Judge, 1932-07 · page 11 of 36
Judge — July 1932 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explaining This Judge Page for Modern Readers This page satirizes Hollywood's jungle-adventure craze of the late 1920s-early 1930s. "Bull Perkins," a self-made athlete and carnival wrestler, writes to his father about landing a movie contract in Hollywood. The satire works on multiple levels: **The Setup:** Bull is a buffoonish ex-wrestler hired for a "Jungle Love" film, apparently because studios were copying the success of Johnny Weissmuller's *Tarzan* pictures (referenced explicitly). Bull is comically delusional about his talents and appeal to actresses. **The Joke:** The letter mocks both Bull's ignorance (confusing lions with apes in plot details, overestimating his charm) and the absurdity of low-quality jungle films being churned out to capitalize on *Tarzan's* popularity. **The Cartoons:** Illustrate the chaotic film production, with the bottom cartoon's caption—"That ain't smellin' salts—you fathead—that's chloroform!"—emphasizing the incompetence and danger of these rushed productions. The piece ridicules both wannabe actors and Hollywood's formulaic profit-seeking.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
by a white guy who has been brought up by lions, I tells Mr. Einstein I thought it was apes that brought the guy up. But he laughs at me and says I must be thinking about something else, because this is a new story with plenty of new twists. At that it is pretty good stuff and ought to knock ’em dead when it plays the big circuit. I rescue this girl from plenty of tight spots and once she falls into a swamp full of ‘gators. This is where Percy and I go into our dance, and is it a howl? The dame they got playing with me is called Dora Marris, Perkins and Marris in Jungle Love! How does it sound, eh? We are halfway through the picture now and start the big love scenes tomorrow. Marris don’t seem to warm up much to me yet, but wait until she gets a load of my technic. Say I didn’t ride back from all those Varsity games in rumble seats for nothing! These guys will soon realise that I have got every- thing to make them forget Valentino, Gilbert and all the other guys rolled into one. See me soon in your neighborhood playhouse, and meanwhile tell the girls back home to take down those old muggs off the wall and get ready for the picture of none other than Bull Perkins, Nature’s Perfect Man! Your Son, Bull. —REX DEANE “For Pete's sake—there’s a hornet in here!” Letters of a Self-Made Athlete DFA POP: This is your old film star Bull Perkins the lover with a Thousand Holds, talking from Hollywood. We blew in here last week and Percy and I quit the carnival like I said we would. I took a little bungalow out on Sunset Boulevard for thirty bucks a month, and it had a garage thrown in, too. That is where Percy sleeps. I met a Mr. Einstein here who makes his own movies. Mammoth Films, Inc., is what he calls them And when he finds out about me and Percy and our wrasslin act he goes nuts. It’s just like I told you, the whole town is Tarzan crazy. Every one wants to make one of those back- to-the-woods operas like the one Weismuller clicked in. So Mr. Einstein signs me up for six weeks at a hundred a week and Percy is to get fifty a week extra As far as I can savvy the story is about a girl and her father who get lost in the jungle, and get rescued “That ain't smellin’ salts—you fathead—that’s chloroform!” 9 Comicbooks.com