Remember Goofus and Gallant?

[motely36]

http://www.highlightskids.com/guestarea/h3gStorySoup/GoofusandGallant/h1intro.asp

[barackmyworld]

1. goofus drank water straight from the tap

and gallant used a glass

[Bertha Venation]

2. yep

I always felt like I was Goofus, because his hair was mussed and he looked angry. But I acted like Gallant. No wonder I needed therapy. :crazy:

[TlalocW]

3. Gallant was a tool for the bougeious pigs

Goofus was the everyman.

TlalocW

[Bouncy Ball]

4. Oh my GOD!!!

I DO!!! I always aspired to be Gallant but secretly admired Goofus!!!

Wow, Highlights. I had totally forgotten about that. My grandmother bought me a subscription to that and National Geographic (which my brother always stole from me).

[steely]

5. Wonder what they'd be like now - like if they got older....

Goofus would have probably had more fun.

[trof]

6. Sure do. Remember The watchbird?

Watchbird
Waatchbird books, 1940s. a series of books about manners training with a "watchbird" stickfigure as the theme carrier

Try Munro Leaf's Manners Can Be Fun, 1936.
Also by Leaf -- Fly Away, Watchbird! : a picture book of behavior, Munro Leaf, Frederick A. Stokes, 1941.
From the foreword from Flock of Watchbirds: "This Flock of Watchbirds was rounded up from old favorites that first flew through the pages of The Ladies Home Journal. They were put together before the war in three separate books Watchbirds, More Watchbirds, and Fly Away, Watchbird, but here they are now all in one flock to watch some of the regulars who are always with us -- like the Thumb-Sucker, the Show-Off, the Bed-Bawler who screams at bedtime, the Nail-Biter, Won't-Wash, and thirty-one others that could be removed to advantage from every home."
#G116--Good Manners Watchbird: Evidently "This is a watchbird watching" appeared as a series of newspaper cartoons published around 1945-1950, as when my mom babysat she used the phrase to terrorize one of her young charges.
http://w1.loganberrybooks.com/solved-w.html

I remember reading these in Granny's Ladies' Home Journal.