Minor Al Capp character.

Factual Questions
1

In Lil Abner, Al Capp very occasionally had a character who was another rich guy besides General Bullmoose. He was drawn as a charicature of Capp himself. Who was it? He may have actually NAMED him “Capp” but I’m not sure.

He doesn’t appear in the character lists I’ve found like this one:

http://www.lil-abner.com/other.html

The plot line I remember him from:

Bullmoose and this other character realize that they each have 49.5% of the world’s wealth, and decide that it’s un-American that one of them doesn’t have it all, so they enter into a bet that this other rich guy can’t come up with something that Bullmoose can’t sell. He turns up with a “shtoonk”, sort of an anti-“schmoo”, a nasty little animal that’s good for absolutely nothing, drawn as a hyperactive little furball with teeth. Bullmoose sells them all as “status symbols”, convincing everybody that they absolutely have to have one, and bankrupts the Capp character. Then, he walks into a fancy resturaunt, where they won’t let him in because he doesn’t have a shtoonk - he sold them all. He winds up having to give half his fortune back to the Capp character to buy his last remaining shtoonk, and they both are even again.

2

The character was “Bet-a-Million Bashby.” He was featured, along with most of the other Li’l Abner characters, in an article in Life Magazine, circa 1960. Bashby’s credo was “always bet on a sure thing and always bet with a fool.” He decides to make Abner himself his patsy.
According to the article, “Bashby bet a man could safely cross an empty street. Abner bet that he couldn’t. A manhole exploded as a sewer opened. Abner won.”
Obviously, Abner had the same credo as Bashby. :smiley:

3

I liked the Shmoos

4

Thanks. I figured somebody’d know it.

5

Hey, we’re talking Li’l Abner here!

That should have been, “Ah figered somebody knowed it.”