Judge, 1909-01-02 · page 16 of 16
Judge — January 2, 1909 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a six-panel children's comic strip about a New Year's prank gone wrong. Young Johnny instructs his toy teddy bears about making New Year's social calls with gifts. When Johnny visits a girl's house, the bears mischievously tie a rope around the door handle. An unsuspecting stranger reading outside walks into the trap, stumbles, and Johnny—watching from a window—falls out in shock and lands painfully on the ground. The humor relies on slapstick: innocent pranking by toys leads to accidental injury of an innocent bystander and the prankster himself. "Teddy bears" here refers to stuffed toy bears (named after President Theodore Roosevelt), which were wildly popular children's toys in this era. The strip's moral lesson—that Johnny, though guiltless of intent, caused someone's misfortune—was typical of early 1900s children's moral instruction through comic narrative.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
uae LITTLE JOHNNY AND THE TEDDY BEARS. IN WHICH A FRIENDLY NEW-YEAR'S CALL CAUSES A POOR MAN'S PAINFUL FALL. 1, Young John instructs the Teds about 2. The bears in awe then stand aside, An ancfent custom, now run out, While Johnny rings the bell with pride, Of making New-Year's calls gift'laden, A blushing girl receives the boy Upon your special favorite maiden. And welcomes him with gesture coy. 3. Scarce has the door closed on the two 4. “John can’t come out to quick,” they cried, When all the bears spring into view ; And then they ran away to hide. They have a rope, and with delight ‘Ac usual their naughty tricks Tie up the door-knob, safe and tight. Put some outsider in a fix. 5. An unknown man, absorbed in reading, 6. Poor John! ‘The door was tight, and so Walks straight into the rope, unheeding. He had no other way to go. And at the moment that he stumbles He's guiltlese—but this picture shows Young Johnny from the window tumbles. He's thought the cause of all these woes. COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY JUDGE COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, FIFTH AVENUE AND MADISON SQUARE, NEW YORK. Because of the great demand for the popular large-sized “Little Johnny and the Teddy Bears” book, we have exhausted our supply. We have on hand, however, an attractively bound smaller edition, called “The Teddy Bears in Fun and Frolic,” which will be sent, postpaid, for 25 cents, on receipt of price, by Judge Company, 225 Fifth Avenue, New York. comicbooks.com