Ali Uup – Alley Oop
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Ali_Uup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alley-oop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alley_Oop
https://youtu.be/vcNSGFeUIV0
Ali Uup is a “Thuggie Captain” in Aggrobah and selfish patron of the artist Abbas.
An alley-oop in basketball is an offensive play in which one player passes the ball near the basket to a teammate who jumps, catches the ball in mid-air and dunks or lays it in before touching the ground.
The alley-oop combines elements of teamwork, pinpoint passing, timing and finishing.
The term “alley-oop” is derived from the French term allez hop!, the cry of a circus acrobat about to leap.
The term “Alley Oop” was first popularized in the US in 1932 as the name of a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist V. T. Hamlin.
In sports, the term “alley-oop” first appeared in the 1950s by the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL to describe a high arcing pass from quarterback Y. A. Tittle to wide receiver R.C. Owens, who would outleap smaller cornerbacks for touchdown receptions. “The Catch”, the Dwight Clark touchdown reception from Joe Montana by which the 49ers gained entry into their first Super Bowl, was also an “alley-oop” pass. The term later became better known from its use in basketball.
Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip created December 5, 1932, by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced a cast of colorful characters and his storylines entertained with a combination of adventure, fantasy, and humor. Alley Oop, the strip’s title character, is a sturdy citizen in the prehistoric kingdom of Moo. He rides his pet dinosaur Dinny, carries a stone axe, and wears only a fur loincloth.
In the 1933 press release that accompanied the launching of the strip with its new distributor NEA, Hamlin was quoted as saying “I really can’t recall just how I struck upon the name ‘Alley Oop’, although it might be from the fact that the name is a French term used by tumblers. Alley Oop really is a roughhouse tumbler.” The name of Alley’s girlfriend, Ooola, was a play on a different French phrase, oh là là.
The first stories took place in the fictional “Bone Age” (similar to the Stone Age) and centered on Alley Oop’s dealings with his fellow cavemen in the kingdom of Moo. Oop and his pals had occasional skirmishes with the rival kingdom of Lem, ruled by King Tunk. The names Moo and Lem are references to the fabled lost continents of Mu and Lemuria.
On April 5, 1939, Hamlin introduced a new plot device which greatly expanded his choice of storylines: A time machine was invented by 20th-century scientist Dr. Elbert Wonmug; the name Wonmug was a pun on Albert Einstein, as “ein” is German for “one” and a “stein” is a type of drinking mug.
Oop was transported to the 20th century by an early test of the machine (in the daily strip of April 8 and the Sunday strip of April 9, 1939). He became Dr. Wonmug’s man in the field, embarking on expeditions to various periods in history, such as Ancient Egypt, the England of Robin Hood, and the American frontier. Oop met historical or mythical figures such as Cleopatra, King Arthur, and Ulysses in his adventures. In addition to the time machine, other science-fiction devices were introduced. Oop once drove an experimental electric-powered race car, and he has space-traveled to Venus, the moon (twice), and “Earth-Two”. During his adventures, he was often accompanied by his girlfriend Ooola and by the sometimes-villainous, sometimes-heroic George Oscar Boom (G. O. Boom). Laboratory assistant Ava Peckedge joined the cast in 1986.
The character was the subject of the 1960 number-one single “Alley Oop”, which was the only hit for the short-lived studio band The Hollywood Argyles. It was written and composed in 1957 by Dallas Frazier. Musicians on the record included Kim Fowley and Sandy Nelson. The song was later covered, most famously by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band but also by Dante & the Evergreens, The Royal Guardsmen, Sha-Na-Na, The Beach Boys and George Thorogood & the Destroyers, and it was included in choreographer Twyla Tharp’s 1970s ballet Deuce Coupe.
The current list of all the (known) Mirage references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Ali Uup image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment
The Alley-oop triptych is borrowed from Wikipedia. The three parts are shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license. The image was assembled by Alien Graphics
Alley Oop image is copyright Universal Uclick/Andrews-McMeel Syndication
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Vulcan Stev's Database 