Judge — July 1938 — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

The picture magazine that ribs picture magazines. ™ Over one hundred pic- tures with comical captions. ™ It's the vogue, the fash- ion, the latest thing out. ™ We not only have readers but we have see-ers. Our vast seeing audience in America demands more than just pictures. "We want to laugh," says America. "We want to peek through the key- hole of life and chuckle at the whimsies of fate. Take the horror out of war, the grimness out of strikes, the pompousness out of politics. Give us pain- less pictures with a dash of side-splitting, rib-tick- ling humor." ® You can't suppress Amer- She'll laugh, or bust tryin'. Here's your chance to bust with laughter. ica. Ask Your News Dealer For ee Or send one dime to Bilbara Pub. Co., Inc. 18 East 48th St., New York City, New York of the time the fellows just shoot each other and we rarely have anything as hand to hand as this fight inside the sunken submarine, so I didn’t have any- thing to go on. But I remembered once a couple of years ago when I was do- ing the Ride Em Cowboy Hour for Bloted Oats I had a sock on the jaw and the sound effects man made that sharp crisp sound that you've got to have by taking a quick crunch on a stalk of celery. So I sent out for a stalk of celery and took a good bite out of it, but the controls man in the booth came out and said that didn’t do it at all; it was funny, but it sounded exactly as though I had just taken a good bite on a stalk of celery. We went through the sound effects locker but we couldn't find a thing. Somebody said that most noises are made just the opposite of the way you'd expect, so he soaked a sponge in water and dropped it on the floor, which cer- tainly doesn’t seem as though it would sound like a sock on the jaw. And it didn't, either; it sounded like a sock in the stomach and we were on the air in another five minutes. Then Larry Albertson, who has a low sulky voice and plays Madame Ulitsky the beautiful Russian, said to me sort of sneeringly, “What the hell are you get- ting paid for?” And I said, “What do you mean what the hell am I getting paid for?” And he said, ‘I mean what's the matter with rewriting the script so that one fellow plugs the other fellow, or is that a little too hard for you?” Well, I'd had the fellows plug each other every night for almost three weeks. One has one’s artistic con- science—you want a little variety now and then, and I had my heart set on that sock on the jaw. So I said, “I've got my artistic conscience, and good Lord, I guess I've done enough getting the fight inside a sunken submarine instead of a diamond mine, and I often wonder why other people don’t do something themselves instead of just standing around criticising other people.” And this Larry Albertson said, “For instance what?” And I said, “For instance why don’t they give some really constructive suggestions instead of just standing around criticizing other people?” And he said, “Maybe I might just take a crack at your flat face and see how it sounds?” And I said, “Maybe you might.” This Larry Albertson and my- self have never been such very hot friends, inasmuch as he is positively one of the most terrible actors I have ever written stuff for on the air and has no literary taste whatever, to the extent of not being able to recognize good force- ful dramatic writing with an appeal to the broad masses of the radio public when he sees it. He let one fly at me and I ducked—I used to write the stuff for the ex-Flyweight champion of the world—and let him have one over the heart and a good one on the point of the jaw and down he went like a sack full of broken glass. The controls man came dashing out of the booth all excited and said, ‘Boy, oh boy, it's perfect—how did you get it? It’s the best sock on the jaw that will ever have gone out on the air- waves, and it’s a good thing because just this minute we're on the air.” Well, we all looked flabbergasted at each other, not knowing what to do with Madame Ulitsky whom no man can re- sist out cold on the floor, but I passed the Ulitsky script to Eddie the office boy and whispered to him to sound as glamorous as he could on such short notice and we were off. Eddie put on a wavering falsetto that was very com- ical when you looked at his freckles and considered the fact that three front teeth were missing but of course the radio audience couldn't be expected to know that he wasn’t exactly a cross be- tween Garbo and Kay Francis and it was O.K. When the time for the fight came this Larry Albertson was just starting to shake his head groggily and I pulled him to his feet and gave him another good one with great pleasure and in a way the program was a great success. If any foreign countries had been listen- ing in they would have been insulted, but we insult a couple of foreign coun. tries every night, make a point of it, and of course the broad masses of the patri- otic young American public just eat it up. Next morning we got a lot of let- + ters from young American patriots aged from nine to fourteen asking what had got into Madame Ulitsky because she had suddenly got a little sex appeal for a change. The Crummy people were of course overjoyed to see how the public was taking an interest in our little spot, and they hired Eddie from an office boy to be Madame Ulitsky at a slight advance in salary till his voice changes. This Albertson is now on the streets where he belongs, though I hear he is about to accept a spot on the Fighting Ambrose Fifteen Minutes, a prize fight spot for I think it is Crumpled Crispies, which of course hands me a big laugh. A fellow who not only cannot recognize good dramatic writing but is also a dead set-up for a right jab—well, it hands me a big laugh. comicbooks.com