Judge, 1931-04-04 · page 11 of 36
Judge — April 4, 1931 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Judge Magazine Satire: "Dandy Handy Candy Bars" Contest This page satirizes corporate management through fake inter-office memos about a struggling candy company's promotional contest. The humor lies in increasingly absurd business logic: **The Setup:** Sales manager Duffield Stong proposes a $50,000 prize for essays answering "Why Is It So Hard to Sell Dandy Handy Candy Bars?"—ostensibly to get free market research while turning everyone into salesmen. **The Mockery:** Subsequent memos reveal the scheme's ridiculousness. One executive worries prizes might embarrass male buyers (suggesting gender-specific packaging), while another proposes a "find the candy bar" picture contest with no actual candy bar visible. **Social Context:** This reflects 1920s-30s corporate culture—the era of aggressive sales tactics, dubious marketing schemes, and management eager to solve problems through gimmicks rather than actual product improvement. The escalating absurdity satirizes how executives can justify increasingly convoluted ideas as "business innovation." The cartoons supporting the text show everyday frustration (lazy man buying rowing machines, people fleeing social obligations)—life's mundane ironies the candy presumably can't solve.
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JUDGE DANDY HANDY CANDY BARS, Inc. Inter-Office Memo From: Duffield Stong les Mgr. To: J. A. Tishweiler, Pres. Ox account of that prize contest you suggested I have had to have a confab with Mr. Loth and he says he thinks I spending too much money selling Dandy Handy Candy Bars. I want it understood that Dandy Handy Candy Bars are hard enough to sell without hav- strings on the purse. My men are always working at And just to show what I think of Loth his treasury conditions I suggest we offer a first prize ),000 for the best answer to “Why Is It So Hard to Sell Dandy Handy Candy Bars?” The advantage of this idea is that it would make everyone a Dandy Handy Candy Bar salesman beeause you can't tell why it is hard to sell a thing unless you dig in for first hand facts. If we have everyone in the country trying to sell Dandy Handy Candy Bars maybe more will be sold. Let us solve two problems with one stone in this way by attack- ing it from both ends and meeting in the middle, check with me on this you'll see that cause and effect become one by my pressure. If you super-sales method. Duffield Stong. Daxvy Hanxpy Caxpy Bans, Inc. Inter-Office Memo From: Orville Munix, Se To: J. A. Tishweiler, Pres. THINK it is a fine idea to give prizes : IT remember when we were seball game last summer my little boy always wanted me to buy him Cracker Jack because there were prizes in the problem seems to me to be, however, giving the right prizes to the right people. What I mean is, supposing a Dandy Handy that the prize in his ps lady's vanity case. He would be em- bought a The lazy man buys a rowing machine. o> < es AES TEBE, Siupwreex Strvivor—Well, anyway, we won't have to play bridge with the Smiths again tonight. “I'm gonna write a letter to ‘The Times’ about this!” 9 barrassed and maybe afraid to go home with it. Dandy Handy Candy Bars must not be the means for sepa- rating husbands and wives. And so I suggest that we have three different packages of Dandy Handy Candy Bars: males, females and kiddies. In this way our sales would multiply triple-fold because all our dealers would have to stock a complete line of each sex. Orville Munix. Daxvy Hanoy Canxpy Bans, Ine. Inter-Office Memo From: Ichabod Mindling, V. P. To: J. A, Tishweiler, Pres. Os ef the ideas 1 had for our prize contest was to have a picture and ask people to find the Dandy Handy Candy Bar, but there would be no Dandy (Continued an page 31) comicbooks.com