Fearless Fosdick

"Fearless Fosdick" was a long-running parody of Chester Gould's police detective character, "Dick Tracy". It appeared intermittently as a comic strip-within-a-strip, in Al Capp's classic satirical comic strip - "Li'l Abner" (1934 to 1977).

Li'l Abner's "ideel"

Fearless Fosdick made his "Li'l Abner" debut in a Sunday sequence in August of 1942, as the unflappable comic book idol of Abner's (and, we are told, of all "red-blooded American boys.") An object of undying hero worship, Li'l Abner mindlessly aped his role model - even once styling his hair similarly by using the product Fosdick endorsed.

Cartoonist Al Capp (1909 - 1979) often used Li'l Abner as a combination narrative framing device and Greek chorus, to introduce and comment on the "Fosdick" stories. Typically, we'd see an anxious Abner running frantically to the mailbox or to the train delivering the morning newspapers, to get a glimpse of the latest cliffhanger episode. The next panel would be Abner's POV of the comic - under an iconic logo, "Fearless Fosdick by Lester Gooch". Subsequent installments would dispense with Abner altogether, and carry a subheading reminding us we were now reading "Li'l Abner's "ideel", Fearless Fosdick".

Sometimes Fosdick's adventures would directly impact what happened to Abner, and the two storylines would converge. (For instance, "Fearless Fosdick" famously figured into one of the seminal events of the strip - Li'l Abner's historic marriage to Daisy Mae in 1952.) Although Fosdick is the hero of all red-blooded American boys - Daisy Mae detests him with venomous passion. All throughout "Li'l Abner", the neglected Daisy Mae finds herself in the ironic position of being jealous of a “"stoopid" comical strip character!”

"During a "Fearless Fosdick" sequence, I lose 20 million women. They stop reading right away", Capp said in a "Playboy" interview in 1965. "Men enjoy Fosdick's bad aim, for example. In order to scare off a guy who's selling balloons without a license, Fosdick will shoot 3 or 4 innocent housewives through the head - all in the line of duty, of course. Men enjoy this sort of humor, but housewives don't seem to see anything funny about it!" In addition to being fearless, Fosdick was "pure, underpaid and purposeful," according to his creator. "Fearless is without doubt the world's most idiotic detective. He shoots people for their own good, is pure beyond imagining, and is fanatically loyal to a police department which exploits, starves and periodically fires him," Capp told "Pageant" magazine in 1952.

Although "Fearless Fosdick" began as a specific burlesque of "Dick Tracy", it eventually grew beyond mere parody and developed its own distinctive, self-contained comic identity. Like all of Capp's creations, "Fosdick" gradually evolved into a broad, multi-leveled satire of contemporary American society. Mixing equal parts slapstick, black humor, irony, and biting social satire, "Fearless Fosdick" provided a running commentary on, among other things: the lowly lives of policemen, the capriciousness of the general public, and the thankless role of society's "heroes". Capp would return to these themes again and again in "Fearless Fosdick".

Chester Gould, creator of "Dick Tracy", reportedly did not find Capp’s parody particularly funny. This isn't surprising, since "Fearless Fosdick" lampooned every aspect of "Dick Tracy", all grossly exaggerated for comic effect, from Fosdick's impossibly square-jawed profile to his propensity for creating mayhem beyond all reason. The style of the "Fosdick" sequences closely mimicked "Tracy", including the urban setting, the outrageously grotesque villains, the galloping mortality rate, the thick square panels, and even the lettering style.

Gould was also probably less than enamored of his own unflattering portrayal in the character of Fosdick's "creator", the diminutive and occasionally mentally deranged cartoonist, Lester Gooch. (Even Gooch's bogus "autograph" in the panels of "Fearless Fosdick" was a parody; a direct take-off of Gould's own famous flamboyant signature.) Gooch toiled for the abusive and corrupt Squeezeblood Syndicate, a dig at Capp's own real-life syndicate, United Features - which owned "Li'l Abner" until Capp successfully wrested back ownership in 1948.

Whatever Capp really thought of "Dick Tracy", he always went out of his way to compliment Gould and his strip in conversation and in print, and unfailingly referred to it as "Chester Gould's magnificent "Dick Tracy". To his great credit, Gould never publicly objected to "Fearless Fosdick", or made any attempt to stop Capp from continuing the feature during the 35 years in which it appeared. Gould and Capp met only once; it was reportedly a friendly meeting, and Gould took the occasion to thank Capp for doing what he called "full-time press agentry for another comic strip." Unlike Gould, Max Allan Collins - who took over the helm of "Dick Tracy" when Gould retired - thoroughly enjoyed "Fearless Fosdick", and even wrote a foreword to a recently-published collection of Fosdick cartoons. (See also: "Li'l Abner", Al Capp)

The "hole" story

Fosdick was perennially underpaid ($22.50 per week), and so tough that on the rare occasions he isn't wearing his black suit, he pins his badge to his bare chest. Perpetually ventilated by flying bullets (an iconic "Fosdick" trademark was the "Swiss cheese look", with smoking bullet holes revealing his truly 2-dimensional cartoon construction), the impervious detective considered the gaping holes "minor scratches", or "mere flesh wounds," however. (Or, as the Chief once said, "Fosdick! I thought you were dead!" Fosdick replied, "Yes, but it didn't prove fatal. Just a mild case.") Virtually indestructible, Fosdick's famous iron-jawed profile adorned B-24 and B-17 bomber aircraft during World War II, joining the other "Li'l Abner"-inspired wartime nose art mascots - Earthquake McGoon, Moonbeam McSwine, Daisy Mae and Wolf Gal.

Fosdick would regularly shoot dozens of innocent bystanders and apprehend the wrong individuals - while the real criminals went free. A darkly comic running gag in the series was the stoic, stone-faced image of a determined Fosdick amidst a still-smoking pile of bullet-riddled pedestrians - the inevitable collateral damage of any Fosdick crime fighting endeavor.

Public servant Fosdick was duty-bound and literal-minded to the point of being a public menace to the citizens he was sworn to protect. Typical Fosdick logic occurs in "The Poisoned Bean Case" (1950), a quintessential "Fearless Fosdick" continuity. In the story, the ever-vigilant detective goes about town shooting anyone he sees eating "Old Faithful" brand beans, in an attempt to prevent them from consuming a toxic can he knows to have been tampered with. Throughout the story, the absurdity continues to mount - along with the astronomical body count - to its outlandish (and characteristically sardonic) denouement.

No one is spared Capp's merciless satire in "The Poisoned Bean Case." From the venality of the justice system to the crookedness of a complicit media (which refuses to air public service warnings in fear of offending its sponsor - Old Faithful beans); from the corruption of big business to the fickleness and stupidity of a complacent populace. The diabolical plot, which concerns urban terrorism and product-tampering, presaged the 1982 Tylenol case by more than 30 years.

"Capp makes Fosdick's police brutality acceptable, even funny, because Fosdick acts out of misguided goodness. He is, like Abner, an innocent," wrote Max Allan Collins in 1990. He's also a victim of the system himself. According to Capp: "Fosdick is underpaid only in terms of money. His superiors and his community are lavish with things worth more than money, such as hollow praise and chances to risk his life." Capp dedicated a book of reprinted Fosdick continuities to "All underpaid cops, because there are no other kind."

A cast of villains

"Fearless Fosdick" soon developed its own regular supporting cast, separate from "Li'l Abner" and the rest of the Dogpatch characters. Joining Fosdick's adventures were his homely, long-suffering fiancee Prudence "(ugh!)" Pimpleton, (formerly known as Bess Backache; both names were a direct parody of Dick Tracy's sweetheart, Tess Trueheart) his cheerfully corrupt superior, the Chief, and his mercenary landlady, Mrs. Flintnose.

The early strips referred to grotesque "Dick Tracy"-inspired public enemies, with absurdly satirical names like Banana Face, Spinach Face, Bomb Face and Hamburger Face. Over the years, other nemeses included:

*The Atom Bum, a vagrant tramp loaded with radioactive plutonium, and thus deadly if he's so much as jarred (1951).
*The murderous Chippendale Chair (1948); Fosdick admonished it, "You're going to get the chair, Chair!" (This character was likely the inspiration for Chairface Chippendale, a perennial foe of parodic superhero "The Tick.")
*Anyface, a master of disguise (1947), albeit with slovenly personal grooming habits.
*"E.D.S.", the robotic "Electronic Detective Substitute" (1961), which racked up even more collateral damage than Fosdick!
*Nelson Shrinkafeller, the mysterious Jivaro Jungle headshrinker (1959).
*Rattop, a particularly heinous villain - with a mouse head (1944).
*"Fearful" Fosdick (aka "The Original"), Fosdick's own dastardly turncoat father (1948).
*And even Fosdick's own mutinous house pet, Sidney the Crooked Parrot (1953).

Beyond the strip-within-a-strip

*"Fearless Fosdick" invaded the 1968 presidential campaign, as Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey accused his Republican opponent Richard Nixon of playing loose with law and order issues. "His [Nixon's] privilege, if he wants to play "Fearless Fosdick", said Humphrey. [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838728-3,00.html Lurching Off To A Shaky Start, Sept. 20, 1968 - TIME ] ]

*"Fearless Fosdick" proved popular enough to be incorporated into a short-lived television program. In 1952, a puppet show based on "Fosdick" premiered on Sunday afternoons on NBC TV. 13 episodes were produced, featuring the Mary Chase marionettes. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389616/ Fearless Fosdick (TV show) at IMDB ] ] (According to publisher Denis Kitchen: "There are currently efforts underway to release these exceedingly rare "Fosdick" episodes on a set of DVDs. Stay tuned...")

*Fosdick was also licensed for use outside the strip in an advertising campaign for Wildroot Cream-Oil, a popular men's hair tonic. Fosdick's image on tin signs and advertising displays became a prominent fixture in barbershops across America in the 1950s - as well as in animated TV commercials and a long-running series of comic strip-format magazine ads. Wildroot print ads usually featured Fosdick's farcical triumphs over his arch-villain nemesis, "Anyface". Anyface was a murderous, shape-shifting scoundrel whose plastic facial features could be molded into any identity. (However, he was "always" given away in the last panels by his telltale dandruff and messy, unkempt hair!)

*The Wildroot jingle, "Wildroot Charlie" - instantly familiar to radio listeners in the 1950's - was performed by everyone from the Bil Baird puppets to Nat King Cole, who once sang it on Woody Herman's radio program. Its lyrics went like this: "Get Wildroot Cream-Oil, Charlie / It keeps your hair in trim / Y'see it's non-alcoholic, Charlie / It's made with soothing lanolin / You'd better get Wildroot Cream-Oil, Charlie / Start using it today / You'll find that you'll have a tough time, Charlie / Keeping all those gals away!"

*"Fearless Fosdick" was almost certainly the inspiration for Harvey Kurtzman's innovative and influential "Mad magazine", which started out as a comic book that specifically parodied other comics in 1952.

*Elements of "Fearless Fosdick" can be gleaned in Bob Clampett's classic Warner Bros. cartoon "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" (1946), as when avid "fan" Daffy Duck makes a panicked dash to the mailbox to retrieve the latest comic book, just like Li'l Abner often did. Later, after Daffy portrays his alter-ego "Duck Twacy" in a manic nightmare sequence (complete with bullet-riddled corpses and "impossible" villains), he "wakes up" in a rural setting - on a pig farm.

*Comedian Chuck McCann portrayed a decidedly Fosdick-like "Dick Tracy" parody character, complete with stage makeup, named "Detective Dick Dump of Bunko Squad" on his irreverent WNEW-TV kids show in the sixties.
*Sharp-eyed viewers of Warren Beatty's big screen adaptation of "Dick Tracy" (1990) will have detected a direct, onscreen homage to "Fearless Fosdick". The "opera" Tracy is seen attending when his 2-way wrist radio suddenly calls him to duty is titled "Die Schlmpf" on the concert program - after Elmer Schlmpf, the maniacal (albeit deceased) product-tampering fiend from "The Poisoned Bean Case"!

*Cartoonist / Illustrator Frank Cho, a "Li'l Abner" fan, occasionally references "Fearless Fosdick" in his comic strip "Liberty Meadows", in the guise of "Fearless Detective Richard Stacey". Fosdick has also turned up in "Zippy the Pinhead" by Bill Griffith. Johnny Hart, creator of "B.C." and "The Wizard of Id", also cited "Fearless Fosdick" as one of his early inspirations.

*According to "The Marx Brothers Scrapbook" (1974, Richard J. Anobile, ed.), comedian Harpo Marx named one of his dogs "Fearless Fosdick", for its extraordinary dauntlessness.

For further reading

Representative samplings of "Fearless Fosdick" have been collected in two comparatively recent reprint anthologies, both published by Kitchen Sink Press. All titles are by Al Capp:
*"Al Capp's Fearless Fosdick: His Life And Deaths" (1956) Simon & Shuster
*"Fearless Fosdick" (1990) Kitchen Sink (A new edition of the above title)
*"Fearless Fosdick: The Hole Story" (1992) Kitchen Sink

Fosdick also appears sporadically, but memorably, in:

*"The Best Of Li'l Abner" (1978) Holt, Rinehart & Winston
*"Li'l Abner Dailies" - 27 volumes (1988 - 1997) Kitchen Sink (Fosdick first appears in Vol. 10)
*"Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years" - 4 volumes (2003 - 2004) Dark Horse Among Fearless Fosdick's initial appearances in "Li'l Abner" are:

*Sept. 7, 1942
*Nov. 29, 1942
*May 30, 1943, featuring Bomb Face.
*June 6, 1943
*June 13, 1943, featuring Stone Face, a comic character who torments Fosdick cartoonist Lester Gooch.
*June 20, 1943
*June 27, 1943
*June 15, 1944
*June 19, 1944, rejecting the romantic advances of the Countess Wolfina.
*June 27, 1944
*June 27, 1946
*July 27, 1946
*April 24, 1947
*May 2, 1947
*May 10, 1947
*June 22, 1950...

Footnotes

External links

* [http://deniskitchen.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=bios.fosdick Fearless Fosdick "biography" by Denis Kitchen]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/fosdick.htm Article on Fearless Fosdick in Don Markstein's Toonopedia]
* [http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/05/biography-al-capp-2-cappital-offense_08.html ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Al Capp part 2 / Fearless Fosdick and the Poisoned Beans]