Judge — August 10, 1918 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Rates on Application”: By Lawton Mackall HEATERGOERS have y, long been accustomed to f the program credit sys- EN ; tem, such as the follow- i is ; ing: A, Ly] Me, Book and lyrics by Harry Jazz = SZ 5 : Music by Alf Bang fl i J Shoes by Tootsies | Shoestrings by Tyem f The A Miss Jimpson’s gowns by Pinard, i | Miss Jimpson’s gowns by Pinard, Inc. hl L Miss Verlaine’s handkerchief by fl O } Maison Hasenpfeffer 1 I Rain storm ects by Jones fl Shi h Plumbing Co. tl O lh Cigar (lit but not smoked) in third ff rl act by Fume-O Disinfecting Co. ° 4 But only in the last sensor or so DAG ‘Ie has advertising been promoted from / the printed program to the play Swat WR# itself. Nowadays it has its say right te { ? This state of affairs illustrates the fact WN that when earnest people are hampered in L tl The one line, they will seek another outlet. advertisers. Their cherished billboards, with which they tously beautified landscapes along railroad tracks, have in many, many cases, been eclipsed by upstart muni- and Mr. Hoover has i siderately directed people's attention to = mere crops, so that the outlooking traveler now observes the cereal : | a on | in the dialog. | war has been cruelly hard tion factor and vegetable produce rather than the most majestically-columned adscapes towering in the back- ground. Not even the fascin- ating information that it is “17 miles to Hoboken” can coax his gaze from the cab- bages. Not even “ Parfun Zaza” (two dollars a vial), celebrated in letters thirty hands high as an olfactory necessity to every woman, can compete with an un- assuming plantation of living onions. Truly the advertiser was in a bad way. So he invaded the drama. “It Pays to Advertise” had already pointed his opportunity. That, as you remember, was a play about ad- vertising, and hence the trade names of nationally-known commodities figured logically all through the dialog. It only remained to intro- duce trade names into the dialog of plays not concerned with adver- tising. With due perseverance and almost undue effrontery this has SZ gratui- Photo by Abbe. Lucite Dartinc (rroxouncen WITH A PAUSE) AND Epitn StockHAM, LooKinc Spanisw IN “Hitcuy Koo.” modified the famous scene from as to make it effective from the modern point of view. Macbeth—Methought I heard a voi Macbeth doth murder sleep.” been accomplished, so that now characters pause in the midst of a tense situation to speak of soap and vacuum cleaners by their full names. (“Nick-names encourage — substitu- tion,” you know.) The principal role in “The Lassoo” was played by an automatic piano. The heroine took pains to explain to her friends at tea how much this musical picce of furni- ture meant in her life. When her husband was away with the “other woman,” she would sit and listen to it “by the hou In the last act the heart interest was enhanced by drag- ged-in allusions to a certain make of typewriter and a certain breed of automobile. And yet, despite the endorsement of these thoroughly standard brands, the show was hardly a success, That is, with the people in front: of course, the people behind it may have responded most gratifyingly. It is a pity that some of the impecunious play- wrights of old didn’t know this little trick. Shakespeare could, with very little trouble, have “Macbeth” so e cry, “Sleep no» more. Lady Mac—'Tis but your hard, discomforta- ble bed, Milord; sweet sleep would softly visit you Upon a Bloojum’s Rest-O Felt- made Mattress. And Juliet might have said, in gentle chiding: A rose by any oth would smell as swee With toilet water ‘tis matter. Oh, wherefore didst thou bring me this base junk When I had told thee plain! u de Sniff"? name another Coming down to modern times, the famous escape scene from ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin” where Eliza pussyfoots over the river in frappé flight—even this perfect moment could be improved. Eliza could exclaim that her. anxiety was due to the fact that the hounds came from the Spiffleigh Kennels and hence were exceptionally keen purps; but that luckily the ice was Sanifreeze Naturo, and therefore could be depended on in an emergency. Magazines have to pay a war tax on all advertisements. doped dialog did its bit? Isn’t it about time that comicbooks.com