Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Watchbird

When I was a little boy in the forties, the cartoon, The Watchbird, appeared in The Ladies Home Journal,a magazine to which my mother subscribed! The cartoon always featured a bad boy being observed by the Watchbird. The cartoonist would draw and describe the naughty,or whiney,or stingy bad boy being surveilled by the Watchbird, drawn in profile, the boy caught in the sinful act, and then the clincher would come! "This is the Watchbird watching a Sneaky". Named and shamed by his sin! A second bird would be drawn, facing the young reader. The heading read, "This is the Watchbird watching YOU"! Pediatric ethics 101 at the foot of The Ladies Home Journal! What was always most interesting was the naughty activity, which provided the young reader a certain vicarious pleasure. The Watchbird was a simple line drawn, fat little cartoon bird,peering at the offender and then at me. The assumption that we all bore close scrutiny at six or eight for our dirty little secrets was never really challenged in those days. My mother told me she occasionally spanked me with the hairbrush for no definable reason other than the gut feeling that I deserved it. She was probably right. She was a stay at home mum and probably knew far more than the Watchbird. I don't think the cartoon had any lasting ethical benefit because even in those days, naughty was more interesting to watch than goody-two shoes.I guess it wasn't the enlightened child raising that we see today, but there was never a feeling that I was short changed in the love game. We are still under scrutiny today by Watchbirds of a different name!

6 comments:

  1. I REMEMBER IT!
    DEFINITELY IN THE LADIES HOME JOURNAL
    AND POINTED OUT MY MOM
    I WAS NEVER SHORTED ON LOVE EITHER

    TW FROM BZN MT
    15 DEC 2010

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  2. Yes, I remember the cartoons, and I think they may have been made into a book as well? I remember WWII cartoons like the Watchbird, telling us how to behave to be good children, help the war effort, and I thought it was by a Monroe or Monro or Munro. Any help with this? I'd love to find the book again.

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  3. I just googled "The Watchbird" and found your blog as a result. Hi there, fellow old-timer.

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  4. Every morning when I was 3 and 4 years old in Theodore, Saskatchewan, I would get up very early in the morning, long before my parents or my baby brother and sister. To keep me occupied, my mother would put out on the living room coffee table a treat to eat (bread pudding or apple crisp or a cookie or an apple, for instance), and a magazine or something else to read, or a puzzle, or something else fun, and I would be allowed to turn on the radio very low (and listen to the country western songs from the Yorkton station).

    When the Ladies' Home Journal was on the coffee table, I would turn first to the end of the magazine to see the "watchbird" cartoon. I'm not sure if I took comfort or warning from the idea of the watchbird, but whichever it was, it's still with me almost 60 years later.

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    Replies
    1. I remember playing hockey against Theodore in the fifties when we lived in Lestock!

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  5. I have searched for the watchbird books I remember as a child, and I have searched for the artist's drawings/cartoons with WWII hints to being a good, patriotic American. So far no luck, but this 69 year old lady ain't givin' up yet. It is great to see this site, where others remember the cartoons too. Thanks for sharing!

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