Al Capp was an outspoken pioneer in favor of diversifying the National Cartoonists Society by admitting women cartoonists. The musical has since become a perennial favorite of high school and amateur productions, due to its popular appeal and modest production requirements. 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. ", 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. 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. Evil-Eye Fleegle and his "whammy" make an animated cameo appearance in the U.S. Armed Forces Special Weapons Project training film, Self Preservation in an Atomic Attack (1950). It cruised at 70,000 feet, snapping aerial photographs of Soviet installations. Skunk Works' Rules & Practices The Alpine Review His philosophy is spelled out in his 14 Rules and Practices. 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 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). [6] Early in the strip's history, Abner's primary goal in the storyline was evading the marital designs of Daisy Mae Scragg, the virtuous, voluptuous, barefoot Dogpatch damsel and scion of the Yokums' blood feud enemies the Scraggs, who were her character's bloodthirsty kinfolk. 2023 Flyer Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Among the original TV characters were "Mr. Ditto", "Harris Tweed" (a disembodied suit of clothes), "Swenn Golly" (a Svengali-like mesmerist), counterfeiters "Max Millions" and "Minton Mooney", "Frank N. Stein", "Batula", "Match Head" (a pyromaniac), "Sen-Sen O'Toole", "Shmoozer" and "Herman the Ape Man". In his seminal book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan considered Li'l Abner's Dogpatch "a paradigm of the human situation". The once informal nickname is now theregistered trademarkof the company: Skunk Works. Lockheed Martin was awarded this prestigious medal in 2007 for an exceptional record of developing cutting-edge aircraft, technologies, and systems solutions for the U.S. Government. The name "Skunk Works" and the skunk design are now registered trademarks of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. ", "Al Capp Replies to Critic of Newspaper Comic Strips;", "Li'l Abner Lost In Hollywood by Michael H. Price", "Gov. The Sunday page debuted six months into the run of the strip. In addition, Capp was a frequent celebrity guest. 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. Tellingly, Kurtzman resisted doing feature parodies of either Li'l Abner or Dick Tracy in the comic book Mad, despite their prominence. 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". Kelly Johnson headed the Skunk Works until 1975. Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Besides being fearless, Fosdick was "pure, underpaid and purposeful", according to his creator. His engineers turned one out in 143 days, creating the P-80 Shooting Star, a sleek, lightning-fast fighter that went on to win historys first jet-versus-jet dogfight over Korea in 1950. The designation "skunk works" or "skunkworks" is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects. From beginning to end, Capp was acid-tongued toward the targets of his wit, intolerant of hypocrisy, and always wickedly funny. "There is, however, a fighting chance to escape for hundreds of innocent bystanders who happen to be in the neighborhood but only a fighting chance. The History of Skunkworks Slobbovia is an iceberg, which (as real icebergs do) continually capsizes as its lower portions melt. He had an unfortunate predilection for snitching "preserved turnips" and smoking corn silk behind the woodshed much to his chagrin when Mammy caught him. Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs, formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. "Skonk Works", Culver repeated. It was later reprinted in The World of Li'l Abner (1953). Frigid, faraway Lower Slobbovia was fashioned as a pointedly political satire of backward nations and foreign diplomacy, and remains a contemporary reference. Ruled by Good King Nogoodnik (sometimes known as King Stubbornovsky the Last), the Slobbovian politicians were even more corrupt than their Dogpatch counterparts. 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. 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]. Commenter Of The Day: Skunk Works Edition - Jalopnik 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. Just four years later, amidst growing fears over a potential Soviet missile attack on the United States, Skunk Works engineerswho often worked ten hours a day, six days a weekcreated the U-2, the worlds first dedicated spy plane. maverick mach 10 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. Li'l Abner featured a whole menagerie of allegorical animals over the years each one was designed to satirically showcase another disturbing aspect of human nature. [55] Kurtzman eventually did spoof Li'l Abner (as "Li'l Ab'r") in 1957, in his short-lived humor magazine, Trump. In the midst of the Great Depression, the hardscrabble residents of lowly Dogpatch allowed suffering Americans to laugh at yokels even worse off than themselves. Hot Dogs! [7] Some of the group of independent-minded engineers were later involved with the XP-80 project, the prototype of the P-80 Shooting Star. But where did the term come from? Capp has appeared as himself on The Ed Sullivan Show, Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, The Today Show, The Red Skelton Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and on This Is Your Life on February 12, 1961, with host Ralph Edwards and honoree Peter Palmer. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output . 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. [10] Pappy is dull-witted and gullible (in one storyline after he is conned by Marryin' Sam into buying Vanishing cream because he thinks it makes him invisible when he picks a fight with his nemesis Earthquake McGoon), but not completely without guile. In many localities, the tradition continues. 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. No other cartoonist to date has come close to Capp's televised exposure. SkunkWorksi projekt (tuntud ka kui Skunk Works) on uuenduslik ettevtmine, mis hlmab vikest gruppi inimesi ja mis jb vljaspool organisatsiooni Our Multi-Domain Operations/Joint All-Domain Operations solutions provide a complete picture of the battlespace and empowers warfighters to quickly make decisions that drive action. Culver later said at an interview conducted in 1993 that "when Kelly Johnson heard about the incident, he promptly fired me. Lower Slobbovia and Dogpatch are both comic examples of modern dystopian satire. 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. The first overflight took place on July 4 1956. German jets had appeared over Europe. The Creator of Li'l Abner Tells Why His Hero Is (SOB!) Other familiar silent comedy veterans in the cast include Bud Jamison, Lucien Littlefield, Johnny Arthur, Mickey Daniels, and ex-Keystone Cops Chester Conklin, Edgar Kennedy and Al St. John. Impossible missions always were, and continue to be, their particular area of expertise. The essential spirit of the division was captured perfectly on July 15, 1955, in an entry from Kelly Johnsons logbook, after a frantic race to ready the U-2 for its inaugural test flight: Airplane essentially completed. 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, 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. An attack aircraft that rendered itself invisible to enemy radar. 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. About - SKONKWERKS.ORG Conceptually based on Siberia, or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan, Capp's icy hellhole made its first appearance in Li'l Abner in April 1946. Mind Works offers you the expertise . The local children were read harrowing tales from "Ice-sop's Fables", which were parodies of classic Aesop Fables, but with a darkly sardonic bent (and titles like "Coldilocks and the Three Bares"). 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. Mobsters and criminal-types invariably spoke slangy Brooklynese, and residents of Lower Slobbovia spoke pidgin-Russian, with a smattering of Yinglish. [11] His first words were "po'k chop", and that remained his favorite food. The formal contract for the XP-80 didnt arrive at Lockheed until Oct. 16, 1943, four months after work had already begun. Her moniker was a pun on both salami and Salome. What does a Skunk Works do? - Digitopoly An engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's newspaper comic strip, "Li'l Abner." 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. More recently, Dark Horse Comics reprinted the limited series Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years, in four full-color volumes covering the Sunday pages from 1954 to 1961. Origin of the name "Skunk Works" The name originated from cartoonist Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip, which featured an outdoor still called the "Skonk Works" in which "Kickapoo Joy Juice" was manufactured from old shoes and dead skunks. Selections from the Li'l Abner musical score have been recorded by everyone from Percy Faith and Mario Lanza to Andr Previn and Shelly Manne. 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. ), yet Capp would not budge. Capp, a lifelong chain smoker, died from emphysema two years later at age 70, at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire, on November 5, 1979. "When Li'l Abner made its debut in 1934, the vast majority of comic strips were designed chiefly to amuse or thrill their readers. This project marked the birth of what would become the Skunk Works, with founder Kelly Johnson at its helm. Natural landmarks included (at various times) Teeterin' Rock, Onneccessary Mountain, Bottomless Canyon, and Kissin' Rock (handy to Suicide Cliff). [6] The range modifications were performed in Lockheed's Building 304, starting with 100 P-38F models on April 15, 1942. FactSnippet No. He would eventually acquire a couple of supporting character friends for his own semi-regularly featured adventures in the strip. This would prove to be a common practice within the Skunk Works. (Response: ", "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for, "Th' ideel o' ev'ry one hunnerd percent, red-blooded American boy! The designation "skunk works" or "skunkworks" is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and. Skonk Works. Whew it's been a while huh? | by Aslan French | Medium Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays, also known as The Complete Li'l Abner, is a series collecting the American comic strip Li'l Abner written and drawn by Al Capp, originally distributed by the syndicate United Feature Syndicate and later by Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, in total during 43 years before the strip ended. "[51] At its peak, the strip was read daily by 70 million Americans (when the U.S. population was only 180 million), with a circulation of more than 900 newspapers in North America and Europe. The style of the Fosdick sequences closely mimicked Tracy, including the urban setting, the outrageous villains, the galloping mortality rate, the crosshatched shadows, and the lettering style even Gould's familiar signature was parodied in Fearless Fosdick. On paper, the specifications read like works of pure fantasy: a spy plane capable of taking crystal-clear photographs from 70,000 feet. [27] The impervious Fosdick considered the gaping, smoking holes "mere scratches", however, and always reported back in one piece to his corrupt superior "The Chief" for duty the next day. Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs ( ADP ), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. [7] In 1952, Abner reluctantly proposed to Daisy to emulate the engagement of his comic strip "ideel", Fearless Fosdick. How Skunk Works got its name General Aviation News 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. By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 known venues. Hilda Terry was the first woman cartoonist to break the gender barrier when the NCS finally permitted female members in 1950. The name was taken from the moonshine factory in the satirical American comic strip, Li'l Abner. The radio show was not written by Al Capp but by Charles Gussman. 1 (19341936). In response to the question "Which side does Abner part his hair on? Building on obscure research that showed radar beams could be diverted by angled triangular panels, the Skunk Works team designed the F-117 Nighthawk. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. The term shmoo has also entered the lexicon used in defining highly technical concepts in no fewer than four separate fields of science. Uncle Sam needed a counterpunch, and Johnson got a call. Their monetary unit was the "rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing and a large quantity was worth a lot less, due to the trouble of carrying them around. Taking action to help you protect what matters most. [18] The company also holds several registrations of it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Fosdick's own wedding to longtime fiance Prudence Pimpleton turned out to be a dream but Abner and Daisy's ceremony, performed by Marryin' Sam, was permanent. 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. Since this movie predates their comic strip marriage, Abner makes a last-minute escape (natcherly!). The U-2 was tested at Groom Lake in the Nevada desert, and the Flight Test Engineer in charge was Joseph F. Ware, Jr. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it pop. Capp is also the subject of an upcoming PBS American Masters documentary produced by his granddaughter, independent filmmaker Caitlin Manning. 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). 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. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Various Asian, Latin, Native American and European characters spoke in a wide range of specific, broadly caricatured dialects as well. Skunk Works - Wikipedia Not taking anything away from Kurtzman, who was brilliant himself, but Capp was the source for that whole sense of satire in comics. During September 2015 the proposed aircraft was deemed to have developed into more of a tactical reconnaissance aircraft, instead of strategic reconnaissance.[11]. Li'l Abner himself was a mattress tester, and most others were either moonshiners or bootleggers. (Titanium supply was largely dominated by the Soviet Union, so the CIA set up a dummy corporation to acquire source material.) This dunks Upper Slobbovia into Lower Slobbovia, and raises the latter into the formera classic example of a literal revolution. ", was a devastating satire of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's notorious exploitation by DC Comics over Superman (see above excerpt). Li'l Abner Yokum: Abner's character was 6feet 3inches (1.91m) tall and perpetually 19 years old. This vital reconnaissance, unobtainable by other means, averted a war in Europe and a nuclear crisis in Cuba. During the late 1990s when designing Pixar's building, Edwin Catmull and Steve Jobs visited a Skunkworks Building which influenced Steve's design. Although ostensibly set in the Kentucky mountains, situations often took the characters to different destinations including New York City, Washington, D.C., Hollywood, the South American Amazon, tropical islands, the Moon, Mars, etc. Both the Trump and Panic parodies were drawn by EC legend, Will Elder. January 8, 2021 What is Skunk Works? The U-2 ceased overflights when Francis Gary Powers was shot down during a mission on May 1, 1960, while over Russia. Johnson promised the Pentagon theyd have their first prototype in 150 days. The designation 'skunk works' or 'skunkworks' is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects. He also had notoriously bad aim often leaving a trail of collateral damage (in the form of bullet-riddled pedestrians) in his wake. Each member of Johnsons team was cautioned that design and production of the new XP-80 fighter jet must be carried out in strict secrecy. The secret facility was housed in a large tent at what is now Burbank Airport. The name stuck. Mammy dominated the Yokum clan through the force of her personality, and dominated everyone else with her fearsome right uppercut (sometimes known as her "Goodnight, Irene" punch), which helped her uphold law, order and decency. [30] The favorite dish of the starving natives was raw polar bear (and vice versa). Later, many fans and critics saw Paul Henning's popular TV sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962'71) as owing much of its inspiration to Li'l Abner, prompting Alvin Toffler to ask Capp about the similarities in a 1965 Playboy interview. or even Little Annie Fanny. [57] "When he retired Li'l Abner, newspapers ran expansive articles and television commentators talked about the passing of an era. 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. President Eisenhower needed something quicker, stronger, and more elusive. 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. Her authority was unquestioned, and her characteristic phrase, "Ah has spoken! [5] Abner had no visible means of support, although his character earned his livelihood as a "crescent cutter" for the Little Wonder Privy Company and later "mattress tester" for the Stunned Ox Mattress Company. Pappy was so lazy and ineffectual, he didn't even bathe himself. After 1989, Lockheed reorganized its operations and relocated the Skunk Works to Site 10 at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where it remains in operation today. Awakening, he exclaims the phrase. Zugang! For other uses, see, United States Patent and Trademark Office, "Cherokee rocket scientist leaves heavenly gift", "Lockheed Skunk Works' next-generation U-2 morphs into 'TR-X', "Aircraft Company Remodels Old Distillery", "Nominet UK Dispute Resolution Service DRS 04100 Lockheed Martin Corporation vs. UK Skunkworks Ltd Decision of Appeal Panel", "Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works Celebrates Diamond Anniversary", "75 Years of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works", "75 years on, Lockheed's Skunk Works is still innovating", "Opinion: Johnson's Skunk Works legacy is in safe hands", "Analysis: Does Skunk Works hiring binge indicate secret new programme? Four operational missions were conducted over China, but the camera packages were never successfully recovered. Sign up here. In the comic strip Li'l Abner, the "Skonk Works" makes oil from the ground up dead skunks for some unknown . The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!! The NCS had originally disallowed female members into its ranks. In October 1947, Li'l Abner met Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, head of the abusive and corrupt Squeezeblood Syndicate, a thinly veiled dig at UFS. After Capp's death, the Shmoo was used in two Hanna-Barbera produced Saturday morning cartoon series for TV. "He had the touch," Frazetta said of Capp in 2008. Al Capp was a master of the arts of marketing and promotion. In 1964, Capp left United Features and took Li'l Abner to the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.[52]. The Skunk Works Legacy | Lockheed Martin Many have commented on the shift in Capp's political viewpoint, from as liberal as Pogo in his early years to as conservative as Little Orphan Annie when he reached middle age. Li'l Abner - Cast of Characters - Supporting Characters and Villains Li'l Abner also featured a comic strip-within-the-strip: Fearless Fosdick was a parody of Chester Gould's plainclothes detective, Dick Tracy. Li'l Abner never sold as a TV series despite several attempts (including an unsold pilot that aired once on NBC on September 5, 1967),[71] but Al Capp was a familiar face on television for twenty years. 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 Skunk Worksis the proud home of eight Collier Trophies. as asides, to bolster the effect of the printed speech balloons. [10], Next generation optionally-manned U-2 aircraft. (The relative explained that she would have dropped him off sooner, but waited until she happened to be in the neighborhood.) Lil Abner (1947) comic books - MyComicShop Everybody almost dead.. 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.