Judge, 1925-08-29 · page 8 of 36
Judge — August 29, 1925 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Papa Loves Mamma!" - Judge Magazine Satire This page satirizes the "Summer Widowers"—married men whose wives leave for the countryside during summer. A humorist is interrupted by an angry representative of the "Summer Widowers' Truth and Protective Association," who protests that writers portray these men as carefree philanderers visiting follies and flirting with chorus girls. The association member insists they're actually faithful, doing domestic chores and feeling lonely. The satire's joke: the humorist immediately receives a phone call from "Fifi," and within moments is arranging a drive with her and another woman—proving the original stereotype correct. The final illustration jokes that one widower has become so thin (from wife's thyroid pills) that the bathtub serves as a swimming pool. The satire targets both the hypocrisy of married men and contemporary domestic anxiety about wives' absences.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Papa Loves Mamma!” “What, Never? Well, Hardly Ever!” “When their wives are away They visit The Follies And merry and gay They flirt with the dollies. . . ” B= the perspiring humorist wrote no more, for there was a firm tap on his back and behind him stood a stout man, dressed in sporty tweeds, with a white carnation in his buttonhole and sporting a lurid blue and white hatband on his panama. “Sir!” angrily started the corpu- lent gentleman, “I have been sent here by the Summer Widowers’ Truth and Protective Association. We are tired of having distorted in- formation circulated concerning us. You fellows give the impression that our lives are one continual round of riotous living from the time our wives leave until they come back. ...” . “But that’s the general belief,” started the humorist. “Well, it isn’t so,” shouted the stout gentleman. “We eat cold foods, make our own beds, dust and clean apartments and houses, feed cats, dogs, birds, goldfishes, bring in the ice, take our own clothes to the laundry and are generally lone- some and miserable. We are faith- Jasper” Song: “Jasper “give a sentence with the word 3 ful and true to our wives, never even dreaming of going out with any other woman. Correct this impression at once or next summer we'll all join our wives in the country and you fellows will have nothing to write about.” Obviously the humorist was sorry. Tears coursed down his hardened cheek. He realized that he too had been guilty of a great wrong—of gross misrepresentation. Then his phone bell tinkled and when he heard a clear, silvery feminine voice at the other end, his features relaxed and he smiled. “No, I’ve got no date for to-night, Fifi,” said the humorist, “and you've got a girl friend too . . . can I dig some one up? I don’t know of any- one—they’re all away. But, wait a moment,” he added, as an idea gripped him and he turned to the Summer Widowers’ representative. “Say,” he said, “my friend, Fifi, wants to take a little drive to-night and she’s got a beautiful girl friend here from the South...” The setting sun cast its long rays over the road and lit for an instant on a four-passenger sport car. From it came voices and one deep one rose above the rest: “My wife is a fine little woman, but you know she really doesn’t understand me.” I found some of my wife’s thyroid pellets and they reduced me so much that the bathtub makes a fine swimming tank. comicbooks.com