Alley Oop

For other uses, see Alley Oop (disambiguation).
Alley Oop

On April 9, 1939, Alley Oop was transported from the Stone Age into the 20th century.
Author(s) V. T. Hamlin (creator)
Jack and Carole Bender
Current status / schedule running
Launch date December 5, 1932
End date —
Syndicate(s) Newspaper Enterprise Association
Publisher(s) Whitman, Dragon Lady Press, Kitchen Sink Press
Genre(s) Humor, adventure, science fiction

Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the popular and influential strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced an engaging cast of characters, and his story lines entertained with a combination of adventure, fantasy, and humor.

Alley Oop, the strip's title character, was a sturdy citizen in the prehistoric kingdom of Moo. He rode his pet dinosaur Dinny, carried a stone war hammer, and wore nothing but a fur loincloth. He would rather fight dinosaurs in the jungle than deal with his fellow countrymen in Moo's capital and sole cave-town. Despite these exotic settings, the stories were often satires of American suburban life.

Major characters

Name First Appeared Description
Alley Oop Aug 7, 1933 A time-traveling caveman
Ooola Oct 10, 1933 Oop's pretty girlfriend
Foozy Sep 21, 1933 Oop's pal, who talks in rhyme
Dinny Aug 12, 1933 Oop's pet dinosaur
King Guzzle Ruler of Moo
Queen Umpateedle Sep 28, 1933 Queen of Moo
The Grand Wizer Sep 23, 1933 Advisor to the king
Dr. Elbert Wonmug Apr 7, 1939 20th-century scientist and inventor
G. Oscar Boom Rival and partner to Wonmug
Ava Dr. Wonmug's laboratory assistant

Minor characters

Name First Appeared Description
Jon Apr 7, 1939 Dr. Wonmug's lab assistant
Dee Apr 15, 1939 Dr. Wonmug's daughter

Story

The first stories took place in the Stone Age and centered on Alley Oop's dealings with his fellow cavemen in the kingdom of Moo. Oop and his pals had occasional skirmishes with the rival kingdom of Lem, ruled by King Tunk. The names Moo and Lem are references to the fabled lost continents of Mu and Lemuria.

On April 5, 1939, Hamlin introduced a new plot device which greatly expanded his choice of storylines: A time machine, invented by 20th-century scientist Dr. Elbert Wonmug, who bore a rather suspicious resemblance to the Grand Wizer. The name Wonmug was a bilingual pun on Albert Einstein; "ein" is German for "one", and a "stein" is a form of drinking mug. Oscar Boom is derived from the words Nobel Prize, Oscar = Prize and Boom after Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite).

Oop was transported to the 20th century by an early test of the machine (in the Sunday strip of April 9, 1939). He was hardly upset by the incident and apparently did not find modern society to be any different from his own. He then became Dr. Wonmug's man in the field, embarking on expeditions to various periods and places in history, such as Ancient Egypt, the England of Robin Hood, and the American frontier. Oop met such historical or mythical figures as Cleopatra, King Arthur, and Ulysses in his adventures. In addition to the time machine, other science fiction devices were introduced. Oop once drove an experimental electric-powered race car and, in the 1940s, he traveled to the Moon. During his adventures, he was often accompanied by his girlfriend Ooola, and by the sometimes-villainous, sometimes-heroic G. Oscar Boom (G.O. Boom), Dr. Wonmug's rival and occasional partner. Laboratory assistant Ava joined the cast in recent years.

Time Travels

Syndication history

Dave Graue (1926-2001) retired from cartooning in August, 2001, and was killed in an automobile accident four months later

Alley Oop's name derived from the "let's go" phrase allez, hop!, used as a cue by French gymnasts and trapeze artists.[1] Initially, Alley Oop was a daily strip which had a run from December 5, 1932 to April 26, 1933. Beginning August 7, 1933, the strip was distributed by NEA syndicate, and the early material was reworked for a larger readership. The strip added a full page Sunday strip, on September 9, 1934. It also appeared in half-page, tabloid and half tab formats, which were smaller and/or dropped panels. During World War II, the full page vanished, and newspapers were offered a third of a page version that dropped panels, so more strips could fit on a page.

When Hamlin retired in 1971, his assistant Dave Graue took over. Graue had been assisting Hamlin since 1950 and had been creating the daily solo since 1966, although co-signed by Hamlin. The last daily signed by Hamlin appeared December 31, 1972, and his last signed Sunday was April 1, 1973. From his North Carolina studio, Graue wrote and drew the strip through the 1970s and 1980s until Jack Bender took over as illustrator in 1991. Graue continued to write the strip until his August 2001 retirement. Four months later, on December 10, 2001, the 75-year-old Graue was killed in Flat Rock, North Carolina when a dump truck hit his car. The current Alley Oop Sunday and daily strips are drawn by Jack Bender and written by his wife Carole Bender.[2]

At its peak, Alley Oop was carried by 800 newspapers. Today, it appears in more than 600 newspapers. The strip and albums were popular in Mexico (under the name Trucutú) and in Brazil (Brucutu). In 1995, Alley Oop was one of 20 strips showcased in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative United States postage stamps.

Licensing and promotion

During the 1970s, Alley Oop was adapted to animation as a segment of Filmation's Saturday morning cartoon series Fabulous Funnies, appearing intermittently alongside other comic strip favorites: The Captain and the Kids, Broom-Hilda, Moon Mullins, Smokey Stover and Nancy.

In 2008, "to celebrate Alley Oop's 75th year," the Benders conducted a contest for "Dinosaur Drawings from Our Young Readers"; the entry Tyrannosaurus Rex holding a banner wishing "Happy Birthday" to Alley Oop, by 12-year-old Erin Holloway of Hammond, Louisiana, was published in the comic strip on 2009 January 17.[3]

In 2002, Dark Horse Comics produced a limited edition figure of the character in a brightly illustrated tin container. Alley Oop was issued as statue #28—part of their line of Classic Comic Characters collectibles.

In popular culture

The long-running success of the strip made the character a pop culture icon referred to in fiction, pop music, dance, and sports:

Collections and reprints

Many Alley Oop daily strips and a few Sundays have been reprinted by Dragon Lady Press, Comics Revue, Kitchen Sink Press, Manuscript Press and SPEC Books. In 2014, Dark Horse began publishing a series of large-format hardcover books that will purportedly cover the complete series of Sunday pages. The following titles are all by V. T. Hamlin unless otherwise noted:

See also

References

  1. ↑ A.Word.A.Day: alley-oop
  2. ↑ Jennifer Chancellor, "OKC museum chronicles Okie cartoonists", Tulsa World, June 21, 2010.
  3. ↑ Stephanie Schexnayder, "Girl's Art Wins 'Alley Oop' Contest" in Daily Star (Hammond, Louisiana, 2009 January 7; "Girl's Art Featured in 'Alley Oop' Comic Today" in Daily Star (Hammond), 2009 January 17, p. 1 (The strip with the drawing appears on p. 3B of the Daily Star for 2009 January 17).
  4. ↑ VAN HOOYDONCK, Peter, Willy Vandersteen: De Bruegel van het Beeldverhaal, Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerpen, 1994

Further reading

External links

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