21 Comments

  1. Unknown's avatar

    That’s a stretch, IMO. Two ‘imaginary’ things plus one ‘real’ person? Makes no sense to me. But then, there’s a dinosaur appearing with two people, which is also unrealistic, so I guess anything goes in this comic.

  2. Unknown's avatar

    I figured this represents three things Kid Oop said doesn’t exist” ghosts, unicorns, and time travel.

    But hey, it’s not MY job to come up with explanations!

  3. Unknown's avatar

    I think the three things are “Unicorns”, “Ghosts”, and “Bad Decisions”, such as in “Let’s go to Ford’s Theater!”

  5. Unknown's avatar

    @ Andréa – It might make more sense, but I think Bill’s “time travel representative” idea is what the cartoonist had in mind. This strip doesn’t exactly reek of sophistication.

  6. Unknown's avatar

    Also if he went they went with the REAL time travel trope, they’d have to explain to people like Andréa why Hitler is walking around in their strip with a ghost and a unicorn…

  8. Unknown's avatar

    I think ol’ Honest Abe is there to prove that time travel is possible, right along with the ghosts and unicorns Oop is dismissing.

  9. Unknown's avatar

    @ Powers – And at the size in which the character has been drawn, Lincoln is probably the only president who would be immediately recognized.

  10. Unknown's avatar

    Now that I think on it, it’ll always be too soon for jokes about Lincoln, too. For me, anyway, and I wasn’t even an American ’til 1964, altho I lived here since 1954.

  11. Unknown's avatar

    I saw the last panel before I read the the complete text and I first saw it as: they are dreaming– as according to television commercials and stand-up comedy bits, Abraham Lincoln and having a pet monkey are common things to dream about (I’ve never even come close to dreaming them).

    Reading the text, I’m going with representing Time Travel. But what really is the joke. It’s weird a strip about time travel would have this discussion and I thought the main point was the absurd (and obviously false) that Oop never makes bad decisions. And as the strip is about Oop having many adventures in time travel as an adult is the joke this is before he had any. Actually, what the heck is the *point* of Li’l Oop? Did anyone ever wonder what was Alley Oop like as a kid, ever?

  12. Unknown's avatar

    Re: Andréa

    If you’ve been here since 1954 then a joke about Lincoln’s assassination may be too soon for you. In 1956, two years after you arrived, there was an episode of “I’ve Got a Secret” in which the guest with a secret was a witness to Lincoln’s assassination.

    From the YouTube link:
    “Mr. Samuel J. Seymour, the last living eyewitness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. was the mystery guest on the February 8, 1956 episode of the I’ve Got a Secret game show. Mr. Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was actually 95 years of age at the time of this appearance instead of 96.”

  13. Unknown's avatar

    What a strange thing/person to put on a TV show. But then, anything goes , . . or, in this case . . . anything went, for publicity/viewers.

    I s’pose if this show were still around after 1963. Mr. Zapruder or former First Lady Kennedy, or the children, would’ve been ‘contestants’.

    (Side note: Doonesbury is running the Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy arc again, starting last week)

  14. Unknown's avatar

    Re: Andrea

    In a way *EVERYTHING* could be considered “too soon”:

    * As of November 11, 2019, the US government was still paying a Civil War veteran’s pension to the child (Irene Triplett) of a Civil War veteran:
    https://historydaily.org/irene-triplett-last-surviving-civil-war-pension-recipient

    * The last Civil War widow died in 2004:
    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5106000/ns/us_news/t/last-widow-civil-war-veteran-dies/

    * And President John Tyler (the 10th president of the US, who was born in 1790 and served from 1841 to 1845) had 2 living grandchildren as of November 2019:
    https://study.com/academy/answer/are-john-tyler-s-grandchildren-still-alive.html

  15. Unknown's avatar

    Help me, Spock!
    …And in related news: yesterday’s “palindrome” date reminded me of this old one: “Alley Oop poo yella.”

  16. Unknown's avatar

    I thought the Lincoln assassination witness was an interesting link to an historical event.

    I wouldn’t call it a publicity stunt, though, because it wasn’t announced ahead of time.

  17. Unknown's avatar

    Dear CIDU:

    First…. I need to tell you I just discovered your website/blog…. and find it wonderful!!!!! Thank you.

    In regards to the Alley Oop comic you cite above….. if you need more blog fodder….. be sure to check back with Alley Oop just about ANY weekeday. The Sunday Comic seems to be the “best” of a bad lot in terms of story, and meaning and humor. If you have not yet seen the weekday renderings…. take a gander…. you will be appalled…. well…. maybe not though if you need more examples to write about here.

    Again, thank you! I will read often!!!

    PipeTobacco

  19. Unknown's avatar

    Main-character-as-a-kid comics and cartoons are hardly rare. “Superboy” comics, always about 20 years behind the current date, have been around for decades. There was an animated TV show that aired during the George W. Bush era, called “Little Bush” or something, where George W. Bush and his cronies were all little kids. Then there were the “Li’l Archie” comics in the 1950’s.

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