Alfred Gerald Caplin, better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner, which he created in 1934 and continued writing and drawing until 1977. He also wrote the comic strips Abbie an' Slats and Long Sam (1954). He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their 1979 Elzie Segar Award, posthumously for his "unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning".
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They enjoyed each other's company and decided to meet on a regular basis.
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts which features his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists in history, and cited by many cartoonists as a major influence, including Jim Davis, Murray Ball, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, and Dav Pilkey.
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. Peanuts is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of roughly 355 million across 75 countries, and had been translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion. It got a movie adaptation in 2015 by Blue Sky Studios.
Charles "Charlie" Brown is the principal character of the comic strip Peanuts, syndicated in daily and Sunday newspapers in numerous countries all over the world. Depicted as a "lovable loser", Charlie Brown is one of the great American archetypes and a popular and widely recognized cartoon character. Charlie Brown is characterized as a person who frequently suffers, and as a result, is usually nervous and lacks self-confidence. He shows both pessimistic and optimistic attitudes: on some days, he is apprehensive to even get out of bed because he is unable to face the world, but on others, he hopes for the best and is determined to accomplish things. Charlie Brown is easily recognized by his round head and trademark zigzag patterned shirt. His catchphrase is "Good Grief!"
Li'l Abner was a satirical American comic strip that appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies living in the impoverished fictional mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and illustrated by Al Capp (1909–1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977. The Sunday page debuted on February 24, 1935, six months after the daily. It was originally distributed by United Feature Syndicate and later by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.
Dude is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural location, a "city slicker". In the 1960s, dude evolved to mean any male person, a meaning that slipped into mainstream American slang in the 1970s. Current slang retains at least some use of all three of these common meanings.
New Mathematics or New Math was a dramatic but temporary change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries and elsewhere, during the 1950s–1970s.
In rhetoric, a weasel word, or anonymous authority, is a word or phrase aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated. The terms may be considered informal. Examples include the phrases "some people say", "it is thought", and "researchers believe". Using weasel words may allow one to later deny any specific meaning if the statement is challenged, because the statement was never specific in the first place. Weasel words can be a form of tergiversation and may be used in advertising, popular science, opinion pieces and political statements to mislead or disguise a biased view or unsubstantiated claim.
Howdy Doody is an American children's television program that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell and E. Roger Muir. It was broadcast on the NBC television network in the United States from December 27, 1947, until September 24, 1960. It was a pioneer of children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. One of the first television series produced at NBC in Rockefeller Center, in Studio 3A, it pioneered color production in 1956 and NBC used the show to promote color television sets in the late 1950s.
A heckler is a person who harasses and tries to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes. Hecklers are often known to shout discouraging comments at a performance or event, or to interrupt set-piece speeches, with the intent of disturbing performers or participants.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Take Barney Google, for Instance, is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck. Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a large international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song, and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google " with lyrics by Billy Rose, as well as the 1923 record "Come On, Spark Plug!"
Li'l Folks, the first comic strip by Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, was a weekly panel that appeared mainly in Schulz's hometown paper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, from June 22, 1947, to January 22, 1950. As Schulz's first regular cartoon, Li'l Folks can be regarded as an embryonic version of Peanuts, centered around children saying things beyond their years. Unlike Peanuts, Li'l Folks did not feature any recurring characters, though several themes were carried over to the later strip, including: Beethoven's music ; dogs resembling Snoopy that appeared in most strips; and the name Charlie Brown.
"Olly olly oxen free" is a catchphrase or truce term used in children's games such as hide and seek, capture the flag, and kick the can to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game or that the position of the sides in a game has changed ; alternatively, that the game is entirely over.
"Break a leg" is an English-language idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer "good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin, "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition. Though a similar and potentially related term exists in German without theatrical associations, the English expression with the luck-based meaning is first attributed in the theatre in the 1930s or possibly 1920s.
The phrase "said the actress to the bishop" is a colloquial British exclamation, offering humour by serving as a punch line that exposes an unintended double entendre. An equivalent phrase in North America is "that's what she said". The versatility of such phrases, and their popularity, lead some to consider them clichéd.
Boomtown was a children's show on WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts that ran Saturday and Sunday mornings from 1956 through 1974, and was hosted by singing cowboy Rex Trailer.
Bloke is a slang term for a common man in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
