Peanuts Begins by Charles Schulz for March 18, 2020

The earliest known version of that song, from sometime around 1744, goes like this:

“Sing a Song of Sixpence,

A bag full of Rye,

Four and twenty Naughty Boys,

Baked in a Pye."

“When I was young; I’d listen to the radio; Waitin’ for my favorite songs; When they played I’d sing along; It made me smile.”- Yesterday once more, The Carpenters

I thought it was “four and twenty blackbirds.”

I save the strips that feature old technology. The back of the radio is nicely drawn, with the top third open for ventilation. One can even make out the tubes.

I suggested “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting” as Our Song to my girlfriend. She was not amused…

I looked it up once. A few centuries ago, it was a thing to serve a pie at a banquet. Cut open the crust and birds would fly out. The trick was they baked a pie with a very high crust and didn’t put the birds in until it was cold. This was all a thrill in the days before tv, but would you eat a slice of the pie?

’Sfunny. It’s been over sixty years since I heard that tune; I have become used to thinking of “Sing a song of sixpence” as a naked poem. Yet, as soon as this strip reminded me that it was a tune, it came back to me.

I’d like to know when Peanuts changed. In this set of Peanuts, Charlie Brown is not depicted as being a loser. He has girl friends (at least some times) and looks like he has a future. In the later Peanuts series, he never seems to get anywhere, always pictured to be a nobody, and has very few friends. What changed and when?

smart man…never opened his mouth

This is very cute!