Burton Lane and Lerner were working on a musical about Li ' l Abner.

Alfred Gerald Caplin ( September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979 ), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li ' l Abner.

" I do Li ' l Abner!

!," a self-portrait by Al Capp, excerpted from theApril 16 – 17, 1951 Li ' l Abner strips.

( Leviticus was actually much closer to Capp's later villains Lem and Luke Scragg, than to the much more appealing and innocent Li ' l Abner.

Also during this period, Capp was working at night on samples for the strip that would eventually become Li ' l Abner.

) Leaving Joe Palooka, Capp sold Li ' l Abner to United Feature Syndicate ( now known as United Media ).

Featuring vividly outlandish characters, bizarre situations, and equal parts suspense, slapstick, irony, satire, black humor and biting social commentary, Li ' l Abner is considered a classic of the genre.

The comic strip stars Li ' l Abner Yokum — the simple-minded, loutish but good-natured and eternally innocent hayseed who lives with his parents — scrawny but superhuman Mammy Yokum, and shiftless, childlike Pappy Yokum.

" Indeed, Li ' l Abner incorporates such a panoply of characters and ideas that it defies summary ," according to cultural historian Anthony Harkins.

At its peak, Li ' l Abner was read daily by 70 million Americans ( the U. S. population at the time was only 180 million ), with adult readers far outnumbering children.

Li ' l Abner has one odd design quirk that has puzzled readers for decades: the part in his hair always faces the viewer, no matter which direction Abner is facing.

In response to the question “ Which side does Abner part his hair on ?," Capp would answer, “ Both .” Capp said he finally found the right " look " for Li ' l Abner with Henry Fonda's character Dave Tolliver, in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine ( 1936 ).

Li ' l Abner also features a comic strip-within-the-strip: Fearless Fosdick is a parody of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy.

Besides Dick Tracy, Capp parodied many other comic strips in Li ' l Abner — including Steve Canyon, Superman ( at least twice ; first as " Jack Jawbreaker " in 1947, and again in 1966 as " Chickensouperman "), Mary Worth, Peanuts, Rex Morgan, M. D., Little Annie Rooney and Little Orphan Annie ( in which Punjab became " Punjbag ," an oleaginous slob ).

Capp was just as likely to parody himself ; his self-caricature made frequent, tongue-in-cheek appearances in Li ' l Abner.

" Just about anything could be a target for Capp's satire — in one storyline Li ' l Abner is revealed to be the missing link between ape and man.

In addition to creating Li ' l Abner, Capp also co-created two other newspaper strips: Abbie an ' Slats with magazine illustrator Raeburn van Buren in 1937, and Long Sam with cartoonist Bob Lubbers in 1954, as well as the Sunday " topper " strips Washable Jones, Small Fry ( aka Small Change ), and Advice fo ' Chillun.

According to comics historian Coulton Waugh, a 1947 poll of newspaper readers who claimed they ignored the comics page altogether revealed that many confessed to making a single exception: Li ' l Abner.

" When Li ' l Abner made its debut in 1934, the vast majority of comic strips were designed chiefly to amuse or thrill their readers.

Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into Li ' l Abner.

According to Marschall, Li ' l Abner gradually evolved into a broad satire of human nature.

Over the years, Li ' l Abner has been adapted to radio, animated cartoons, stage production, motion pictures and television.

" John Updike, comparing Abner to a “ hillbilly Candide ,” added that the strip ’ s “ richness of social and philosophical commentary approached the Voltairean .” Charlie Chaplin, William F. Buckley, Al Hirschfeld, Harpo Marx, Russ Meyer, John Kenneth Galbraith, Ralph Bakshi, Shel Silverstein, Hugh Downs, Gene Shalit, Frank Cho, Daniel Clowes and ( reportedly ) even Queen Elizabeth have confessed to being fans of Li ' l Abner.

Li ' l Abner was also the subject of the first book-length, scholarly assessment of an American comic strip ever published.

Honest Abe Yokum: Li ' l Abner and Daisy Mae's little boy was born in 1953 " after a pregnancy that ambled on so long that readers began sending me medical books ," wrote Capp.

Tiny Yokum: " Tiny " was a misnomer ; Li ' l Abner's kid brother remained perpetually innocent and 15½ " y ' ars " old — despite the fact that he was an imposing, tall behemoth.

: Capp used Li ' l Abner to satirize current events, fads, and ephemeral popular culture ( such as zoot suits in " Zoot Suit Yokum ," 1943 ).

According to longtime NSA computer expert Samuel Simon Snyder, " We chose the name from Li ' l Abner Yokum, the comic strip character who was a big brute, but not very smart, because we believed that computers, which can be big and do brute-force operations, aren't very bright either.

* Li ' l Abner, Daisy Mae, Wolf Gal, Earthquake McGoon, Lonesome Polecat, Hairless Joe, Sadie Hawkins, Silent Yokum and Fearless Fosdick all found their way onto the painted noses of bomber aircraft during World War II and the Korean War, as did Kickapoo Joy Juice, Lena the Hyena and the Shmoo.

As usual, sweet, curvaceous Daisy Mae Scragg is pursuing Li ' l Abner Yokum who, despite being a strapping, handsome young man, isn't interested in girls or employment.

Mammy Yokum has a vision in which she sees Bullmoose and Apassionata's plot to kill Li ' l Abner.

In 1967, she portrayed Mammy Yokum in an unsold TV pilot adapted from Al Capp's Li ' l Abner.

Hayes played Mammy Yokum in both the Broadway and film versions of Li ' l Abner, appeared on the soap opera General Hospital as Robert Scorpio's mentor, " O ' Reilly " in 1981 and 1985, and did the voiceover for the character Mother Mae-Eye on the animated series Teen Titans and the character Granny Applecheeks in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.

According to David Ownby, Professor of History and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal, Li became an " instant star of the qigong movement ", and Falun Gong was embraced by the government as an effective means of lowering health care costs, promoting Chinese culture, and improving public morality.

Tang poetry's big star is Li Bai ( 701-762 ) also pronounced and written as Li Bo, who worked in all major styles, both the more free old style verse ( gutishi ) as well as the tonally regulated new style verse ( jintishi ).

The Chinese film titled " 少林寺 or Shaolin Temple " starring action star Jet Li ( 李 連杰 ) was shot at Shaolin Temple and supported by members of the Shorinji Kempo group.

Hours after his death, tributes from eminent Buddhist monks and Taiwanese politicians and celebrities, including President Ma Ying-jeou, Vice President Vincent Siew, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, kung fu star Jet Li, and actress Brigitte Lin, began to pour into Dharma Drum Mountain monastery.

* In the Jet Li film High Risk, Jacky Cheung plays a movie star who is losing his fighting ability due to his cowardice.

* Jet Li, Chinese martial artist, actor, Wushu champion, and international film star

Not One Less was Zhang Yimou's ninth film, but only the second not to star long-time collaborator Gong Li ( the first was his 1997 Keep Cool ).

In 1993, he began an alliance and good friendship with action star Jet Li.

She can be seen dancing and singing in the chorus of Li ' l Abner ( 1959 ) as a Dogpatch wife, alongside future television star Valerie Harper.

When Enter the Dragon became a box office success worldwide, many Hong Kong studios feared that a movie without their most famous star in it would not be financially successful, so some studios decided to play on Lee ’ s sudden international fame by making movies that vaguely sounded like Bruce Lee starring vehicles, with actors who looked like Lee changing their stage names to sound similar to “ Bruce Lee ,” such as Bruce Li and Bruce Le.

A role in The Bride with White Hair 2 brought her instant recognition, and she became a well-known star in Chinese-language popular culture, acting in a large number of films including some films starring Stephen Chow, as well as The Bodyguard from Beijing starring Jet Li.

The Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian (" Long compilation of the continuation of the Zizhi Tongjian "), a book covering the period of 960 – 1126 and written 40 years or so later by Li Tao ( 1114 – 1183 ), contains the oldest Chinese testimonies relating to the observation of the star.

The film marked the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou, and the acting debut of film star Gong Li.

* Jet Li, international film star.

The Li 6707 Å line though weak is detected only from the primary star, suggesting that it is older than 1 Gyr.

A second quarter-final performance followed at Guangzhou in September, after she virtually blew French star Marion Bartoli off the court for the loss of just one game in Round Two, only to be ousted in turn herself by countrywoman Li Ting.

* Born: Li Jiawei, Chinese-American table tennis star, in Beijing