everyday life situations began to seem very square, indeed. Al 
Capp suddenly found that his kind of distortion no longer 
worked. He felt that Americans had lost their power to laugh at 
themselves. He was wrong. TV simply involved everybody in 
everybody more deeply than before. This cool medium, with its 
mandate of participation in depth, required Capp to refocus the 
Li’l Abner image. His confusion and dismay were a perfect 
match for the feelings of those in every major American 
enterprise. From Life  to General Motors, and from the 
classroom to the Executive Suite, a refocusing of aims and 
images to permit ever more audience involvement and 
participation has been inevitable. Capp said: “But now America 
has changed. The humorist feels the change more, perhaps, 
than anyone. Now there are things about America we can’t 
kid.”