I’m going light on the commentary and heavy on the comics for April Fool’s Day. Here’s what people found in their papers 75 years ago, on April 1, 1944:
Of course, there was a war on, and D-Day was still two months away, though the Eastern Front was lively:
Which didn’t stop the flow of internal politics:
Though it did mean that you’d better have a good explanation if you were going to play professional sports instead of signing up:
The war was evident on the funny pages as well:
(Readers of this continuity strip would know Laughing Boy is a statue)
Best Selling Record of the Week
Top Juke Box Song of the Week
I wonder how long Little Annie Rooney ran before the cease and desist letter… LOL
Where was that first cartoon published? (Americans tend to forget that we fought WWII on the same side as the Soviets.)
LAR ran from 1927 to 1966, apparently without legal challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Annie_Rooney
Minneapolis Morning Tribune had that comic. Can’t make out the artist’s name and they seem to have been using syndicate material. (Or at least, a lot of different artists)
Looks to be Tom Carlisle, assistant and second to Ding Darling at the Des Moines Register and Tribune. At the time Cowles owned both the Des Moines Register and the Minn Tribune.
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/carlisle
That’s it — good eye, DD.