Judge, 1926-12-11 · page 24 of 36
Judge — December 11, 1926 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the advertising industry's practice of publishing fabricated customer testimonials. The heading "Unpublished Testimonials: Or Why the Ad Men Have to Write Their Own" explicitly explains the joke: advertisers cannot get genuine customers to endorse products, so they invent absurd, obviously fake ones instead. The two mock testimonials are deliberately nonsensical. "Earlie Asparagus" claims that reading "Mince's Manual of Nollidge" made him implausibly wise about obscure facts (Mexican flea anatomy, Zanzibari pest control), while simultaneously becoming miserable (lost wife, salary stagnation, digestive troubles). The second testimonial about "Gooley's Goose Grease" describes mixing it into dog food, which inexplicably results in sailing around the Western Hemisphere. The bottom cartoon shows a family presenting someone with a keyhole and earphones as a Christmas gift—another nonsensical product pitched with deadpan earnestness. The satire targets how advertisers cynically manufacture credibility through fake testimonials when no real customer would honestly praise their products.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
RETALIATION —Humorist | Unpublished Testimonials Or Why the Ad Men Have to Write Their Own Mince’s Manual of Nollidge Foes years ago I didn’t know a darned thing. In fact, I was so dumb I didn’t know enough to get up and walk away when old ladies pinched my cheek and said, “Oo—, what nicums fattums cheekums.” But to-day, look atme. I’m forty- one years old, and I know why the Mexican flea hound has its feet shorter on the northwest side than | in the equatorial zone. I know what | kind of apples the tribes of interior Zanzibar use for moth balls, how John Smith happened not to be the inventor of the automatic spaghetti fork, and why the stars always re- rection. I am in demand at all dinners and banquets because I've lost m tite. I’ve won two salary the last fifteen years, there are no lumps in my mashed potatoes, any more, I’m historian of the Loyal Auxiliary of Amalgamated Bozos, Tent No. 57-A, and my wife died in disgust and left me two thousand dollars. Altogether, I'm a pretty wise guy and one of the upended pillars of the community. I blame it all on your al of Nollidge, which owed me money gave to me for Christmas once. I'd rather he’d of kept the money. Wishing you much success in mak- ing other people as wise Yours distortedly, Earlie Asparagus. sTam, Gooley’s Goose Grease for Grinding Gravy When IT was a small child T used to be bothered with mice in the pan- try and sometimes it got so bad I couldn’t lie on my right sid night which was, of course, quite an annoyance, though even my best friends didn’t tell me about it for a long time. Final I got some of your e for Grinding and when my husband wasn't looking, I mixed it in with the dog’s breakfast. Inside of three weeks we were in sight of the outlying islands of the Western Hemisphere and from then on we sailed right past all traffic semaphores until we hit Pueblo and the County Fair. After a long search we finally found our bearings which had been picked up by the magnetic rear axle, and from that period in my life until next winter the snow was all gone volve about the sun in the same di- “See, Hulda, your Christmas present. We want you to be contented here. We's® had a keyhole made so you won't have to bend down to peel: in and earphones to help you hear what we're tallsing about. comicbooks.com