Blondie (comic strip) was adapted into a long-running series of 28 low-budget theatrical B-features, produced by Columbia Pictures. Beginning with "Blondie" in 1938, the series lasted 12 years, through "Beware of Blondie" (1950). The two major roles were Penny Singleton as Blondie and Arthur Lake (whose first starring role was another comic strip character, Harold Teen) as Dagwood. Faithfulness to the comic strip was a major concern of the creators of the series. Little touches were added that were iconic to the strip, like the appearance of Dagwood's famous sandwiches—and the running gag of Dagwood colliding with the mailman amid a flurry of
Li'l Abner on both salami and Salome. Parody characters include Hop-Eye De Sailor, a parody of Popeye the Sailor, Little Orphan Andy (Little Orphan Annie); Bagwood Bumphead (Dagwood Bumstead), Rip Derby (Rip Kirby), Manrank the Musician (Mandrake the Magician), Little Danny Rooney (Little Annie Rooney), Icky (Twiggy), and Goon Mullins (Moon Mullins). "Li'l Abner" also featured a comic strip-within-the-strip: "Fearless Fosdick" was a parody of Chester Gould's plainclothes detective, "Dick Tracy". It first appeared in 1942, and proved so popular that it ran intermittently in "Li'l Abner" over the next 35 years. Gould was also personally parodied in the series as cartoonist