This item a week or so ago sent several readers of this site to their local discount DVD racks to see what kind of Li'l Abner movie was there. Several reported finding what appeared to be several different Li'l Abner movies on sale for one or two bucks a copy. Jim Bahler, for instance, wrote…
Walmart's Li'l Abner says, "Al Capp's 'Lil (their spelling) Abner" cartoon has been delighting funnies readers since 1934. In this, the first of Lil (again) Abner's filmed adventures, Al Capp's characters come vividly to life, with all of the strip's most notable personalities on board, including Lil (again) Abner (Jeff York, billed as Granville Owen), Daisy Mae (Martha O'Driscoll), Manny and Pappy Yokum, and the rest of the quirky gang. It's Sadie Hawkins day, and a prime opportunity for the women of Dogpatch to snare a husband. With not one, or two — but three ladies in pursuit, it's all Lil (must be a dame) Abner can do to avoid getting ensnared. Lil (yes) Abner stands as a fitting celluloid tribute to the work of Al Capp." The front (color) cover lists Peter Palmer and Leslie Parrish as being the stars of the film…and they're from the 1959 version! It's from Digiview Productions, Standard Full Frame, 114 minutes. B/W, Stereo Sound with Interactive Menus.
Target's L'il Abner (yes, a third spelling variant!) is quite different. For starters, the black and white cover has Buster Keaton's name larger than the movie title, so it's "L'il Abner starring Buster Keaton" according to the front and back. The copy reads: 1940, 73 minutes. Also starring Jeff York, Mona Ray. America's favorite comic strip comes to life! The gang from Dogpatch is all here: Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy Yokum, Earthquake McGoon and Lonesome Polecat. What'll happen when the Sadie Hawkins dance turns things upside down?
Surely it'll be stupefying!" It's from Genius Entertainment, under their "Golden Movie Classics" series.Guess I'll have to put them both in the player and see what I've got…
Okay: they're the same movie — apparently, the 1940 version, although it's difficult to read the copyright, and no actors are listed at the beginning. However, Milton Berle is listed as one of the three writers of the "Li'l Abner" theme song. They're both black and white, of course. I put the Digiview copy in first, but didn't watch much of it. However, it had chapter selections, a "play movie" option, and a "previews" option. The Genius version just played, with no extras, chapters, etc. On the other hand, while I only watched a half minute or so of the Digiview version, I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the reproduction, whereas the Genius edition looks pretty clean. Not great, but it does appear to be pretty clean and "non-jerky" without much drop-out. I do think it's been remastered.
Hope this helps. Beware of the Walmart version if you're familiar with the 1959 actors. It ain't them!
Yeah…I've posted what I think is the cover of the Digiview version. It identifies Peter Palmer and Leslie Parrish as the stars and this is an outright lie. The version they were in — the 1959 color musical — has not been released on DVD. So any DVD you find, especially in the dollar bins, is almost certainly going to be the 1940 black-and-white version starring Granville Owen (aka Jeff York) and Buster Keaton. It's a pretty unwatchable movie, even if it does have Buster and a whole bunch of silent comedians, like Chester Conklin and Hank Mann, who hadn't worked since Mack Sennett closed down. Milton Berle used to claim he was one of the producers of the film but he seems to be credited only for co-writing a song.
There were actually several other times Li'l Abner was put on film. In 1944, the Columbia cartoon studio made five shorts that they apparently thought would be popular the same way the cartoon adaptations of Popeye were successful. They were wrong. There have also been at least three separate live-action Li'l Abner TV pilots, two of which have received some limited distribution on VHS in the collectors' market.
So I guess it's possible, if you buy a DVD that says Li'l Abner on the outside (or even L'il Abner), it contains one of those pilots. But the odds are pretty overwhelming it'll just be another copy of the 1940 version. The cartoons had a brief VHS release but are not presently out on DVD and neither is the 1959 movie. I hear from several sources, however, that the '59 version will be…probably before '05 is half over.