Life, 1921-10-27 · page 29 of 34
Life — October 27, 1921 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical feature about silent film tropes, with two cartoon scenarios: **"The Kiddie"**: Mocks wealthy young film stars who squander fortunes on luxury toys (Rolls-Royce cars, yachts, planes) and support idle fathers through allowances. The joke's dark punchline: when the child star's earning power fades with age, the father will sue him for non-support—reversing the dependency. **"The Fade-out"**: Parodies predictable movie endings: the villain gets booed, the hero and heroine elope in a Ford (a humble car, humorous contrast to the "Kiddie's" extravagance), virtue is its own reward, and the film ends with standard theatrical fade-to-black as theater lights dim. The bottom strip, "Advice to Tidy Housewives," appears unrelated—practical domestic humor about cigar ash management. Robert E. Sherwood's verse and John Held Jr.'s drawings satirize both child-star excess and formulaic silent-film conventions of the 1920s.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
October 27 fhe Cinema Primer Verses by Robert E. Sherwood the Kiddie The vouth-ful Star ex-pends his Gains On Toys like Yachts and Aer-o-planes; His “Kid-die Kar” is ve-ry Choice (‘Twas made by Mes-srs. Rolls and Royce), And, ev-’ry week, this gen-’rous Lad Gives an Al-low-ance to his Dad; But there’ll ar-rive a Time when he Will come un-to Mat-ur-i-ty, And—at that Dark and Fate-ful Hour When he has lost his earn-ing Power— His Dad will hale him in-to Court And sue the Brat for non-Sup-port. Drawings by John Held, Jr. Now all the Reels have been Un-wound, The Plot is run in-to the Ground, The Vil-lain (ve-ry right-ly) has Re-ceived the Or-der of the Razz, And (with the com-ing of the Dawn) The He-ro and his Mate have Gone Off Hon-ey-moon-ing in a Ford, (For Vir-tue is its Own Re-ward) ; The fi-nal Flick-er breaks the Spell, And all—as one might say—is Well, And so—the while the Lights grow Dim-mer— We'll pull a Fade-out-on this Primer Tue Enp. How to keep cigar ashes off the floor, comicbooks.com