MovieChat Forums > Guadalcanal Diary (1943) Discussion > Lil Abner in Dogpatch

Lil Abner in Dogpatch

posted 18 years ago by richard.fuller1
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Just watched this movie a couple of weeks ago on AMC. I plan on ordering it on dvd, but I can't help but notice a blooper.

Toward the beginning, two sailors are moping, bored.

One says "now I'll never find out if Mammy Yokum got the termites out of her turnip garden in Dogpatch."

Unfortunately, Kitchen Sink publication has since reprinted volumes of the Lil Abner comic strip in reprints, an entire book devoted to one year.

And for the year of the movie, or the year before, there is no plot in the strip with Mammy Yokum contending with termites in her garden.

In truth, this is a strange insight into the appeal of Lil Abner, and how worthwhile that appeal was viewed.

To read the narration in the books, Al Capp was changing the way people thought. This clip in this movie offers a bit of insight into how trivial the strip really was.

[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

And for the year of the movie, or the year before, there is no plot in the strip with Mammy Yokum contending with termites in her garden.

Have you considered that the writers may just have wanted to reference the comic itself because of its popularity and deliberately just made up a plotline for the purposes of the film?🐭

[–] richard.fuller1 9 years ago

spookyratt1: "Have you considered that the writers may just have wanted to reference the comic itself because of its popularity and deliberately just made up a plotline for the purposes of the film?"
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That was apparent, but in this day and age or even earlier, you couldn't refer to something within another popular medium seemingly at random like that without someone immediately catching on to its inaccuracy.

Of course we have no way of knowing if a Lil Abner fan back then watched the movie and did the same thing I did; that's not a plot in Lil Abner!