Judge, 1931-10-31 · page 10 of 36
Judge — October 31, 1931 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "You're So Unreasonable!" This marital satire by Manas Dettrick depicts a husband's frustration with his wife's elaborate excuses for not writing a dinner invitation to his boss. The humor lies in the wife's escalating, circular logic: she can't invite them without knowing their address, can't suggest a show without knowing what they'll wear, can't pick a show without a dinner date, can't set a date until her dressmaker finishes her gown, and must wait for new evening shoes—all while claiming exhaustion. The cartoon mocks a particular 1920s-era marital dynamic: the wife as self-absorbed "prima donna" (referenced in the illustration caption) who weaponizes elaborate domestic complications and personal grooming needs to avoid tasks, while the exasperated husband becomes the unreasonable one for requesting simple assistance. The satire targets both the wife's performative helplessness and the husband's inability to manage her.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“You’re So Unreasonable!” By Manas Dertrick © you gotten that letter off “Letter? . . . Why, what letter, John?” “Darn it, the letter I asked you to write to the boss's wife to dinner and a show. “Oh, that. Mercy, I couldn't im: ine what on earth you were talking about.” “Well, gosh darn it, why the devil don’t you get busy and write it “Why, don’t I get busy and—well, for Heaven's sake, I certainly like that. As if I hadn't been waiting and ng for you to tell me their Is! If you insist on just de- rately postponin ielice m viting them the phone book— “Ou is that so? And how would I have known which one? There’re probably a million Whortlenortons— pages and pages of them. And I don’t so much as know their street ad- dress, even, I suppose you think I could easily hi letter off to somebody I didn’t even know where to send it to! I suppose you don’t real- ize I've been having to wait and wait for you to take your own sweet time to inform me of that, too!” gotte “For cripes’ sake, you never told JUDGE The Married Prima Donna Comes Down to Breakfast, ee EN “Just wait till I get that bloodhound!” “Look, Mama—I saved you buying me a pumpkin for Hallowe'en!” 8 me you didn’t know their address—" “And morcover I naturally couldn't have invited them to see a show with- out being able to tell them what they were invited to see, and, of course, you never have condescended to reach the point of finally telling me what you'd made up your mind you wanted to take them to see!” “TI told you long ago to go ahead and pick out something yourself—" “A Np you never decided where we were going to take them for din- ner, either, and I obviously couldn't propose the matter to them without giving them some faint suggestion as to how they'd be expected to dress! And you know I couldn't set a definite date till I found out when the dress- maker is going to have my new gown done, and you know I have to look for a new pair of evening shoes before I can go out any place, and you know how tired I’ve been feeling lately and that I'd rather put it off anyway until I felt better and got rested up—” “Oh, what the hell—put it off alto- gether! Drop it! Forget it, for Pete's sake! Cancel the whole idea.” hat? Why, John, you must of course I won't cancel the ‘Put it off altogether if that isn’t just like you whenever you make any plan that re- quires the least effort to put across.” “Well, dammit, try and get any codperation out of you on anything that might help me professionally or promote my advancement—” “Well, I certainly like that! When I'm the only one that’s keeping vou at this right now, when, if you had your way you'd give it up, completely comicbooks.com