Li'l Abner: from comic strip to musical

By the time that Li'l Abner opened on Broadway in 1956, Al Capp's popular comic strip had been running for over twenty years. While Capp was barely involved in the creation of the musical, the show was faithful to the strip in many regards, including storylines, dialect, and the use of irony. However the musical's faithfulness to the comic strip has probably been its greatest problem in remaining popular, since much of the show's popularity seemed to hinge on the audience's awareness of the source material. That, and the relative obscurity of the songs, indicates that while Li'l Abner will always have a place as a piece of Americana, it may continue to lose its truly devoted audience.