Judge, 1926-12-04 · page 8 of 36
Judge — December 4, 1926 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis: "How One Boy Met Santa Claus" This humorous story by S.J. Perelman satirizes the commercialization of Christmas and the exhaustion children experience from relentless holiday marketing. Two boys discuss their frustration with department store "Santa" encounters—where costumed employees aggressively push children toward toy purchases while making physical contact ("fat old birds dressed for the Arctic paw me over"). The joke's punchline involves one boy's "solution": setting a bear trap for Santa on Christmas Eve, which catches his actual father. The accompanying cartoon illustrates this trap springing on an unfortunate man in a Santa suit stuck in a chimney or fireplace. The satire critiques: - Aggressive commercialization targeting children - Adults' manipulation of childhood innocence for profit - The absurdity of perpetuating the Santa myth The page also includes aphoristic humor about women unrelated to the main story, typical of Judge's satirical style. The overall message mocks 1920s-era Christmas consumerism as intrusive and exhausting rather than joyful.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE HOW ONE BOY MET SANTA CLAUS by S. J. Perelman ELL, bozo, how you bearin’ up under the season?” “Say, Joe, I'm ragged! Every- where I go I get the same old line of fancy goose-fat about this ‘Santy Claus’! I get dragged to every darn one of these toylands in the stores and a bunch of fat old birds dressed for the Arctic paw me over like I was a remnant counter and ask me what I want for Christmas. Honest, Joe, if one more of them old white- <ered bar flies makes a pass at , I'm gonna > him a chop- stroke on the chin, so help me! I wake up in the middle of the night nearly out of my mind thinkin’ an- other one of those diphtherias is fondlin’ me! Say, I’m tired of it... And at home! I hide a bottle of brandy under my bed and the next mornin’ they got a sled or some other half-witted thing hid there as if I never think of lookin’ under the bed! And the old gent walkin’ in every other night with a big bundle and me supposed to be all het up to find out what's in it. Blah! And I know what’s comin’! Christmas night about ten people sneakin’ around the & house while I’m tryin’ to do a sleep job. Believe me, Joe, I nearly got the heebies when I even think of it!” “Aw, kid, you take it too hard. Whyn’t you do what I did?” “What did you do?” “Well, I borrowed a bear trap from a sporting store around the corner. It had one of these good strong chains on it. And the night before Christmas I listened to the whole line of hooey about ‘Santy Claus’ and nearly split a strap snickerin’, Then after everybody went to bed I sneaked down and anchored the trap near the fire- place and went back to bed. About two o’clock in the morning I heard a yell, and then I turned over and slept like a log. The next morning when I got down to breakfast there was a locksmith and a plumber there in the living-room. They'd been workin’ six hours tryin’ to get the bear trap off the old gent’s foot. I just walked by him and says, ‘Oh, are you Santy Claus? And believe me, kid, what I mean I never had a bit of trouble since! Whyn’t you try it?” eet Close a woman's mouth and she'll talk through her nose. nara It isn’t the clothes which make the men stare—it’s the women that should be in them. comicbooks.com