It was 58 years ago this month that the newspaper comic strip (although not a strip, strictly speaking), The Family Circus, first appeared. In fact, 1960 was a Leap Year and the first cartoon appeared on February 29th, 1960, making it impossible for me to post its birthday on the actual date until 2020, so rather than wait I just used the month. Happy Birthday to The Family Circus!
The first Family Circus comic panel.
As a child, I read the comics page in our newspapers (we had one delivered in the morning and a different one delivered in the afternoon) and for the longest time I thought the cartoon was The Family CIRCLE because, well, I think you can see why.
I don’t remember my exact age when this incident happened, though it seems like I was in first grade, but I was sitting at the dining room table and said something to my mother in the kitchen like, “Today’s Family Circle is pretty funny.” and she looked over toward me with a puzzled look on her face, then noticed I had the newspaper open to the comics page in front of me and said, “Honey, it’s Family CIRCUS, not circle.” I looked down at the heading over the comic and sure enough…
So Happy Birthday, The Family CIRCUS!
