigate the Dogpatch scene. Bullmoose was created by Capp as a satire on capitalism which took off in the post war boom of the 1950s.

Btfsplk was a well-meaning Dogpatch citizen who always brought bad luck. Capp always topped Joe with a dark cloud, a signal to Dopatchers that when Joe arrived on the scene, trouble invariably arrived with him.

Slobovia was a place worse than Dogpatch. Residents of Slobovia were depicted standing knee deep in snow which had obviously melted out about six inches from their feet. The conclusion was that they had been standing out there for days.

Fearless Fosdick was Capp’s takeoff on Dick Tracy, another comic page star. Fosdick never flinched with fear, and he never got it right. Capp drew Fosdick with multiple see-through bullet holes in the black suit.

One slice of Capp’s sardonic comedy which remained on the high school scene was the legacy of Sadie Hawkins, the name tagged to an annual dance where the girls track down the boys for a date.

Sadie was actually a part of Capp’s comic role reversal of the U.S. courting scene.

He adorned Dogpatch with Daisy Mae, Wolf Gal, Stupefyin’ Jones and other beautiful girls who had to chase down the male population of Dogpatch. Daisy Mae and Li’l Abner were finally married in 1952, 18 years after the series started.

Sadie Hawkins did not fit mold of the other Dogpatch beauties. To be kind, she was plain, and when her dad declared Sadie Hawkins Day, the Dogpatch males fled. Under the decree of her papa, Sadie got to marry any man she bagged.

Capp soon had the other Dogpatch gals in the hunt.

While the Dogpatch girls had trouble getting sparks from the males on their home front, they were adored by real life GIs all over the world in World War II and the Korean War. They were featured in decorative art used by flight crews to decorate bombers.

One of most unique creations by Capp was the Shmoos, the good hearted critters who were shaped sort of like bowling pins.

They were asexual, but prolific, and they enjoyed being served as a meal when anybody was hungry. Shmoos were so amenable and agreeable that they became suspect.

Introduction of the Shmoos brought a whole new chapter in product marketing in the United States and around the world. Their shape made them ideal for marketing as inflatable toys.

Like Btfsplk and Slobovia, the term Schmoo became popular with the junior high crowd of the 1950s. It was fun to call somebody a Schmoo, just for the sound of it.

“You’re a Schmoo, he’s a Btfsplk, and you’re both strictly from Slobovia.”