Lower Slobbovia (also sometimes Outer, Inner, Central, Upper or Lowest Slobbovia) is a

fictional country A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof. Sailors have always mistaken low clouds for land masses, and in later times this was given ...

portrayed as underdeveloped, socially backward, remote, impoverished or unenlightened. First coined by

Al Capp Alfred Gerald Caplin (September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip ''Li'l Abner'', which he created in 1934 and continued writing and (wi ...

in 1946, the term has also been used by Americans to refer in an informal way to any foreign country of no particular distinction.

Origin

The term was created by

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

Al Capp to refer to a setting in his classic

hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

, ''

Li'l Abner ''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and drawn ...

'' (1934–1977). Making its first appearance on April 4, 1946, frigid, faraway Lower Slobbovia was fashioned as a pointedly political satire of backward nations and foreign diplomacy. The term, having entered the language, remains a contemporary reference. In ''Li'l Abner'', the hapless residents of Lower Slobbovia were perpetually waist-deep in snow, and icicles hung from every frostbitten nose. The favorite dish of the starving natives was raw polar bear (and vice versa). Lower Slobbovians spoke with

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

accents; the miserable frozen wasteland of Capp's invention abounded in incongruous

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

humor. General Bullmoose or Senator Jack S. Phogbound—Capp's caricatures of ruthless business interests and corrupt political interests, respectively—were often pitted against the pathetic Lower Slobbovians in a classic mismatch of ''haves'' versus ''have-nots''. Capp conceived Slobbovia as a large iceberg. As real icebergs at intervals have their larger subsea components erode away, causing genuine icebergs to invert, so Slobbovia periodically overturned, making Upper Slobbovia into Lower Slobbovia & vice versa. Upper Slobbovia was the only habitat of the Schmeagles, birds who flew so fast they could not be seen. Conceptually based on

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

, or perhaps specifically on

Birobidzhan Birobidzhan ( rus, Биробиджа́н, p=bʲɪrəbʲɪˈdʐan; yi, ביראָבידזשאַן, ''Birobidzhan'') is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near th ...

, Capp's icy hellhole was ruled by King Stubbornovsky the Last (a.k.a. Good King Nogoodnik). The Slobbovian politicians were even more corrupt than their

Dogpatch Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977). ''Li'l Abner'' comic strip The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...

counterparts. Their monetary unit was the "Rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing, and a large quantity was worth even less, due to the trouble of lugging them around. Conditions couldn't be worse, as tourists were readily assured by the miserable, highly vocal residents. Besides biting political satire, Capp employed black humor, irony, social commentary, parody and slapstick in his Slobbovia stories; the series featured many memorable moments over the years.

Lena the Hyena Basil Wolverton (July 9, 1909 – December 31, 1978)
at the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

journalist

Quentin Reynolds Quentin James Reynolds (April 11, 1902 – March 17, 1965) was an American journalist and World War II war correspondent. He also played American football for one season in the National Football League (NFL) with the Brooklyn Lions. Early life a ...

). The local children were read harrowing tales from ''Ice-sop's Fables'', which were parodies of classic literary fables (with titles like "Goldilocks and the Three Bares" and "Liddle Blue Ridink Hood"), but with a darkly sardonic twist. Liddle Noodnik, a local waif, was frequently employed to recite a farcical poem of greeting to visiting dignitaries, or sing the absurd Slobbovian national anthem

Footnotes

{{Li'l Abner Fictional countries Li'l Abner Fictional locations in comics Fictional elements introduced in 1946 Fictional kingdoms Fictional floating islands

Origin

See also

Footnotes