Bumper Sticker: Chicken Little was right (antedating 1965 December 16) (1956)

[Charles Doyle]

In our "modern proverbs" files, we have this:

<< Chicken Little (Licken, Lickin') was right.  1950  Max Steele, _Debby_ (NY: Harper, 1950), 270 (the protagonist looking up at the dark sky, which seems to have "split wide open"): "Smack-dab across the center of darkness was a band of sunlight. 'Chicken Little!' Debby whispered aghast. She had always known that Chicken Little was right; that the world would come to an end; that the sky would someday fall in on their heads." >>

--Charlie


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:37:08 -0400
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of "Garson O'Toole" <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>)
>Subject: Bumper Sticker: Chicken Little was right >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jim Parish wrote
>>
>> Garson O'Toole wrote (much snipped):
>>
>>> Citation: 1969 August 29, Lowell Sun, Graffiti lives and has since
>>> Rome was built, Page 26, Column 1, Lowell, Massachusetts.
>>> (NewspaperArchive)
>>>
>>> The best humorous graffiti take a droll look at modern society and its
>>> hang-ups. An urban pessimist wrote "Chicken Little was right" on a
>>> pillar of a New York subway, for example. "Sacred cows make great
>>> hamburger" is not only a prime slice of wall-writing, it's a kind of
>>> manifesto of graffiti-dom.
>>
>> Tangential to the main subject, but the reference to "Chicken Little was right"
>> as a graffito in a 1969 citation amuses me, given that the Turtles had released
>> a song by that title in 1967. (Granted, it was a B-side....)
>>
>> Jim Parish
>
>Thanks for your response and observation about the 1967 Turtles song
>"Chicken Little was right". The Yale Book of Quotations has this
>phrase with a 1966 citation. Evidence that the phrase was part of the
>zeitgeist of the 1960s is provided by a Los Angeles Times article in
>1965 that refers to a bumper sticker with the saying. There were also
>at least two appearances in the 1950s (see further below).
>
>Citation: 1965 December 16, Los Angeles Times, Rare Technological
>Unemployment Case by Matt Weinstock, Page A6. (ProQuest Historical
>Newspapers)
>
>A bumper sticker with the odd message, "Chicken Little Was Right,"
>given him by a friend, has been drawing curious reactions since Jack
>T. Pickett of the California Farmer put it on his car. Most motorists
>glare at him as if he's some kind of nut. But a few smile knowingly,
>remembering the nursery story in which Chicken Little ran around,
>crying, "The sky is falling." Meteors, of course.
>
>http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22odd+message+chicken%22&
>
>The 1966 cite in the YBQ refers to an administrator associated with
>the "War on Poverty" who is depicted wearing a badge with the saying.
>
>Citation: 1966 November 6, Oakland Tribune, Poor Unhappy With Poverty
>War by Dave Lamb, Page 8, Column 7, Oakland, California.
>
>As he discussed his plans with the press, his fingers brushed over a
>blue badge on his left lapel. He smiled. It was the smile of a
>beleaguered man with new conflicts awaiting on the horizon.
>  The four words on the badge summed up the story:
>  "Chicken Little was right."
>
>A very unreliable narrator says there was a poster with the slogan in
>a shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1967. The store and
>poster may not have existed, but the passage shows that the writer was
>aware of the saying.
>
>Citation: 1967 June, The Realist, "Blow-Up, Psychedelic Sexualis and
>The War Game - or, David Hemmings Is Herman Kahn in Disguise", Page
>18, Column 2, Number 75.
>
>Herman Kahn had a request. He wanted a nice tour of the lower east
>side. I was pleased to oblige.
>In a button store, he gets a poster: Chicken Little Was Right.
>
>http://www.ep.tc/realist/75/18.html
>
>Hence, in the 1960s the phrase entered mass-consciousness via bumper
>stickers, song titles, buttons, and perhaps posters. Below are two
>cites from the 1950s. The first is unverified.
>
>Citation: circa 1955??, Nature magazine, Volume 48, Page 234, American
>Nature Association.(Google Books snippet view, Library catalogs
>indicate Volume 48 is dated 1955, Unverified on paper. May be
>inaccurate)
>
>... where counterpanes of lupine suggest that Chicken Little was right
>and the sky has indeed fallen.
>
>Here are links into two copies.
>http://books.google.com/books?id=OAwfAQAAIAAJ&q=counterpanes#search_anchor
>http://books.google.com/books?id=cofkAAAAMAAJ&q=counterpanes#search_anchor
>
>
>Citation: 1956 February 6, Victoria Advocate, Cheapskate Is One
>Variety Of Pest Found Everywhere by Jimmy Hatlo, Page 4, Column 5,
>Victoria, Texas.
>
>The poultry flock decides that Chicken Little was right about the sky
>falling down, and takes off for the tall timber, ...
>
>http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22poultry+flock+decides%22&
>
>
>Bonus cite: The 1992 children's book "The Stinky Cheese Man and other
>fairly stupid tales" by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith tells a
>surrealistic parodic version of the tale using Chicken Licken as the
>main character. Here is an excerpt:
>
>Chicken Licken was almost right.
>The sky wasn't falling.
>The Table of Contents was.
>It fell and squashed everybody.
>The End.
>
>Garson
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org