Judge, 1932-05-14 · page 10 of 36
Judge — May 14, 1932 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Greebish Ten Ft. Collapsible" – Judge Magazine Satire This is a mock advertisement by Travis Hoke satirizing American consumer culture and dubious product marketing. The "Greebish Parents Supply Co." (fictional) pitches an absurd invention: a collapsible ten-foot pole—supposedly solving the problem of the common saying "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole." The satire works on multiple levels: it mocks the gap between everyday expressions and practical reality, pokes fun at verbose sales pitches that manufacture "problems" to sell solutions, and ridicules consumer gullibility. The accompanying cartoons illustrate the pole's impracticality (sticking out of cars, being unwieldy in public). For modern readers: this reflects early 20th-century skepticism toward aggressive advertising and novelty products. The humor relies on recognizing how salesmen exploited figurative language to create nonsensical products, targeting desperate or credulous buyers. It's essentially proto-infomercial satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE The Greebish Ten Ft. Collapsible By Travis Hoke Ww" , friends, here is a dandy little novelty that I am prouder of even than my New Improved Fumbler for babies, and which ought to go like “hot” cakes. It meets the longest felt want that the Greebish Parents Supply Co. ever met, and we have been meeting same for many years and satisfaction guaranteed. It is the new Greebish Collapsible Ten Ft. Pole, for not touching with. How often have you said, I wouldn't touch he or she with a ten ft. pole, or else you heard certain parties ame? You said and heard it many the time, I Well, and good, but was there any ten ft. pole handy? Maybe there was if the saying was done at home but not likely, and how did you know the pole was ten feet, and almost always when you are on the street or at the meat store and you feel like not touching some- body with a ten ft. pole there isn’t any. It’s funny how n nature is, here people been going on ing that r and not having a pole and feeling need same and yet no body up to now has solved this problem. So I studied over it for quite some time, and I fig- ured out why people never have ten ft. poles when needed. It is because the length is too long, so that same will not fit in umbrella stands or on top of pianos, znd if taken on picnics it sticks out of the car and the “TI see you in H--l first!!" parties in the car back of you may make trouble unless you tie a red rag on like on the pipes on a plumber’s truck, so next time you y, oh, probably I won't need it, and you don’t it, but it turns out you practically ays need it at picnics because everybody brings the same thing for lunch, which is jelly sandwiches and devilled eggs, and nobody wants to walk down the street with ten ft. poles on account of the very parties they would not touch with same always yell at them how many did they catch. (They make out they think they been fish- ing.) So practically nobody has a ten ft. pole when needed. S° I invented a Collapsible pole that extends to ten ft. exact, but it collapse like a telescope down to vari- ous lengths as desired. Ladies like it in the size that collapse to say two foot, so that when carried in the c it looks like a music roll. Gents usually prefer the walking stick “I'm no hoarder, gimme a cent’s worth of them gum drops! !” length, and I have gotten up a spe- 8 comicbooks.com