The "ideel" of Li'l Abner, Detective FEARLESS FOSDICK was Al Capp's long-running parody of Chester Gould's famous detective strip "Dick Tracy." Debuting in 1942, Fearless Fosdick became so useful to Capp and so popular in his own right, that the unique strip-within-a- strip became a regular feature in "Li'l Abner" for thirty-five years. Dick Tracy fought horrible villains and, while sometimes wounded, always emerged the classic comic strip hero. In contrast, Fosdick was a farcical and guileless hack and was never simply wounded. Perpetually riddled by flying bullets, An enduring Fosdick trademark was the "Swiss cheese"look, with bullet holes revealing his truly two-dimensional comic strip body. Though extremely gullible and incompetent, Fosdick was unfailingly loyal to his department, even though absurdly underpaid ($22.50 per week). He remained reverent of authority even though his chief was a transparently corrupt scoundrel. He never married his own longtime fiancé Prudence Pimpleton, but Fosdick was directly responsible for the unwitting marriage of his biggest fan, Li'l Abner to Daisy Mae in an historic 1952 dailies episode.

In 1952 the bumbling detective became the star of his own Fearless Fosdick TV show. Fearless Fosdick was an ambitious puppet show created and directed by Mary Chase. Al Capp dismissed his brother Jerry Caplin as Fearless Fosdick's original producer, replacing him with Louis G. Cowan (later responsible for Captain Kangaroo, The $64,000 Question and, from 1958-59 President of CBS-TV). Thirteen Fosdick episodes aired from June 1 to September 2, 1952. It began as a Sunday afternoon show and moved to Sunday evenings. The show made the cover of TV Guide, but as the time switches suggest, the network couldn't make up its mind whether the audience was juvenile or adult. Some of the episodes, surprisingly for 1951-52, were filmed in color and many employed innovation marionette techniques. For example, the eyes of guest star Evil-Eye Fleegle were back lit with flashing light bulbs when he emitted a terrible "whammy." There are currently efforts underway to release these exceedingly rare Fosdick episodes on a set of DVDs. Stay tuned.

Beside regular appearances in the ongoing "Li'l Abner" strip and his own TV show, Fearless Fosdick achieved considerable exposure as the long-running "spokesman" for a popular men's hair product, Wildroot Cream Oil. Fosdick was typically pitted against the villain Anyface. Fosdick would advise the bad hair culprit, "Get Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie!" The villain would typically reply, "But my name is Harold [or some such]." The ubiquitous comic strip format ads ran in national magazines for many years and Fosdick's image on tin signs and posters was likewise prominent in barbershops across America.