In the United States and Canada, a Sadie Hawkins dance is a usually informal dance sponsored by a high school, middle school or college, to which the women invite the men. This is contrary to the custom of the men typically inviting the women to school dances such as prom in the spring and homecoming in the fall. The name Sadie Hawkins comes from a cartoonist named Al Capp, who created the popular cartoon "Lil' Abner". The cartoon was set in a hillbilly town called Dogpatch, and first came out in 1934. Sadie was the daughter of Hekzebiah Hawkins, and was labeled the "homeliest gal in all them hills".
During the strip's run, it was adapted into two films, a Broadway musical (which served as the basis for the second film), a radio serial that ran from 1939 to 1940 and five short animated films made by Columbia Cartoons in 1944.
The Li'l Abner strip was distinguished by the characters' outrageously exaggerated hillbilly slang, featuring humorously phonetic spelling and turns of phrase such as “amoozin' but confoozin'” and “natcherly.
The strip also created and introduced several colloquialisms into the English language, including "schmooze", "irregardless", "druthers", and even the word "shmoo" has entered into at least four separate fields of science.