Alley Oop

Alley Oop
On April 9, 1939, Alley Oop was transported from the Stone Age into the 20th century.
Author(s)	V. T. Hamlin (creator) Jack and Carole Bender
Current status / schedule	running
Launch date	December 5, 1932
End date	—
Syndicate(s)	Newspaper Enterprise Association
Publisher(s)	Whitman, Dragon Lady Press, Kitchen Sink Press
Genre(s)	Humor, adventure, science fiction

Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the popular and influential strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced an engaging cast of characters, and his story lines entertained with a combination of adventure, fantasy, and humor.

Alley Oop, the strip's title character, was a sturdy citizen in the prehistoric kingdom of Moo. He rode his pet dinosaur Dinny, carried a stone war hammer, and wore nothing but a fur loincloth. He would rather fight dinosaurs in the jungle than deal with his fellow countrymen in Moo's capital and sole cave-town. Despite these exotic settings, the stories were often satires of American suburban life.

The first stories took place in the Stone Age and centered on Alley Oop's dealings with his fellow cavemen in the kingdom of Moo. Oop and his pals had occasional skirmishes with the rival kingdom of Lem, ruled by King Tunk. The names Moo and Lem are references to the fabled lost continents of Mu and Lemuria.

On April 5, 1939, Hamlin introduced a new plot device which greatly expanded his choice of storylines: A time machine, invented by 20th-century scientist Dr. Elbert Wonmug, who bore a rather suspicious resemblance to the Grand Wizer. The name Wonmug was a bilingual pun on Albert Einstein; "ein" is German for "one", and a "stein" is a form of drinking mug. Oscar Boom is derived from the words Nobel Prize, Oscar = Prize and Boom after Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite).

Oop was transported to the 20th century by an early test of the machine (in the Sunday strip of April 9, 1939). He was hardly upset by the incident and apparently did not find modern society to be any different from his own. He then became Dr. Wonmug's man in the field, embarking on expeditions to various periods and places in history, such as Ancient Egypt, the England of Robin Hood, and the American frontier. Oop met such historical or mythical figures as Cleopatra, King Arthur, and Ulysses in his adventures. In addition to the time machine, other science fiction devices were introduced. Oop once drove an experimental electric-powered race car and, in the 1940s, he traveled to the Moon. During his adventures, he was often accompanied by his girlfriend Ooola, and by the sometimes-villainous, sometimes-heroic G. Oscar Boom (G.O. Boom), Dr. Wonmug's rival and occasional partner. Laboratory assistant Ava joined the cast in recent years.