The Peek-a-Boo Explained
It started with Veronica Lake. She did it with long tresses, but that
was never really necessary. It can also be accomplished with short hair.
The reason for the appeal is as follows: when little boys and little girls played on the schoolyard, the girls played skip rope and boys played a sport that matched the season. The girls were very active, hopping around like bunny rabbits. As they performed and burned off their excess energy, their hair flopped around into a tangled jumble. When distracted, or attempting to seem uninterested they often had one eye fixed on the boy who could equally have one eyed fixed on them. From beneath a tangled mass of hair, which covered most of the face, except one eye, a look shot forth, like a peek through the keyhole, or a missile, capturing its target. 
It is this image of a single eye uncovered beneath a tangled mop that generated the peek-a-boo image. It was a secret interest, a gift given to a secret admirer. Back in the classroom when the hair was combed, a look backwards (from the front where the girls sat) to a seat behind (where the boys sat), crumpled the hair against the shoulder, blocking one eye, while the unexposed eye searched for the object of its affection. That is the secret of the peek-a-boo. It is both an interest and an invitation, and as if a love potion is involved, it has become a peek a brew look which can only lead to romance. In the 1942 comedy, The Major and the Minor, the look was parodied at the military school, when every little burgeoning romantic was in imitation mode, and the role model was Veronica Lake. A wall of Veronica wallflowers hunted for their mates. 
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