Al Capp

[James A. Landau]

Lonesome Polecat's partner at making Kickapoo Joy Juice was Hairless Joe.

See for example
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/g1epc/tov/2419100719/p1/article.jhtml
which says
"Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat (brewers of Kickapoo Joy Juice)".
This source deduces (M-W please note) that the Skunk Works was a brewery, not
a distillery.

The sight gag about the name "Hairless Joe" was that Joe had considerable
hair (and if I remember correctly a big blond beard).

Big Barnsmell (and I seem to recall a relative of his, called something
Barnsmell) was a different character in the Li'l Abner strip.

The whammy character was Evil Eye Fleagle.  Like many Capp characters, he
was a parody of a real person.  The version I have heard (and I cannot give
references) is that there was a sleazy gym hanger-on in or around the Jazz Age
who purported to put the evil eye on various persons.  This man went by the
pseudonym of "Evil Eye Floogle" or something like that.  A famous sportswriter,
I canot recall who, took this person and gave him national prominence, so much
prominence that Al Capp considered him fodder for an oft-used parody.

I once read a short interview of the real Evil Eye, in which he explained how
he pulled one of his whammies (waiting until the victim had eaten a dinner of
his favorite food, oysters or something like that, which always gave him
indigestion) and then Evil Eye post facto claimed to have cursed the victim.  This
interview, if I remember correctly, was in John Scarne's autobiography.

A Google search fails to turn up any trace of the original Evil Eye, showing
that yes it is possible to be a famous person and still not appear in Google.

Yes, it makes sense that General Jubilation T. Cornpone would be shown in a
Confederate uniform, as he was a caricature of the Southern glorification of
Confederate generals.  (Aside: the Confederacy produced a number of great
generals, but Jefferson Davis in his entire administration had only two civilians
worth the powder to blow them to Gehenna: Judah P. Benjamin and the lesser-known
Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory.)

Al Capp stopped drawing the Li'l Abner strip in 1977, two years before his
death.

        - Jim Landau