Dogpatch

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Dogpatch is the fictional setting of most of Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip.

The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who wanted nothing to do with progress, were extremely patriotic, and devastatingly poor. The town was often referred to by its inhabitants and outsiders as being the most miserable and unnecessary place on Earth. The local geography was complex, with nearby heavily wooded hills (inhabited by even poorer and more backward people), as well as an apparently bottomless chasm. Mail was very slow, with the postmaster often feeling too stressed to handle letters.

Capp used to joke that Dogpatch was based on Seabrook, New Hampshire, where he would vacation with his wife. [1] A map shown during the story arc of the Shmoo seems to place Dogpatch somewhere around Tennessee or Arkansas. However, one of the earliest (1934) Li'l Abner strips, re-posted on the web by Comics.com in March 2008, explicitly identifies Dogpatch as being in Kentucky--perhaps the only time the community's location was clearly specified in the strip.

A theme park named Dogpatch USA, based on the comic's setting, was built in 1967 in Marble Falls, Arkansas. The park closed in 1993 due to deep debt.

Army and Marine Corps units in Vietnam during the Vietnam War often called their housing compounds "Dogpatch" due to the primitive conditions.