Lum and Abner
[1] The series was created by co-stars Chester Lauck (who played Columbus "Lum" Edwards) and Norris Goff (Abner Peabody).
When the Quaker contract expired, Lauck and Goff continued to broadcast on two Texas stations, WBAP (Fort Worth) and WFAA (Dallas).
Horlicks Malted Milk, the 1934–37 sponsor, offered a number of promotional items, including almanacs and fictional Pine Ridge newspapers.
As well as inspiring the program and its characters, Pine Ridge, Arkansas is also home to the Lum and Abner Museum, which opened in the 1970s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Other rural locations named after the show include Jot Em Down, Texas, Jot-Um-Down, North Carolina, and Pine Ridge, Oklahoma.
Between 1985 and 2005 the organization held 20 annual conventions (skipping 2004) in Pine Ridge and Mena, Arkansas, playing host to numerous veterans of the Lum and Abner radio programs and motion pictures.
NLAS Convention guest stars included radio–television–cinema veterans Roswell Rogers, Clarence Hartzell, Jerry Hausner, Elmore Vincent, Wendell Niles, Bobs Watson, Les Tremayne, Louise Currie, Willard Waterman, Parley Baer, Cathy Lee Crosby, Forrest Owen, Mary Lee Robb, Kay Linaker, Frank Bresee, Fred Foy, Barbar Fuller, Sam Edwards, Dick Beals, Rhoda Williams, Robie Lester, Ginny Tyler, Nancy Wible, and Dallas McKennon.
All 23 years of the NLAS publication The Jot 'Em Down Journal are now available free of charge (see External Links below for the National Lum and Abner Society) in PDF format as well as audio for the blind (or anyone who chooses to listen).
A final NLAS Convention was held in 2015 featuring guest stars John Rose (cartoonist of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith) and Mike Curtis (writer of Dick Tracy).
Early in 2011, negotiations between Ethan C. Nobles of firstarkansasnews.net, the Chester Lauck family and cartoonist Donnie Pitchford resulted in a new comic strip series based on the classic radio programs and its characters.
Each strip is accompanied by an audio dramatization with voices, sound effects and music, a feature designed with blind fans of "old time radio" in mind, but one that any reader may access.
The success of these broadcasts prompted the release of 100 All New “Lum & Abner” Comic Strips, an audiobook written and directed by Donnie Pitchford featuring a full cast.
On Sunday, July 20, 2014, the characters of Lum and Abner were awarded a cameo appearance in the Harvey Award-winning Dick Tracy comic strip, written by Mike Curtis and illustrated by Joe Staton.
