April 9th, 2016

Current Events

by Brian Walker, Greg Walker and Chance Browne

Hi and Lois daily strip, August 21, 1964.

Although many of the themes in Hi and Lois are relatively timeless, the strip has, over the years, also reflected the changing times. “Everything that goes on we make fun of,” Mort Walker once explained. “From the space race to coonskin caps, TV dinners and the Cold War, there isn’t anything that isn’t grist for the gag mill. Although social comment is not entirely new to the comics page, the way that reality is incorporated into the daily life of the Hi and Lois characters could be considered unique.”

Below is a selection of strips from the mid-1960s that chronicled events of that era.

Hi and Lois daily strip, November 16, 1964.

After playing eighteen years with the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra retired as a player but served as their manager in 1964. When the Yankees lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, Yogi was fired.

Hi and Lois daily strip, January 14, 1965.

The Beatles first arrived in America on February 7, 1964 and two days later performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. They toured the country again in August 1964 and by the beginning of 1965, Beatlemania had spread around the world.

Hi and Lois daily strip, February 18, 1965.

Troll dolls, with their large impish faces and frizzy hair, were invented by Thomas Dam, a Danish fisherman and woodcutter, in 1959. They were popular in Europe during the early 1960s, and eventually became a huge toy fad in the United States from the autumn of 1963 to 1965.

Hi and Lois daily strip, April 7, 1965.

In 1961, after President John F. Kennedy challenged the country to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s the American space program took off. John Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth in February 1962 and in August 1965 Ed White made his historic spacewalk.

We hope you enjoyed this trip back in time.

– Brian Walker