Judge, 1901-12-28 · page 18 of 49
Judge — December 28, 1901 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes an aging former football player. The father, apparently a grizzled ex-athlete, responds to a suitor's marriage proposal using football terminology and metaphors. Rather than giving a straight answer, he shouts what sounds like a play call ("Four-eleven-forty-four-thirtzen"), then physically tackles the young man, carrying him forty yards until he hits the sidewalk. The joke targets the stereotype of washed-up athletes who remain mentally stuck in their playing days, unable to interact normally with civilian life. It mocks both their inability to abandon football logic and their excessive physicality. The cartoon implies that such men are comically unsuited to modern domestic situations—they respond to serious life moments through their sport's violent framework rather than social convention.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY JUDGE COMPANY OF KEW YORK. AN OLD FOOT-BALL PLAYER. Maup—"' What did dad say when you asked him for my hand Christmas morning?” Feroy—“ He said, ‘ Four-eleven-forty-four-thirtzen!’ and then he rushed me forty yards till | touched the sidewalk." comicbooks.com