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I've never been much of a fan of Li'l Abner, because unlike certain other strips like Walt Kelly's Pogo which seems to actually have some respect for its Southern US swamp denizens, Al Capp always seemed to make every joke at the expense of the hillbilly folk. It felt like we were laughing at them when we should have been laughing with them. However, I think today's strip is very cute. Sure, Pa Yokum in his advanced age still believes in Santa Claus who we all know isn't real, but his belief is seen as something that should be preserved rather than ridiculed. Even for those of us who don't believe in a real, living Santa, I think continuing to talk about folkloric characters like him as if they do exist still adds something fun to the holiday season. Plus, if you're lucky, maybe you'll have a dream about meeting him.

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It's always surreal to see media based on puppet characters that portrays them as regular people who walk around and go places on their own. While in the fiction of the puppet world they do have their own lives, there's an audience understanding that these things are being operated by a person. If it's something like The Muppets or Sesame Street where the puppeteers aren't really seen or shown, then it's not as weird, but in the case of Mortimer and Charlie, the lack of Edgar Bergen is noticeable. The ventriloquist is an integral part of the ventriloquist act, and having the dummies walk and talk without him just doesn't feel right.

On top of that, we see that in the fiction of this dummy world the dummies are actually the size of ventriloquist dummies. Had Edgar Bergen actually been in the comic, he would appear normal size, and they would appear the size that they do in his act. This allows for the punchline of today's strip, which shows Mortimer Snerd, who is small enough to fit into a baby's cradle, falling asleep in the baby furniture display. Why he has to get yelled at by a disgruntled wife in order for that to happen, I'm not sure. Having Mortimer wait in line for the phone booth forever, ask Charlie what kind of star he wants, and then go back to the store only to find it closed would work just as well. But I guess that wouldn't be Edgar Bergen-esque enough.

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As we have seen previously, on multiple occasions, Mickey Finn's Uncle Phil is a cheapskate who will take the easy solution to a problem if faced with one. Adding Mickey's Uncle Owney into the mix is a recipe for trouble, and clearly both Mickey and Tom know it. Of course, the reversal at the end lets us know that they're not all bad, and that cheapskates can still have a good heart. It's not clear whose idea this was. Perhaps Uncle Phil would have done this on his own, but saw an opportunity to not have to spring for a fake beard when he saw the one on Uncle Owney's face. Or perhaps Uncle Phil would have spent the $200 in one or multiple of the places that Mickey and Tom looked for them, but Uncle Owney convinced him otherwise. Either way, it's a cute strip.

I think it's also significant that the uncles go and give presents to the orphan children at Christmas. The character Mickey Finn was based on a real Irish-American policeman, Mickey Brennan, that the creator Lank Leonard had seen in Port Chester, New York. Leonard was impressed by his kindness to children, as he acted as a crossing guard at one of the local schools when it let out each day. This trait was transferred to the fictional Mickey as well, and judging by today's strip, it seems he learned it from either one or both of his uncles.

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Harold Teen was quite popular in its day. Popular enough, in fact, that it received two movie adaptations. The first, in 1928, was a silent film that starred Arthur Lake, who would later go on to star as Dagwood Bumstead in the Blondie movies (all 28 of them) and TV show. The second, in 1934, is notable for being one of the last screenplays written by Alfred Cohn, screenwriter of the first "talkie," The Jazz Singer. I haven't seen either of these, but over the past few years I've been attempting to watch every single movie I can find that is based on a newspaper comic, so I'll get to them eventually.

As for today's comic strip, in a previous installment we saw that in the town that Harold Teen lives in every boy seems to have a crush on local girl Lillums Lovewell. Harold is clearly the one we're meant to root for to win her over, he being the title character and all, and thankfully he does so in this case. It seems that either the salesman is very good at his job, or none of the high school guys are very good at coming up with creative gift ideas, or possibly both, leading them all to buy the same gift. I don't think it would be a problem for Lillums to receive multiple compacts, though. You never know when you might lose or misplace one and need another.

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Ferd Johnson, who created Texas Slim, is probably better known for assisting Frank Willard on Moon Mullins and taking over the strip after Willard died. Not long after he started working with Willard, he was also offered his own strip, Texas Slim, and which was published in various forms from 1925 to 1958. It started off as a Sunday only strip, was canceled, got revived as a topper for Johnson's other strip Lovey Dovey, ended when that strip ended, and was again revived as a Sunday only strip, this time titled Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton. However, as we see here, Dalton was not always featured in the title panel. It came to its ultimate end in 1958, when Johnson took over Moon Mullins.

The strip generally revolved around the titular Texas Slim and the ranch that he worked at, which was owned by Dirty Dalton. As his name suggests, he wasn't the most pleasant of characters, and as we see here, those who work at the ranch don't seem to like him or his Christmas presents much. You can't say he isn't thoughtful, though; he gave all of them exactly what they wanted.

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Bud Blake is better known as the cartoonist behind the comic strip Tiger, the kid focused strip that started in 1965. Though Blake died in 2005 and new strips are no longer produced, King Features still reprints the old strips in newspapers and on their website. Before Tiger started, however, Blake drew a single panel comic called Ever Happen To You, which ran from 1954-1965. It was a single panel comic that mostly centered on suburban life, and while much like Tiger there was often a focus on kids and the trouble they were getting into, there were quite a few from the adult perspective as well. In fact, sometimes, as in the case of today's strip, both the adult and the kid perspective are shown at once. Mike Lynch has a few others posted on his blog if you'd like to see more.

I like this strip a lot. I love how an entire story is told in a single image, without any dialogue or caption whatsoever. I love the simultaneous simplicity of the image and complexity of the narrative. It works so well on so many levels. Plus, the artwork is wonderful.

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I don't know a lot about how radiators work, but I'm confused as to why you would have a chimney if you didn't have a fireplace. If there's no fire to create smoke, then there's no need for a chimney for the smoke to go out of. Perhaps I'm wrong about this and a radiator expert will set me straight, but this seems like an odd premise. Still, it shows why Olive Oyl eventually left Harold Hamgravy and stayed with Popeye. Popeye would never do anything this silly. Or perhaps he would, but he would be strong enough to punch his way out of the radiator.

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Carnival, created by George Clark but drawn and written for most of its lifetime by Dick Turner, is a difficult strip to find information on. This is odd, because it had a fairly long run, from 1937 to 1982. It ran on Sundays for the entirety of that period, and daily from 1945 to 1976. It seems the strip just failed to make an impact on people. Given some of the examples of this that I've seen, I'm guessing said impact would be difficult to make with such dull writing. The artwork is wonderful, though, and it's likely why the strip lasted so long.

I may have written about this before, but when I was growing up I always remember that on Christmas morning my parents would make me and my siblings eat breakfast before opening any of the presents. It was the only day of the year that we ate Pop-Tarts, which I believe is because they could be prepared and eaten quickly, therefore allowing us to get to the present opening sooner. The parents in this comic strip clearly have no such rule, but the father's train lure tactic is quite clever. It also seems to be quite effective, though it may backfire as soon as the track loops around.

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Cranberry Boggs, created by Don Dean, was a blatant ripoff of Li'l Abner that did not seem to even attempt to hide its ripoff status. The art work is clearly meant to be Al Capp-esque, the main character was a charming yokel who lived in a backwards town, and everyone speaks in dialect. The main difference, of course, is that Cranberry Boggs takes place in some kind of New England seaside town rather than in the South in the Appalachian hills. Allan Holtz seems to have a very low opinion of the strip, holding up Al Capp's creation as far superior. However, as someone who has never been a fan of Li'l Abner, I must disagree.

Cranberry Boggs may not be great, but the gag in today's strip is solid. The solution to the problem facing Woodchuck is clever, and the silent final panel is just funny on its own. Plus, the dialect is easier to parse than whatever it was that Capp was trying to write. To be fair, this is one of very few Cranberry Boggs strips I have read, but I think if a cartoonist can make a good strip once, he's got a least a few others in him as well.