Judge — November 1937 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NOTE TO INVESTORS [ees anyone with a little spare cash to invest would get in touch with me because I have what I think is a good money-making scheme. I want to go into the champagne business. 1. want to go into it from a different angle. So far all the vintners make champagne exclusively for drinking, and most of it costs quite a lot, so much that, in this country at least, the majority of citizens have never tasted the stuff. However, I'm not interested in bring- ing down the price of drinking cham- pagne. My idea is to produce squirting champagne—for use on mayors, report- ers, tax collectors, traffic cops or any- body the average citizen feels like squirt- ing. The way things are now only a small fringe of society can afford to buy champagne and then go around squirt- ing it at people, and the result is that altogether too many people are re. pressed. Put a good lively squirting champagne within reach of the common people's pocket book, and you'll see a good deal less of these horrible crimes we've been reading about. It will give people a healthy outlet. Of course some people may claim that ordinary charged water would serve the purpose, but I don’t think so. The bot- tles aren't fancy enough. Speaking for myself I could never get a lift from squirting people with a bottle that didn’t look like a champagne bottle and wasn't marked champagne. I realize I may mun into difficulties here because there seems to be a law that only the produce of certain districts in France may be marked “champagne.” However, I think I see a way out. The French, as we know, aren't averse to turning an extra penny or two and my idea would be to pay the French vintners association a reasonable sum in return for the privilege of marking our bottles “CHAMPAGNE” in big letters with the word “Squirting,” printed very small, preceding it. After all this is in accord. ance with a well-established custom. For instance some theatrical advertisements announce: ‘Orchestra seats $1.00," and then add, in very small print: “Wed. matinees.”” Now, to get back to the bottles, it occurs to me that our organization would do well to recognize another well- established principle, to wit that the American public demands variety and, with everything from cigarettes to auto- mobiles, wants a number of competing varieties—ostensibly competing at any rate. If we can sell the French on letting us use the word “Champagne” we can also, I feel confident, sell the important French exporters on the idea of permit- ting us to label squirting champagne Pommery, Heidsick, Pol Roget, and all the rest. This would give every one the November 1937 rivilege of squirting with his favorite Erand, and it would create price differ- ences which are essential in modern mer- chandising. We would also have vintage years, some superior to others, and, if things go well, this is how a conversa- tion between two of our steady custom. ers might go, in, let us say, 1947. “Say, Harry, this stuff is swell. I got Mrs. Sanders right in the eye with it at twenty-five feet. It's Pommery 1939. °39 was a good year.” “Well, it was a pretty good year. Of course '38 was the Bese so far, but I just can't afford $2.60 a case. Now this Roget ‘41 sets me back $1.85. Of course that wasn’t such a good year, but I really don’t have to have an awfully livel: brand. Our living room's pretty small. Last Christmas I splatged a bit, though, and got three bottles of Chateau Yquem at thirty-five cents straight. My wife's family were visiting and—well, you know how it is.” “Sure, They say Frank Thatcher won't have anything else, but you know how . much Frank’s making these days. He told me that he got Shirley Temple, Senator Copeland and Sinclair Lewis with it all in one week. Of course he can travel all over the country, the lucky stiff.” “Say, have you heard anything about this Heidsick '42? They say it’s out- selling ory other brand right now.” “I wouldn't doubt it from the way they've been advertising it—And with young Roosevelt endorsing it.” “OF course it's fairly expensive.” “Well, it ought to be. It keeps in a thin stream, and doesn’t scatter the way some of these cheap brands do. Roose- velt claims he got a chamber of com- merce secretary with it at sixty feet. That's going some you know.” DO hope I can interest a few le I in this “A few hundred thousatd d ot. lars and there's no limiting to where Squirting Champagne, Inc., can go. In short order we'll have the American public gloriously unsuppressed and hap- pily familiar with our slogan: “A squirt. ing a day keeps the alienist away.” —Parke CUMMINGS. comicbooks.com