Judge — February 21, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Movie of Mr. Hen Peck Teaching His Wife to Skate" This is a twelve-panel comic strip showing a husband attempting to teach his wife ice skating, with increasingly disastrous results. The title "Mr. Hen Peck" suggests a domestically dominated husband—a stock character in period humor representing a man subordinate to his wife's will. The satire lies in the ironic reversal: despite being the "teacher," the husband suffers all the falls and mishaps while his wife remains relatively composed. Each panel escalates the physical comedy, culminating in a massive explosion of chaos in panel 12. The joke targets both domestic power dynamics and the era's skepticism about women's athletic capabilities. By showing the wife's competence and the husband's incompetence, it mocks the "henpecked" husband trope while poking fun at gender relations—a common Judge magazine theme.