On Today's Little Oop - 23 August 2020

"Little Oop", the comic strip idea that nobody asked for, began early last year with the premise of young Alley Oop growing up in prehistoric Moo. Stick him in middle school, give him a baby sister (Sally - har!), and two clueless parents in a Moo that more resembled Fred Flinstones' Bedrock  than V.T. Hamlin's Moo and the jokes would just naturally flow. Except they didn't and Joey, never comfortable with Moovian environs and out of ideas, decided to shift Little Oop to the 21st Century and give him a super-smart whiz kid, Penelope, as his sidekick. So now the humor riffs off the kid-who-doesn't-fit-in, the caveman trapped in a world he never made. But what's the point? Today's strip has him somehow scoring the winning goal with the ball ricocheting off his noggin into the goal. But couldn't this gag have happened in any kids' strip? Nothing today says Alley Oop is from the prehistoric past. In fact, for the first time in this seven-month are, he isn't wearing his fuzzy bear shorts. Comic characters' success is defined by their uniqueness and the original Alley Oop was unique, even before time-travel was introduced. Now he is relegated on the weekend to being nothing more than a dozen other kids in a dozen other kids' comic strips. It's all been done a thousand times before and, honestly, a thousand times better.