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

[Garson O'Toole]

 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

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