compiling a monograph on the life and career of Al Capp. The manned A-12 and the drone were designated as M-21 and D-21 or "Mother" and "Daughter." What sets the Skunk Works apart is its unique approach created by founder Kelly Johnson. 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. In America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1997), comics historian Richard Marschall analyzed the overtly misanthropic subtext of Li'l Abner: Capp was calling society absurd, not just silly; human nature not simply misguided, but irredeemably and irreducibly corrupt. [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. 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. During the late 1990s when designing Pixar's building, Edwin Catmull and Steve Jobs visited a Skunkworks Building which influenced Steve's design. 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. 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. [14], During the development of the P-80 Shooting Star, Johnson's engineering team was located adjacent to a malodorous plastics factory. 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. 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. . 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. 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. Other news is the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president on March 4, 1933 (although Mammy Yokum thinks the President is Teddy Roosevelt), and a picture of Germany's "new leader" Adolf Hitler who claims to love peace while reviewing 20,000 new planes (April 21, 1933). [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. The trophy is awarded annually by the National Aeronautic Association for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year. Forget about it slam dunk! 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). Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Some of the Skunk Works' most notable aircraft have received the prestigious trophy, which bears the name of the past publisher and early president of the Aero Club of America, Robert J. Collier. Ironing Pappy's trousers fell under her wifely duties as well, although she didn't bother with preliminaries like waiting for Pappy to remove them first. This was followed by a heated conversation among the adults who advised her that Flower was too bashful to go into space, and it couldnt be Pepe Le Pew, another famous cartoon skunk, because he wasnt serious enough to be in the space program. It can be found in, Brodbeck, Arthur J, et al. [54] Li'l Abner was also parodied in 1954 (as "Li'l Melvin" by "Ol' Hatt") in the pages of EC Comics' humor comic, Panic, edited by Al Feldstein. Uncle Sam needed a counterpunch, and Johnson got a call. His philosophy is spelled out in his 14 Rules and Practices. Sensitive to his own experience working on Joe Palooka, Capp frequently drew attention to his assistants in interviews and publicity pieces. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) " Philosophy is written in this grand bookI mean . This vital reconnaissance, unobtainable by other means, averted a war in Europe and a nuclear crisis in Cuba. Lockheed was chosen to develop the jet because of its past interest in jet development and its previous contracts with the Air Force. ", Daisy Mae Yokum (ne Scragg): Beautiful Daisy Mae's character was hopelessly in love with Dogpatch's most prominent resident throughout the entire 43-year run of Al Capp's comic strip. We have invested in developing and demonstrating hypersonic technology for over 30 years. In June 1943, the U.S. Armys Air Tactical Service Command (ATSC) met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to express its dire need for a jet fighter to counter a rapidly growing German jet threat. The original "Skonk Works" was a liquor still where something was always brewing in Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner. 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 . Conceived in 1943, the Skunk Works divisiona name inspired by a mysterious locale from the comic strip LiL Abnerwas formed by Johnson to build Americas first jet fighter. He would eventually acquire a couple of supporting character friends for his own semi-regularly featured adventures in the strip. For 18 years of the run of the strip, Abner slipped out of Daisy Mae's marital crosshairs time and time again. Scripps Company, it was an immediate success. The concept came in the wake of the Gary Powers incident. Skunk Works is an industry leader in rapid prototyping, pushing the boundaries of whats possible to quickly design, develop and test innovative solutions. [55] Kurtzman eventually did spoof Li'l Abner (as "Li'l Ab'r") in 1957, in his short-lived humor magazine, Trump. 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. Women and girls take the initiative in inviting the man or boy of their choice out on a date almost unheard of before 1937 typically to a dance attended by other bachelors and their assertive dates. The phrase originated in 1943, during World War II, when Lockheed Corporation built America's first operational jet fighter. 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. 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). The story is explained as well in the Wikipedia: " [] The "Skonk Works" was a dilapidated factory located on the remote outskirts of Dogpatch, in the backwoods of Kentucky. "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 term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp's hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was popular in the 1940s and '50s. ", 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. Li'l Abner's success also sparked a handful of comic strip imitators. Humorously enough, many states tried to claim ownership to the little town (Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc. Ben Rich and "Kelly" Johnson set the origin as June 1943 in Burbank, California; they relate essentially the same chronology in their autobiographies. ", Capp would answer, "Both." Al Capp was an outspoken pioneer in favor of diversifying the National Cartoonists Society by admitting women cartoonists. 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. 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. In 2002 the Chicago Tribune, in a review of The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo, noted: "The wry, ornery, brilliantly perceptive satirist will go down as one of the Great American Humorists." Outside Dogpatch, characters used a variety of stock Vaudevillian dialects. The name was taken from the moonshine factory in the satirical American comic strip, Li'l Abner. 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. 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. 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". The production of Li'l Abner has been well documented, however. During the extended peak of the strip, the workload grew to include advertising, merchandising, promotional work, comic book adaptations, public service material and other specialty work in addition to the regular six dailies and one Sunday strip per week. (also, "Wal, cuss mah bones!") 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. It even made the cover of Life magazine on March 31, 1952 illustrating an article by Capp titled "It's Hideously True!! He never married his own long-suffering fiance Prudence Pimpleton (despite an engagement of 17 years), but Fosdick was directly responsible for the unwitting marriage of his biggest fan, Li'l Abner, to Daisy Mae in 1952. 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).