1,193,226 2. It was a commentary on human nature itself. A Mach-3 aircraft that could fly continuously for hours on end and literally outrun missiles. In his seminal book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan considered Li'l Abner's Dogpatch "a paradigm of the human situation". Slipping past Iraqi radar on the morning of January 17, 1991, Lockheeds Nighthawk bombed thirty-seven critical targets across Baghdad, a surgical strike that led, in just forty-three days, to the successful conclusion of Operation Desert Storm. Schertz, Texas 78154. The name was taken from the moonshine factory in the satirical American comic strip, Li'l Abner. Similarities between Li'l Abner and the early Mad include the incongruous use of mock-Yiddish slang terms, the nose-thumbing disdain for pop culture icons, the rampant black humor, the dearth of sentiment and the broad visual styling. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it pop. He hosted at least five television programs between 1952 and 1972 three different talk shows called The Al Capp Show (twice), Al Capp, Al Capp's America (a live "chalk talk", with Capp providing a barbed commentary while sketching cartoons), and a game show called Anyone Can Win. City of Schertz. [1][2][3] The Sunday page debuted six months after the daily, on February 24, 1935. "[43] Capp has been compared, at various times, to Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, and Rabelais. [37] Washable Jones later appeared in the strip in a Shmoo-related storyline in 1949, and he appeared with the Shmoos in two one-shot comics Al Capp's Shmoo in Washable Jones' Travels (1950, a premium for Oxydol laundry detergent) and Washable Jones and the Shmoo #1 (1953, published by the Capp-owned publisher Toby Press). I have seen this epithet before, usually in the phrase skunk works, meaning a semi-official project team that is tacitly licensed to bend the rules and think outside the box. Mammy solved the problem with a tooth extraction and ended the episode with her most famous dictum. Skunk Works is an official alias for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs ( ADP ), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. With adult readers far outnumbering juveniles, Li'l Abner forever cleared away the concept that humor strips were solely the domain of adolescents and children. The first overflight took place on July 4 1956. Harvey. There were even Dogpatch-themed family restaurants called "Li'l Abner's" in Louisville, Kentucky, Morton Grove, Illinois, and Seattle, Washington. In October 1947, Li'l Abner met Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, head of the abusive and corrupt Squeezeblood Syndicate, a thinly veiled dig at UFS. [27] The impervious Fosdick considered the gaping, smoking holes "mere scratches", however, and always reported back in one piece to his corrupt superior "The Chief" for duty the next day. The next comic frame says: HIDE FRIED, "Neither the strip's shifting political leanings nor the slide of its final few years had any bearing on its status as a classic; and in 1995, it was recognized as such by the, "ABNER" was the name given to the first codebreaking computer used by the, The original Dogpatch is a historical part of San Francisco dating back to the 1860s that escaped the, Li'l Abner, Daisy Mae, Wolf Gal, Earthquake McGoon, Lonesome Polecat, Hairless Joe, Sadie Hawkins, Silent Yokum and Fearless Fosdick all found their way onto the, Al Capp always claimed to have effectively created the, Li'l Abner has one odd design quirk that has puzzled readers for decades: the part in his hair always faces the viewer, no matter which direction Abner is facing. Although ostensibly set in the Kentucky mountains, situations often took the characters to different destinations including New York City, Washington, D.C., Hollywood, the South American Amazon, tropical islands, the Moon, Mars, etc. The name "Skunk Works" and the skunk design are now registered trademarks of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Forget about it slam dunk! Fosdick's own wedding to longtime fiance Prudence Pimpleton turned out to be a dream but Abner and Daisy's ceremony, performed by Marryin' Sam, was permanent. Sworn to secrecy, they went by the code name Skunk Works (named in jest after Lil'Abner's "Skonk Works" forest, where musty and rank concoctions were brewed). Mind Works is dedicated to excellence in psychology and counseling. It became a woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained prominence. [49], Sadie Hawkins Day and Sadie Hawkins dance are two of several terms attributed to Al Capp that have entered the English language. Trusted to solve critical national needs for our warfighters, the Skunk Works never shies away from seemingly unsolvable challenges and has a reputation for solving hard problems quickly, quietly and affordably. Kelly Johnson set them apart from the rest of the factory in a walled-off section of one building, off limits to all but those involved directly. German jets had appeared over Europe. ), yet Capp would not budge. Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Outside the comic strip, the practical basis of a Sadie Hawkins dance is simply one of gender role-reversal. Two days later the go-ahead was given to Lockheed to start development and the Skunk Works was born, with Kelly Johnson at the helm. Known locations include United States Air Force Plant 42 and United States Air Force Plant 4. [66] The storylines and villains were mostly separate from the comic strip and unique to the show. "There is, however, a fighting chance to escape for hundreds of innocent bystanders who happen to be in the neighborhood but only a fighting chance. And then they would deliver. A 1950 cover story in Time even included photos of two of his employees, whose roles in the production were detailed by Capp. Most of the old Skunk Works buildings in Burbank were demolished in the late 1990s to make room for parking lots. The F-104 Starfighter, the first Mach 2 aircraft, was developed to compete against Soviet MiGs in the early 1950s. Capp provided specialty artwork for civic groups, government agencies and charitable or non-profit organizations, spanning several decades. Al Capp was reportedly not pleased with the results, and the series was discontinued after five shorts. Capp was also caricatured as an ill-mannered, boozy cartoonist (Capp was a teetotaler in real life) named "Hal Rapp" in the comic strip Mary Worth by Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst. Maverick Mach 10 - As Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell reaches Mach 10 in the Darkstara piloted jet powered by the Lockheed Martin Skunk Workscheck out the Lockheed Martin Skunk logo on the tail of the plane in the movie .. [18] The company also holds several registrations of it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Written and drawn by Al Capp (19091979), the strip ran for 43 years from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977. Today, the Skunk Works appears to be working on another unconventional project to build a (likely unmanned) hypersonic spy/bomber jet unofficially dubbed the SR-72. Comics historian Don Markstein commented that Capp's "use of language was both unique and universally appealing; and his clean, bold cartooning style provided a perfect vehicle for his creations."[35]. Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared across multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Since the system entered service with the U.S. Air Force in late 2014, Auto GCAS has been credited with seven saves eight pilots and seven F-16s. From beginning to end, Capp was acid-tongued toward the targets of his wit, intolerant of hypocrisy, and always wickedly funny. Pappy was so lazy and ineffectual, he didn't even bathe himself. Lockheed Martin claimed the company registered the domain in order to disrupt its business and that consumer confusion might result. However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters he received, Capp made it a tradition in the strip every November, lasting four decades. For the game featuring the. [1][2] In 1964, Johnson told Look magazine that the bourbon distillery was the first of five Lockheed skunk works locations. Capp was a genius. Culver later said at an interview conducted in 1993 that "when Kelly Johnson heard about the incident, he promptly fired me. His appearances on NBC's The Tonight Show spanned three emcees; Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. The story concerns Daisy Mae's efforts to catch Li'l Abner on Sadie Hawkins Day. The Skunk Worksis the proud home of eight Collier Trophies, awarded annually by the National Aeronautic Association for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America during the preceding year. First in the 1979 The New Shmoo (later incorporated into Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo), and again from 1980 to 1981 in the Flintstone Comedy Show, in the Bedrock Cops segments. In many localities, the tradition continues. Kellys 14 Rules and Practices" are still in use today as evidenced by our small, empowered teams, streamlined processes and culture that values attempting to do things that havent been done before. Designed to help the U.S. and allies leverage emerging technologies to create a resilient multi-domain network. Capp suggests November 26, and Daisy rewarded him with a kiss. Li'l Abner provided a whole new template for contemporary satire and personal expression in comics, paving the way for Pogo, Feiffer, Doonesbury and MAD. Other fictional locales included Skonk Hollow, El Passionato, Kigmyland, the Republic of Crumbumbo, Lo Kunning, Faminostan, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, Pineapple Junction and, most notably, the Valley of the Shmoon. 1 (19341936). Skunk Works history started with the P-38 Lightning in 1939[1][2] and the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. Since this movie predates their comic strip marriage, Abner makes a last-minute escape (natcherly!). Taking action to help you protect what matters most. Li'l Abner Yokum was a hillbilly who lived in Dogpatch somewhere in the mountains. [1] In November 1941, Kelsey gave the unofficial nod to Johnson and the P-38 team to engineer a drop tank system to extend range for the fighter, and they completed the initial research and development without a contract. Ruled by Good King Nogoodnik (sometimes known as King Stubbornovsky the Last), the Slobbovian politicians were even more corrupt than their Dogpatch counterparts. It made its debut in Li'l Abner on November 15, 1937. He constantly interspersed boldface type, and included prompt words in parentheses (chuckle!, sob!, gasp!, shudder!, smack!, drool!, cackle!, snort!, gulp!, blush!, ugh!, etc.) Li'l Abner featured a whole menagerie of allegorical animals over the years each one was designed to satirically showcase another disturbing aspect of human nature. Charlie Chaplin, William F. Buckley, Al Hirschfeld, Harpo Marx, Russ Meyer, John Kenneth Galbraith, Ralph Bakshi, Shel Silverstein, Hugh Downs, Gene Shalit, Frank Cho, Daniel Clowes[45] and (reportedly) even Queen Elizabeth have confessed to being fans of Li'l Abner. All Rights Reserved. One day, Culvers phone rang and he answered it by saying Skonk Works, inside man Culver speaking. The joke was not lost on his coworkers and soon the employees adopted the name for their mysterious part of Lockheed. Mobsters and criminal-types invariably spoke slangy Brooklynese, and residents of Lower Slobbovia spoke pidgin-Russian, with a smattering of Yinglish. The phrase "skunk works" originated from the aeronautics industry, and in that context it had a specific meaning (and still does). Almost every line was followed by two exclamation marks for added emphasis. [10], Next generation optionally-manned U-2 aircraft. 1400 Schertz Parkway. The musical has since become a perennial favorite of high school and amateur productions, due to its popular appeal and modest production requirements. Aerospace research facility in the United States, "Skunk works" redirects here. A rapidly growing German jet threat gave Lockheed an opportunity to develop an airframe around the most powerful jet engine that the allied forces had access to, the British Goblin. Named for a run-down factory in the Li'l Abner comics, Skunk Works has been the home of some of the most advanced plane research in history, including the U-2, F-22 Raptor and SR-71 Blackbird . Initially owned and syndicated through United Feature Syndicate, a division of the E.W. It was Kellys unconventional organizational approach that allowed the Skunk Works to streamline work and operate with unparalleled efficiency. Fosdick's duty, as he sees it, is not so much to maintain safety as to destroy crime, and it's too much to ask any law-enforcement officer to do both, I suppose." Sign up here. To comment on the smell and the secrecy the project entailed, another engineer, Irv Culver, referred to the facility as "Skonk Works". In 1949, when the all-male club refused membership to Hilda Terry, creator of the comic strip Teena, Capp temporarily resigned in protest. Since his death in 1979, Al Capp and his work have been the subject of more than 40 books, including three biographies. The one and only Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has a 75-year track record developing aircraft systems that push the boundaries of whats possible. Li'l Abner Gets a Job Part 2, script and art by Al Capp; Abner takes a job at the skunk works. But where did the term come from? Engineers from Skunk Works subsequently developed the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 . "Nearly all comic strips, even today, are owned and controlled by syndicates, not the strips' creators. In 1955, the Skunk Works received a contract from the CIA to build a spyplane known as the U-2 with the intention of flying over the Soviet Union and photographing sites of strategic interest. A team engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capps comic strip, Lil Abner, in which there was a running joke about a mysterious place deep in the forest called the Skonk Works. There, a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients. Fosdick lived in squalor at the dilapidated boarding house run by his mercenary landlady, Mrs. Flintnose. In the midst of the Great Depression, the hardscrabble residents of lowly Dogpatch allowed suffering Americans to laugh at yokels even worse off than themselves. On paper, the specifications read like works of pure fantasy: a spy plane capable of taking crystal-clear photographs from 70,000 feet. This would prove to be a common practice within the Skunk Works. Several years later, the U.S. Air Force became interested in the design, and it ordered the SR-71 Blackbird, a two-seater version of the A-12. They included: Al Capp, a native northeasterner, wrote all the final dialogue in Li'l Abner using his approximation of a mock-southern dialect (including phonetic sounds, eye dialect (nonstandard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation), nonstop "creative" spelling and deliberate malapropisms). After 1989, Lockheed reorganized its operations and relocated the Skunk Works to Site 10 at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where it remains in operation today. Beginning in 1944, Li'l Abner was adapted into a series of color theatrical cartoons by Screen Gems for Columbia Pictures, directed by Sid Marcus, Bob Wickersham and Howard Swift. The production of Li'l Abner has been well documented, however. Tellingly, Kurtzman resisted doing feature parodies of either Li'l Abner or Dick Tracy in the comic book Mad, despite their prominence. He had an unfortunate predilection for snitching "preserved turnips" and smoking corn silk behind the woodshed much to his chagrin when Mammy caught him. [13] The first YP-38 was built there before the team moved back to Lockheed's main factory a year later. Capp himself appeared in numerous print ads. We offers a wide array of diagnostic, psychotherapy, and consultation services for children, adolescents, adults and families. Wed!! It was reprinted by the University Press of Mississippi in 1994. Lockheed Martin was awarded this prestigious medal in 2007 for an exceptional record of developing cutting-edge aircraft, technologies, and systems solutions for the U.S. Government. Li'l Abner was a comic strip with fire in its belly and a brain in its head. Each member of Johnsons team was cautioned that design and production of the new XP-80 fighter jet must be carried out in strict secrecy. According to the strip, scores of locals were done in yearly by the toxic fumes of the concentrated "skonk oil", which was brewed and barreled daily by "Big Barnsmell" (known as the lonely "inside man" at the Skonk Works), by grinding dead skunks and worn shoes into a smoldering still, for some mysterious, unspecified purpose. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp's satirical, hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was immensely popular in the 1940s and '50s. [30] The favorite dish of the starving natives was raw polar bear (and vice versa). FactSnippet No. He was also a periodic panelist on ABC and NBC's Who Said That? But Lockheeds chief engineer, Clarence Kelly Johnson, simply fielded all requests and relayed to his handpicked band of Skunk Works employees what needed to be done. Origin of the name "Skunk Works" The name originated from cartoonist Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip, which featured an outdoor still called the "Skonk Works" in which "Kickapoo Joy Juice" was manufactured from old shoes and dead skunks. People magazine ran a substantial feature, and even the comics-free New York Times devoted nearly a full page to the event," according to publisher Denis Kitchen. Her most familiar phrase, however, is "Good is better than evil becuz it's nicer!" Ironing Pappy's trousers fell under her wifely duties as well, although she didn't bother with preliminaries like waiting for Pappy to remove them first. The Creator of Li'l Abner Tells Why His Hero Is (SOB!) She is 100% "Hammus Alabammus" an adorable species of pig, and the last female known in existence. The designation "skunk works" or "skunkworks" is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects. At the San Diego Comic Con in July 2009, IDW and The Library of American Comics announced the upcoming publication of Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays: Vol. After this, Capp simply expanded Li'l Abner by another row, and filled the rest of the space with a page-wide title panel and a small panel called Advice fo' Chillun. But high altitude was not enough. A customer would go to the Skunk Works with a request, and on a handshake the project would begin no contracts in place, no official submittal process. Culver answered the phone in his trademark fashion of the time, by picking up the phone and stating "Skonk Works, inside man Culver". One day, when the Department of the Navy was trying to reach the Lockheed management for the P-80 project, the call was accidentally transferred to Culvers desk. By 1960, Soviet radar and surface-to-air missile technology had caught up with the U-2. [citation needed]. In 1988 and 1989 many newspapers ran reruns of Li'l Abner episodes, mostly from the 1940s run, distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association and Capp Enterprises. Sensitive to his own experience working on Joe Palooka, Capp frequently drew attention to his assistants in interviews and publicity pieces. The demise of KSP in 1999 stopped the reprint series at Volume 27 (1961). In 1964, Capp left United Features and took Li'l Abner to the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.[52]. We develop laser weapon systems, radio frequency and other directed energy technologies for air, ground and sea platforms to provide an affordable countermeasure alternative. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. The U-2 ceased overflights when Francis Gary Powers was shot down during a mission on May 1, 1960, while over Russia. Kelly Johnson's elite engineering group was originally housed in a rented circus tent adjacent to a smelly plastics factory. These scaled-down demonstrators, built in only 18 months, were a revolutionary step forward in aviation technology because of their extremely small radar cross-section. Lower Slobbovia and Dogpatch are both comic examples of modern dystopian satire. After his lower wisdom teeth grew so long that they squeezed his cerebral Goodness Gland and emerged as forehead horns, he proved himself capable of evil. [10] Pappy is dull-witted and gullible (in one storyline after he is conned by Marryin' Sam into buying Vanishing cream because he thinks it makes him invisible when he picks a fight with his nemesis Earthquake McGoon), but not completely without guile. Conceptually based on Siberia, or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan, Capp's icy hellhole made its first appearance in Li'l Abner in April 1946. (Response: ", "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for, "Th' ideel o' ev'ry one hunnerd percent, red-blooded American boy! Even the trademark comic "signs" that clutter the backgrounds of Will Elder's panels had a precedent in Li'l Abner, in the residence of Dogpatch entrepreneur Available Jones, though they're also reminiscent of Bill Holman's Smokey Stover. His philosophy is spelled out in his 14 Rules and Practices. [57] "When he retired Li'l Abner, newspapers ran expansive articles and television commentators talked about the passing of an era. Dogpatch characters pitched consumer products as varied as Grape-Nuts cereal, Kraft caramels, Ivory soap, Oxydol, Duz and Dreft detergents, Fruit of the Loom, Orange Crush, Nestl's cocoa, Cheney neckties, Pedigree pencils, Strunk chainsaws, U.S. Royal tires, Head & Shoulders shampoo and General Electric light bulbs. There was not much industry in Dogpatch. Although it lacks the political satire and Broadway polish of the 1959 version, this film gives a fairly accurate portrayal of the various Dogpatch characters up until that time. (In his book The American Language, H.L. The name "Skunk Works" was taken from the moonshine factory in the comic strip "Li'l Abner." Where it was originally spelled "Skonkworks" and their swill was made from old boots and dead skunks. Email the City of Schertz. Their monetary unit was the "rasbucknik", of which one was worth nothing and a large quantity was worth a lot less, due to the trouble of carrying them around. Mind Works offers you the expertise . [9], In 2009, the Skunk Works was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. (A familiar radio personality, Capp was frequently heard on the NBC broadcast series, Monitor. (Although it is also the approximate Northern European pronunciation of the name "Joachim".) The name was adapted by the Lockheed Corporation, the predecessor of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, more than 50 years ago. Through Li'l Abner, the American comic strip achieved unprecedented relevance in the postwar years, attracting new readers who were more intellectual, more informed on current events, and less likely to read the comics (according to Coulton Waugh, author of The Comics, 1947). Li'l Abner: Al Capp, Skunk Works, Dogpatch USA, Shmoo, Fearless Fosdick, Frank Frazetta, Basil Wolverton, Bob Lubbers, Lower Slobb In late 1959, Skunk Works received a contract to build five A-12 aircraft at a cost of $96 million. We have invested in developing and demonstrating hypersonic technology for over 30 years. Contest (1951), the Roger the Lodger Contest (1964) and many others. The smell at the site is credited with being the basis for the Skunk Works name. The Schertz Public Library has received the 2022 Achievement of Library Excellence Award from the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association (TMLDA). I've never heard anyone mention this, but Capp is 100% responsible for inspiring Harvey Kurtzman to create Mad Magazine. Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into Li'l Abner," wrote comics historian Rick Marschall in America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1989). A superhuman dynamo, Mammy did all the household chores and provided her charges with no fewer than eight meals a day of "po'k chops" and "tarnips" (as well as local Dogpatch delicacies like "candied catfish eyeballs" and "trashbean soup"). "It's Jack Jawbreaker!" Four operational missions were conducted over China, but the camera packages were never successfully recovered. There are conflicting observations about the birth of Skunk Works. ", "Wal, fry mah hide!" Fans of the strip ranged from novelist John Steinbeck, who called Capp "very possibly the best writer in the world today" in 1953, and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature to media critic and theorist Marshall McLuhan, who considered Capp "the only robust satirical force in American life." Following the 1989 revival of the Pogo comic strip, a revival of Li'l Abner was also planned in 1990. Li'l Abner Yokum: Abner's character was 6feet 3inches (1.91m) tall and perpetually 19 years old. [14], During the development of the P-80 Shooting Star, Johnson's engineering team was located adjacent to a malodorous plastics factory. Early in the continuity Capp a few times referred to Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterward to keep its location generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended Kentucky newspapers. Engineers from Skunk Works subsequently developed the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 . The radio show was not written by Al Capp but by Charles Gussman. Supposedly done in retaliation for Capp's "Mary Worm" parody in Li'l Abner (1956), a media-fed "feud" commenced briefly between the rival strips. Written and drawn by Al Capp (1909-1979), the strip ran for 43 years - from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977. No one was to discuss the project outside the small organization, and team members were warned to be careful of how they answered the phones. Tiny Yokum: "Tiny" was a misnomer; Li'l Abner's kid brother remained perpetually innocent and 1512 "y'ars" old despite the fact that he was an imposing, 7-foot (2.1m) tall behemoth. There was, however, one fellow (whose name I forget) who ran the "skunk works" skinning dead skunks (the unpleasant animal). During the extended peak of the strip, the workload grew to include advertising, merchandising, promotional work, comic book adaptations, public service material and other specialty work in addition to the regular six dailies and one Sunday strip per week. The term "Skunk Works" came from Al Capp 's satirical, hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner, which was immensely popular from 1935 through the 1950s. [55] Kurtzman eventually did spoof Li'l Abner (as "Li'l Ab'r") in 1957, in his short-lived humor magazine, Trump. The comprehensive series titled Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies & Color Sundays, is planned to be a reprinting of the complete 43-year history of Li'l Abner[60] spanning a projected 20 volumes, began on April 7, 2010. Skunk Works was responsible for several innovative aircraft designs, beginning with the P-38 Lightning in 1939, followed by the P-80 Shooting Star in 1943. Mary G. Ross, the first Native American female engineer, was among the 40 founding engineers.[8]. (Titanium supply was largely dominated by the Soviet Union, so the CIA set up a dummy corporation to acquire source material.) [54] Li'l Abner was also parodied in 1954 (as "Li'l Melvin" by "Ol' Hatt") in the pages of EC Comics' humor comic, Panic, edited by Al Feldstein. "Skonk Works", Culver repeated. The name stuck. Mammy dominated the Yokum clan through the force of her personality, and dominated everyone else with her fearsome right uppercut (sometimes known as her "Goodnight, Irene" punch), which helped her uphold law, order and decency. As the development was very secret, the employees were told to be careful even with how they answered phone calls.