Judge, 1923-11-17 · page 19 of 44
Judge — November 17, 1923 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece by James Montgomery Flagg mocks deceptive advertising practices of the era. The cartoon shows three well-dressed men (appearing to represent ad men or salespeople) discussing marketing schemes. The "recipes" that follow expose common advertising frauds: using before-and-after photos to sell shampoo, marketing waterlogged real estate as luxury "mud packs," attacking competitor products to sell cheap coffee substitutes, and using clichéd imagery (bathing girls for cars, gun-wielders for cigarettes) rather than honest product depiction. The title mocks one specific advertiser's use of "Home" in their brand name ("Shineberger's Togs"), suggesting the word was purely manipulative marketing jargon meant to sound wholesome while concealing poor quality. Flagg's satire exposes how early-20th-century advertisers deliberately misled consumers through exaggeration, celebrity endorsement, and distraction rather than honest product information.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IANER MONECINERY FASS AD RECIPES by James Montgomery Flagg SHAMPOO FE“ some poor freak of a girl with two and a half portions of hair—a mane so long it makes her too weak to cut it off—have her photographed and under the picture say “Pratt's Peanut Oil Shampoo grew this—Miss Lulu Pokenblatt was prac ly naked on her bean but she used three bottles of Pratt's and lookit, girls! And inside of three weeks, no less! Have some crowning. glor; Millions of people will swallow this dope. They always have! REAL ESTATE If you have been stuck with some building lots that are inconveniently under water when the tide is in, put it up in faney jars and call it “Superslime—the Mud Pack of the Queens of Ancient P. ° IMITATION COFFEE If you have a cheap and nasty not-so-near coffee to sell your best angle will be to knock the real thing all over the lot and show the poor publie how they are being slowly shoved into their oaken union suits by drinking anything but your Roasted Knotholes! READY-TO-SELL CLOTHES Tn your magazine cuts and your “twenty-four sheets” remember the re but three recognized male types that wear your ¢lothes—the perfumed taxi drivers. the boy moron who knits washra do the elderly manicured bum with bags under his eyes and waxed mustaches under his nose. Be sure your artists don't draw real clothes with folds and wrinkles in’ them. know, cardboard does not wrinkle. Don't your firm the Home of Shineberger’ . Of course, if your name is Burlapshi you needu't Shineberger—It don’t miss out on the word Home, Ttis so full of meaning. As you well CIGARET Show a antic head of a gun man with the caption, “Fer de lova Gawd give us a fag!” or whatever the name of your commodity is. APARTMENTS TO RENT In describing your apartment be sure to use the word select when referring to the neighborhood. That doesn't spill the beans. You let_your clients find out hem. selves that it was selected by graduates of Ellis Idand. AUTOMOBILES Use a cut of a bathing girl. People are tired of pictures of motor cars. comicbooks.com