Judge, 1929-02-23 · page 5 of 36
Judge — February 23, 1929 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Page **Top Cartoon ("Industrial Duties"):** This satirizes an advertising manager's job through exaggerated tasks: placing ads, promoting merchandise, launching "Public Buying Urge," creating slogans, and competing with colleagues. The humor lies in depicting advertising work as chaotic and performative—the manager appears frazzled while juggling multiple responsibilities simultaneously. **Bottom Section:** R.C. O'Brien's essay "One Million Answers Expected" discusses songwriting. He describes writing a song titled "Sonny Boy" and addresses concerns about unconscious plagiarism—noting he's heard similar ideas through radio, vaudeville, and phonograph records. The accompanying cartoon shows a practical joker "going under the knife," illustrating the article's ironic tone about creative anxiety. Both items reflect 1920s-30s popular culture anxieties about commercialism and originality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Industrial Ditties The Advertising Manager It's up to him to swell the sales With broadsides fired through the mails, To sce that ads are well-dis- played, ‘To merchandise them to the trade, To freely spend (though not to splurge), To launch « Public Buying Urge. His suit is tweed, hat is his sloppy, He talks of “Closing Dates” and And when he secks a slant unique Stays in seclusion for a wee From which this King of SI cers Emerges to his colleagues’ cheers that a line ARE Ds!" Sinv's Orricen—Quick, madam, put this on—the ship is foundering. “Haven't you @ size smaller?” One Million Answers Expected Like most peopl of writing a . I'm thinking Unlike the others, I'm positive my song will make a big hit. It will contain a novel idea, Recently there have been songs about direction put the south, how nice it is in the wintertime— and about homes out in the west; also mothers who are out there- the sons evidently having come east to write songs instead of having gone west. Also songs about pals and gals and Red Hot Mammas and frivolous daughters. The members of the family seem pretty well taken care of—that is, all except one. But there is one member of the The practical joker goes under the knife. family—probably the most im portant member too—who has been neglected. Well, children are sometimes neglected, and the little boy of the family has neglected by the song writers. So Tam ¢ Pa song three : ‘Something abso- lutely which hasn't been done, to my recollection. Certain abou’ y old boy. bars are running through my mind — listen - “Climb up) on my knee, never mind the crease in my trousers, 1 can get them pressed again.” Or something like that. Also: “When » are gray skies, I don’t mind ay skies, You make them Sonny Bo. t's it—Sonny Boy. [ have the title for it a That's what TM call my se Sonny Boy. Of course, there’s such a thin as unconscious plagiarism. Some- times a person hears something and it runs through his mind and d it. But I have been listening to the radio and going to vaudeville shows and listening to phono graph records, and still I don't recall hearing anything similar to this. Still, I don’t want to take any chance, so if any reader has heard a son E cently, I would appree’ he or she would write m a Fra the song and thus keep me out of trouble, since he actually believes he origi I get into enough just writing jokes. R. C. O'Brien comicbooks.com