Results: Alley Oop (Oop-Oop-Oop Oop)

Alley Oop, a serial feature chronicling the adventures of a time-traveling caveman, is one of the oldest U.S. newspaper comic strips currently in production, having first been published in 1932. The week this survey is being written marks only the third time the feature has been given a reboot by the assignation of a new creative team since it first appeared by the hand of original artist/writer, V.T. Hamlin.Have you ever read Alley Oop?

The latest Alley Oop iteration is of special interest to me because its arist is Jonathan Lemon, who is also responsible for another of my current favorite newspaper comics, Rabbits Against Magic. have you ever read that strip?

Alley Oop is also one of the few comic strips to have inspired a #1 U.S. pop hit; the soundtrack to the first video here is that song, written by Dallas Frazier (also wrote The Oak Ridge Boys country-pop crossover, "Elvira") and performed by Southernm California studio act The Hollywood Argyles, which included future songwriter, singer and glam/punk impresario Kim Fowley, "Teen Beat" drummer Sandy Nelson and, on vocals, the quite-storied Gary S. Paxton (he's worth looking up!). The third-highest-charting version of the number was recorded by The Dyna-Sores who, regardless a painful pun of a name, turned the number into fun r&b reminiscent of comedic vocal group The Coasters. Which of the two versions included here do you like better?

Did you know that the French saying from which Hamlin derived his strip's titular character's name,"Allez, hop!" is used as a cue among French gymnasts and trapeze arists and now is a term used in basketball to describe, according to Wikpedia "an offensive play in which one player throws the ball near the basket to a teammate who jumps, catches the ball in mid air and puts it in the hoop before touching the ground"?

One last Oop-related wordplay: the scientist/inventor in the comic strip responsible for Alley Oop becoming a time traveler is named Elbert Wonmug. His name is supposed to be a spoof on the moniker of Albert Einstein. Do you get the joke?