I grew up reading the daily comic strips in the newspaper. I have always had my favorites, and just like I eat my carrots first, potatoes second, and steak last, I read the strips in order of appeal.
Alley Oop has always been in my top five. Even when the local paper relegated the strip to the classifieds for a while, (comics in the classifieds?), I remained loyal and took the extra effort to find the lone strip and read up on what Oop was up to. I have followed that cave man through time for nearly 35 years, and although I love the stories and characters, I must sadly admit it's time for to Oop hang up his Ax, and retire to southern Moo.
The strip’s central character, Alley Oop, travels through time from his home in prehistoric Moo into and sometimes beyond the 21st century by way of a time machine built by his friend Doc Wonmug. Alley Oop has a girlfriend named Ooola, and his friends King Guz and Queen Umpa rule Oops home kingdom of Moo. He has a pet Dinosaur named Dinny, and when in town hangs out with Doc Wonmug and his assistants Oscar and Ava.
Alley Oop has his beginnings in the early depression years; 1933 to be exact, and was created by V.T. Hamlin. Hamlin authored Alley Oop for about forty years, but hired writer Dave Graue to assist him in 1950. Graue continued writing for the strip until 2001. In 1990 Jack Bender became Graue’s assistant artist, and became the full-time daily and Sunday artist in 1991. After Graue retired in 2001, Carole Bender, Jack’s wife, started writing for the strip.
That’s when things started to go bad. The story lines just stared to weaken, and the characters just don’t seem to be themselves anymore. In a recent story line, Dr. Wonmug, (who’s name allegedly is an homage of some sort to Einstein,) couldn’t fix the time machine that he designed and built in the first place. He was so dumbfounded by the problem that he had to place an ad in the newspaper for an IT specialist to fix it for him. Failing that, his cousin from the future, one Dave Wowee complete with a hairdo inspired by the scene the Cameron Diaz flick Something About Mary, also fiddles with the machine unsuccessfully, sending Oop from one lackluster adventure to another all the while frustrating Oop, and the readers as well I am sure.
Alley Oop was once a great strip, but the original author and his competent assistant are both now dead. Bender and Bender should take the high road and let Alley Oop fade into history just as Pogo did, just as the Peanuts will, and just as many other great comic strips have. Very often without the original artists for these strips, there is no life in them, and any attempt by someone else to continue breathing life into them usually results in a soulless mirage of the original.
While writing this I found this site called Alleyoopwatch which describes the deterioration of Alley Oop much better than I did here.