alley-oop

V. T. Hamlin's Alley Oop (April 9, 1937). First use of the time machine, a device suggested by Dorothy Hamlin, as Alley and Ooola arrive in the 20th Century.

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 storylines 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, dressed in nothing but a pair of fur shorts and obviously would rather fight dinosaurs in the jungle than deal with his fellow countrymen in Moo's capital (and only) cave-town. In spite of these exotic settings, the stories were often satires of American suburban life.

Characters and story

The first stories centered on Alley Oop's dealings with his fellow cavemen – his friend Foozy (who talks in rhyme) and his girlfriend Ooola, Moo's King Guzzle and Queen Umpateedle, the King's Grand Wizer and assorted citizens, plus his tame dinosaur Dinny. 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 plot lines: a time machine, invented by the 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.

Suddenly abducted to the 20th century by an early test of the machine, Oop 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 Old West. 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 into the strip. Oop once drove an experimental electric-powered race car, and in the 1940s traveled to the moon. In his adventures he was often accompanied by his girlfiend Ooola, and by the sometimes villainous, sometimes heroic G. Oscar Boom (G.O. Boom), Dr. Wonmug's rival and occasional partner. A new lab assistant, a woman named Ava, has joined the cast in recent years.

V.T. Hamlin's Alley Oop (December 24, 1948)

Publication history

Alley Oop's name derived from the "let's go" phrase allez, hop!, used as a cue by French gymnasts and trapeze artists. 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 Sunday full page, 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 due to the drive to conserve paper, and newspapers were offered a third of a page version that dropped panels, so that they could fit more strips on a page.

When V. T. Hamlin retired in 1971, his assistant Dave Graue took over. Graue had been assisting Hamlin since 1950, and had been doing 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 studio in North Carolina, 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; 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.

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 US postage stamps.

Adaptations

1937 Alley Oop strips as reprinted by Dell in 1962.

During the 1970s, Alley Oop was adapted to animation as a segment of Filmation's animated series Fabulous Funnies series, appearing alongside Broom Hilda, Nancy, and The Captain and the Kids.

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 then 12-year-old Erin Holloway of Hammond, Louisiana, was published in the comic strip on 2009 January 17.^[1]

Reprints

Many Alley Oop daily strips, and a few Sundays, have been reprinted by Dragon Lady Press, Comics Revue, Kitchen Sink, Manuscript Press and SPEC Books.

Cultural references

The long-run success of the strip made the character a pop culture icon referenced in both fiction, pop music, dance and sports:

• An educated Neanderthal known as Alley Oop is a character in Clifford D. Simak's science fiction novel The Goblin Reservation (1968). O. Paley (a quasi-anagram of "Alley Oop") was the central figure in Philip José Farmer's The Alley Man, a 1959 novella about the last Neanderthal who has survived into the 20th Century.
• In 1960 Hamlin's character became the subject of Alley Oop, a song by Dallas Frazier which became a one-hit-wonder by the The Hollywood Argyles and by several other bands. (However, the lyrics' line "he got a big ugly club" would be more appropriate for King Guzzle's wooden club than Oop's stone-headed war hammer.) The lead vocalist, Norm Davis, who was paid a one-time flat fee of $25, is currently a poet and poetry teacher in Rochester, New York. In the 1970s, the song "Alley Oop" was used by the American choreographer Twyla Tharp in her ballet Deuce Coup.
• The Alley Oop football play was developed by San Francisco 49ers Y.A. Tittle and R.C. Owens in the late 1950s; and Owens himself got the nickname "Alley Oop". It is also a famous basketball play involving a pass near the bucket and a leaping player, first made famous by David Thompson of NC State.

References

Ed Emshwiller's 1959 illustration of Philip José Farmer's "The Alley Man"

Sources

• Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop (2005), an award-winning documentary by Max Allan Collins, is narrated by Michael Cornelison and features interviews with Will Eisner and Dave Graue.

Watch

• Oopland (Iraan, Texas) on Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations

External links

• Alley Oop
• Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop
• Clark J. Holloway on Alley Oop
• Toonopedia: Toonopedia Oop
• V.T. Hamlin Archives at University of Missouri
• Alley Oop is a Texan? by C. F. Eckhardt