This is how we remember them:



Radleigh, Simpson, Cotter and the other one doing their sleuthing and other St Elmo's bizz in 1965 ...

But then this - their penultimate outing in the Bunty just before it closed shop in 1992. Stripping ??????????????



Is NOTHING sacred??

And how come they became identical ?????

I am seriously disappointed!!!!!

And why isn't their hair blue anymore?

I'm afraid you've been misinformed, the girls appeared up until the last issue 2001, according to wiki. I don't think they'd been transformed by the time my daughter stopped getting it around 1979.

1999

Such disrespect would never have happened to Princess Anita. Sadly I think she may have been my role model.

What did they do to the 4 Marys? I reckon they all became nuns and went off to the convent, perfect names for it.

Why is there a hedgehog in the bend of the "U"? (1992)

This gets worse. Remember the Dandy's cigar chomping Korky the Cat?



Well now he's this ...

It looks like a one of those wierd Japanese style illustrations. Minimumalist with overlarge head and eyes and miniscule body.

Not that I’ve a mucky mind, but ‘The Four Mary’s’ puts me in mind of an olde dockside alehouse… or a seedy backstreet house of ill repute in Amsterdam…

There are some things that just shouldn't be mucked around with. Take this guy:


Sydney Paget's illustrations in The Strand Magazine faithfully stuck to Conan Doyle's descriptions in the stories.


And the movies were faithful to Sydney Paget.


As was TV later.


Then this began happening.


And now this for crying out loud!

Why can't they just go off and invent their own detective?

Dennis and Gnasher, BBC style.

What a pair of Softies.

And Gnasher isn't allowed to bite people anymore.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206010/Dennis-Menace-BBC-gives-cartoon-rogue-politically-correct-makeover.html

Couldn't agree more - here he is in his glorious politically incorrect days ...

Speaking of politically incorrect ...



Bless my innocence but I really thought at the time that Sparky was a space alien.

At least that's one character that didn't undergo any embarrassing metamorphosis. He was so embarrassing already that they just chopped him and replaced him on the cover (ironically) with The Moonsters.

!965? Good grief.

Sparky is a lot more shocking than Dennis, though.

How innocent we were in those days - well, I certainly was. I had no idea that Dennis's behaviour towards Walter the Softy could be interpreted as gay-bashing. I didn't know what gay* was back then. I just thought Walter was a bit - well, soft - and actually rather spiteful and sneaky. He was after all always trying to get Dennis and Gnasher into trouble.

But apparently he did help Dennis when Gnasher got lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_the_Softy

* I remember a Latin lesson when I was about 14. We had to translate a really stupid sentence: Come into the garden, Maud. At the back of our Latin text books there was a mini-dictionary and Lesbia was given for Maud. Half the class fell about laughing; the other half just looked totally confused. I was of the confused lot, of course, all the more so because I was trying to work out what the vocative of Lesbia was. (Lesbia?)

How did they get "Lesbia" for "Maud"? In any case you were right - she's first declension.

Last night there were four Marys
This night there'll be but three,
There was Mary Beaton and Mary Seaton
And Mary Carmichael and me

O, word has to the kitchen gone,
And word's gone to the hall,
That Mary Hamilton is with child
To the highest Stuart of all.

He courted her out in the kitchen,
He courted her down in the hall,
He courted her in the low cellar,
And that was worse than all.

She has taken her wee little baby,
And tossed it into the sea,
"Sink ye or swim ye my bonnie wee child,
you'll be no more with me."

Oh they took her down to the sheriff's court,
And she did laugh and sigh,
Before she had come back again
She was condemned to die.

Oh, I have often dressed my queen,
And put on her fine silk gown,
And all I've gotten for my reward:
To be hanged in Edinburgh town.

O, happy, happy is the maid
That's born of beauty free.
O, it was my rosy dimpled cheeks
That's been the devil to me.



Don't think that bit ever graced the pages of the comics.

Surely

"Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, the nicht she'll hae but three

There was Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton and Mary Carmichael and me.


Word’s gone through the kitchen, and word's gone through the ha,

That Mary Hamilton has a wean by the highest Stuart of aa.


As she gae'd up the Canongate, a loud loud laugh gied she,

But as she gaed doon the Canongate the saut tear blinded her ee.


'Oh, oftimes hae I dressed my Queen, and pit gold in her hair,

But noo I've gotten for my reward the gallows to be my share.


Little did my mither think the day she cradled me,

The lands I was tae travel in, the death I was tae dee."


I've looked and I can't find a version that's exactly the same as the one I was taught, I never knew there were quite so many versions.

Here they are again, to music, but again different words:



EDIT :

And here's the version by The Corries... the words seem closer to yours Ferval, and I particularly like the accompaniment of the bowed psaltry.



And I have to admit (as a Sassenach) I did not know this tune or the lyrics.... I like it, in a bittersweet sort of way. The lyrics well laden with history and a good tune to go with it.

Here's one character who hasn't changed his appearance much although I presume he has become more sensitive to issues of ethnic sensibility. Does Fat Boab still appear and Soapy Soutar and is a good clip round the ear still administered by any offended adult?
On the other hand, this is D C Thomson........





- 2013 annual.[img]

I was wondering just the other day if your Punch and Judy is still performed? And if so, with the bashing and shouting? Or has it been quietly pushed to the side? Seems a pity if so.

Punch and Judy, since 1980, have had their traditions (and politically incorrect conduct) championed by the Punch & Judy Fellowship, of which Ken Dodd is currently honorary president. Most P&J men are affiliated and, despite numerous attempts by councils and the like to force changes in the show's content, have done a sterling job of keeping Mr Punch as violent and anarchic as ever.

I never thought much of it as entertainment, even as a kid, but to emasculate Mr Punch just to cater to some kind of modern squeamishness would be ridiculous in my view, and yet another time-honoured tradition jettisoned for no good reason. Punch & Judy is a window into the sensibilities and lives of generations going back 350 years. It would be a shame to extinguish it.

Quote from the P&J Fellowship: "Banning Punch would be like banning wine gums because there are alcoholics in the world."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/punch-and-judy-the-eternal-triangle-of-man-wife-and-sausages-7717627.html

I didn't know that Samuel Pepys made the first reference to Punch - in 1662. Judy was Joan back then. Charles II enjoyed the show, too.

I don't suppose the crocodile thinks much of vegetarian sausages, but then, who does?

I thought the four Mary's was some sort of Catholic Penance?

The hedgehog in the bend of the U. looks like he fell in and is struggling to get out!

Last printed edition of "The Dandy" yesterday.

Korky the Kat and pals are now available only online and as a smartphone and tablet app. Just not the same somehow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-20581867



This made me laugh:

"We've been quite deliberate in making sure there's very little if any educational value, with the exception of reading”

David Bain The Dandy