1965 was a pretty good year for four musicians named John, Paul, George and Ringo. The previous year, they had ascended that fabled Toppermost of The Poppermost when they conquered the United States, spreading Beatlemania throughout the globe once and for all with a little help from their hit singles, albums, and even a successful film vehicle. Lest anyone think the Fabs a fad, '65 proved all the more fruitful: another movie (this time in color!), an animated series, more lucrative tours, more no. 1 singles, and two proper studio LP efforts that pointed towards a future that would send them even further into the stratosphere. Simply put, it was a nice time to be a Beatle.
If 1965 gave the (rapidly shedding their) Mop-Tops a reason to Feel Fine (yes, I know that one came out in '64), it was a good deal shakier for a cartoonist named Al Capp. Since 1934, Capp had been enormously successful thanks to his syndicated comic strip Li'l Abner, featuring a proto-Springfieldian wide cast of colorful characters, and sharp "take no prisoners" satirical commentary. The strip focused on the hillbilly haven of Dogpatch and its most famous residents, the Yokum clan, as they jumped from storyline to storyline sending up whatever was going on the culture and pop culture of the day.
Nowadays it might be hard to conceive of the celebrity Capp enjoyed, considering newspaper cartoonists don't tend to get a whole lot of exposure in a world where nobody buys newspapers anymore-- in his heyday, though, Capp was a bonafide household name, perhaps the second-most-famous cartoonist alive after Walt Disney. Everybody read the papers back then, as the radio was the only other place one could really get their breaking news-- and when they inevitably needed a break from that news they turned to the funny pages. Characters like Popeye, Barney Google, Mutt and Jeff and Smokey Stover were the SpongeBobs and Homer Simpsons of their time; all that's changed is the medium. Successful syndicated strips produced capital-I Icons, beloved by all and incredibly lucrative, spawning toys, spin-off cartoons and even live-action films, hit records, gas masks and whatever else a person might have needed.
For a solid period of time, Capp and Abner were the ones to beat. Li'l Abner's readership was so high and its cultural presence so vast that one could make a legitimate argument it was possibly the most popular American comic strip up until the late 1950s or so. There were live-action films (two, to be precise), a successful Broadway musical, and theatrical animated shorts. It spawned an entire holiday that still somewhat-persists today, and it adorned the cover of Life Magazine (again, such a feat might not mean much to us today, but it would have been a huge deal at the time). A contest to design a character for the strip was judged by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Salvador Dali and Boris Karloff. There was a theme park (although curiously, this was established in the waning days of the strip's success). Charlie Chaplin and John Steinbeck wrote forewords to book collections of the comic, and the latter nominated Capp for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. John Updike deemed Capp "the best satirist since Laurence Sterne", and declared that Abner's "richness of social and philosophical commentary approached the Voltairean". Amongst the fanbase were also Al Hirschfeld, Ralph Bakshi, Harpo Marx, Shel Silverstein and Queen Elizabeth. Time Magazine dubbed Capp the modern-day successor to Mark Twain (an accolade that would frequently be bestowed upon him during his career).
And of course, there was the Shmoo, a merchandising behemoth that could be described as the Minions of its day.
You may by now be wondering what any of this has to do with the Beatles, or even my claim that 1965 was a tricky year for Al Capp. I went on this tangent to give you a sense of scope; I feel as though just about anybody alive nowadays has at least an inkling of how huge the Beatles were in 1965, as they are still huge today. You might have needed a crash-course of the popularity of Li'l Abner back when it was a going concern, however, because it is not particularly well-remembered in 2025. Why is that?
Back to 1965, and Capp. Li'l Abner had just entered its third decade, and a couple of cracks in the armor were apparent. Charles Schulz was the hot new-ish cartoonist in town, and his creation Peanuts was rapidly closing in on surpassing Abner's popularity. Pouring salt in the wound, he had invoked Capp's ire years prior, by publicly commenting that he felt it was a "mistake" to have the strip's two lead characters, the eponymous Abner and his reluctant crush Daisy Mae, marry in a 1952 storyline, arguing that it hurt the strip's premise too much. To make matters worse, it seemed as though Schulz was merely stating a fairly common opinion-- the strip had jumped the shark before the term existed.
Panels from 1957's "L'l Ab'r", a Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder spoof of Abner that appeared in Trump Magazine and re-iterated criticisms of the strip that were becoming more and more common-- Abner and Daisy Mae's marriage was a bad decision and the strip was growing stale.
Capp was a fine example of "could dish it out but not take it", full of witty barbs but never too keen to be on the receiving end of them. He would brush off Peanuts whenever he was asked about it, insisting he didn't see the appeal or think it was all that great-- calculated indifference to seem unbothered (this is diplomatic by Capp's standards, it must be noted). But it must have stung to see the one who called him out surpass him in the public's eye as the new decade started to truly come into its own and form an identity distinct from the previous ones, ones where Capp flourished.
To be a successful syndicated cartoonist at that point in time was to have your finger on the pulse-- doubly-so the case when your strip is as focused on social satire as Li'l Abner was. Was Al Capp slipping? Was his lauded ability to be in tune with the zeitgest and call everything for what it was on the fritz? Perhaps the thought crossed his mind. He would have to shape up if he wanted to continue his reign as the Dostoyevsky of The Comics (another frequent point of comparison). The 60s were clearly going to be a different beast-- how would he approach them?
Combatively, as was his nature-- although while once Capp was combative on the side of The People, picking targets and skewering them in ways that resonated with the average reader, it now seemed more and more like he was combatting The People themselves. The youth culture that was emerging seemed to disgust the once-outspokenly-liberal Capp. Their long hair, their protests, their love of that Snoopy comic that belonged to that upstart cartoonist who dared to talk out of turn about my comic.
Their goddamned rock and roll music.
In December of 1965, Capp gave an interview to PlayBoy that seemed to announce a new Al Capp. One who was getting fed up with the way things were changing:
"I haven’t changed. Liberalism has. The liberal fought for welfare. It began as compulsory Christianity; it has degenerated into something maudlin and mindless. Under today’s corruption of welfare, any slut capable of impregnation is encouraged to produce bastards without end—for which she is given welfare checks without end. A woman who has proven herself an unfit driver has her license taken away; yet the unfit mother is given unbridled license to continue to produce children doomed to lovelessness and neglect from the moment they are born. And society is doomed to support them, to cure their dope addiction, to jail them, or to terminate their terrible little lives because we will not take away from the unfit the license to reproduce."
Not quite "Happiness is A Warm Puppy". He waxes philosophical a bit more about the changing cultural landscape, as he sees it:
"Change is often called 'decay'. Our moral values are changing, that’s all. I think the most shocking thing I ever saw in my life—I couldn’t have been more than 10 or 11 years old—was a woman smoking. I was positive I’d seen my first prostitute. But a few years later my grandmothers was sending me out for packs of cigarettes. I remember when the sight of a woman’s calf was enough to snap a man’s mind. Yet today parents proudly watch their little drum-majorette daughters parading half naked down Main Street."
And, of course, some not-so-subtle digs at the present-day comics-reading audience, the kind who just *loved* Peanuts but didn't seem to appreciate his work properly:
"I am puzzled that anyone regards Li’l Abner as any sort of hero at all. The size of his feet is heroic, but not much else about him. A hero is modest; Abner is vain. A hero’s wife adores him; Abner’s wife deplores him. A hero is innocent; Abner is merely ignorant. Maybe that’s it: Maybe it’s his ignorance the public admires. The scope of his ignorance is heroic. And when ignorance triumphs over intellect, we all feel personally more secure. English humorists, as in Tom Jones, used class as the yardstick of ignorance. Americans are apt to use geography. Dogpatch, because it is so far removed from the centers of culture, is accepted as a Fort Knox of ignorance. And the ignorant are accepted as Fort Knoxes of goodness, mainly because they aren’t smart enough to be rotten."
This was just a sneak preview of the delights that were to come. Capp would end 1965 with a storyline about S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything), a group of unwashed and unkempt teenagers who invade the strip so they can complain about social justice issues and-- gasp! -- interrupt the annual Sadie Hawkins' Day storyline. Not too hard to glean where Capp's head was at by that point in time.
For all of Capp's anger towards the youth culture of 1965, and how it was changing everything from the way it was before, one might wonder: did he have any thoughts on the Beatles? As it turns out, yes-- first, very briefly in July and August of 1964.
Being a year prior to the apparent start of Capp's shift into Old Man Crank mode, the riffing on the Beatles here isn't particularly pointed-- hell, you could even call it gentle. Abner, without his knowledge, has a little transmitter radio embedded into his tooth by a mysterious figure. Said figure uses it to blare a Beatles parody, "I Wanna Hold Your Ham", into Abner's head 24/7. At first, Abner is delighted to hear the song, as he seems to be a devout fan of "thet glorious moosic", but eventually, hearing it 24/7 grates on him a little (maybe he isn't a true fan after all...)
Click on each strip for a (much) better look at it.
The mysterious figure then begins using this form of torture to force Abner to do his bidding, which entails leaving Daisy Mae and shacking up with his sister instead, typical Li'l Abner plot fare. The Beatles parody basically becomes a footnote to the story, but I believe it was the first time they were mentioned in the strip, so I felt it was worth a mention.
In August-to-September of 1965, we get another Beatles storyline, this time with the Fabs (still unnamed) themselves taking a much more prominent role in the proceedings. On a faraway island, Abner and Daisy Mae come across an American secret agent who bears a striking resemblance to Ringo Starr. His plan is to infiltrate the Beatles and convince their teenage fanbase to help stimulate the American economy.
Again, click on each strip for a better look.
Once more, by Capp's standards, this isn't too harsh towards its apparent targets-- but one does have to wonder, given where it appeared in the timeline of Capp's life and political leanings, whether anything can be read into the storyline's assertion that the Beatles' arrival in America had apparently caused its youth to abandon their own economy.
The Capp-Beatles crossover saga doesn't end here! In 1969, Abner's pappy met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in person at long last(?), during one of their famous Bed-Ins For Peace. Capp had slid even further to the right politically by this point, and his star had fallen all the more (whether this had anything to do with his politics or not you can argue amongst yourselves, preferably away from me), so it was an optimal time for the publicity-hungry curmudgeon to make a prominent public appearance somewhere where the cameras were sure to be rolling.
True to form, Capp is on the attack from the second he shows up. Although he is obviously opposed to John and Yoko politically, he seems to have little interest in discussing that aspect of things with them, but rather just repeatedly tries (and fails) to get a rise out of them with personal insults (most of which are geared towards Yoko), talking about "defecating" on the floor of their home, and by interrupting the two of them (again, especially Yoko) every time they start talking. It serves as possibly the most concise summarization of where Capp was at this point in his life-- wanting positive PR, but choosing to go about it by scolding two of the most popular figures of the time. Wanting to be viewed as an edgy provocateur as he was in his heyday, but being met with a mix of pity and scorn that just seemed to anger him further.
At the end of their encounter, Lennon tried to lighten the mood by singing a riff on The Ballad of John And Yoko, ending with "they're gonna crucify Capp!" He didn't know it then, but he was correct.
Al Capp continued on in this vein. He made more Li'l Abner comics ranting about hippies and the youth of America and everything they held dear, such as Joan Baez and (of course) Charles Schulz. He began a rather bizarre side-hustle where he toured college campuses and berated the students, which was negatively received in general, even by many of those who agreed with him politically, wondering why on earth he was making himself this miserable. Even William F. Buckley opined that it was a bit much: "I think Mr. Capp, as undeniably hilarious as he is, might be a more effective advocate if he varied his technique a bit and eased the doses of ridicule he administers... his is a cause that needs persuasive advocates, and it is unfortunate that he dissipates the moral cogency of his position by overkill which at times borders on vulgarity.”
In 1971, Capp was accused of exposing himself to four female students at the University of Alabama. In 1972, similar charges led to him being arrested. After Capp's death, further allegations surfaced-- he reportedly tried to force himself on Grace Kelly, and in Goldie Hawn's memoir she accused him of indecent exposure and berating her when she turned down his advances, when she was 19 years old. Allegations have continued to come out throughout the years, as recently as 2019, when Jean Kilbourne described Capp repeatedly groping and harassing her when she worked for him in the 1960s.
In 1977, Li'l Abner ceased publication, seemingly in the middle of a storyline. Its readership had dwindled substantially. Strips like Garfield, Cathy and (the very un-latter-day-Capp-like) Doonesbury became the new favorites of readers... and, of course, Peanuts was by then firmly entrenched as the world's most popular syndicated strip, a title it would hold until Schulz's passing and probably continues to hold. The Beatles, to date, are the highest-selling musical act of all time.
Capp died two years later. In her diary just a few years before, his wife Catherine dubbed him "the worst creature I ever could have spent my life with".
A 1970 parody of Li'l Abner from National Lampoon, by Doug Kenney and Bill Dubay.
