Life, 1926-04-22 · page 38 of 40
Life — April 22, 1926 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **trade advertisement**, not satire. Life magazine announces its expansion into motion pictures with animated comedies distributed through Educational Films Corporation. **Key points:** The page promotes that Life's editors—including famous humorist T.S. Sullivant and writer Robert Benchley—are creating cartoon shorts featuring animal characters in absurdist scenarios. Two comedies are advertised: "Red Hot Rails" (a joke about a train arriving on time) and "The Missing Link" (about a frankfurter in love). The pitch emphasizes that Life's comedies will avoid "hokum" and melodrama, instead focusing on humor that matches the magazine's 44-year reputation for making people laugh. Theater owners are encouraged to book these 26 planned shorts starting in July. This reflects the 1920s boom in animated shorts as theatrical programming, when established magazines like Life leveraged their brand and content into film production—a precursor to modern media franchising.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“CRE Life CARTOON ~ COMEDIES The Mirth of a KNation on the Screen Originality will be the distinguishing feature of the Life CAR- TOON COMEDIES. The old hokum will be studiously avoided. Brightness, Gaiety, Cheerfulness, and Spon- taneity —the qualities that are to be found in LIFE itself—will be evident in every picture. The Life CARTOON COMEDIES are based on ideas that appear in the magazine. The most celebrated humorists in America will, therefore, be available for contribu- tions to this series. IFE is going into the movies! The same men who edit and publish America’s first and foremost humorous magazine are now preparing a series of cartoon comedies, which will reproduce, on the screen, the brilliant type of humor that has made Lire famous. The characters in the Life CARTOON COME- DIES are animals, not unlike the animals that emerge from the ina- tive brain of T. S. Sulli- vant. Their adventures will be wild, hilarious and utterly illogical; but they will be funny Lire’s movie productions will not be two-fisted melodramas of the open spaces —or even daring exposés of social hypoc- risy in New York’s Four Hundred; they will be comedies, designed primarily to make people laugh. The actual preparation of the comedies is su- pervised by the editors of Lire—Charles Dana Gibson, R. E. Sherwood and Robert Benchley. The productions are under the direction of Mason M. Wadsworth and other men with wide experience in motion pictures. The first of the Life CARTOON COME. DIES is “Red Hot Rails,"’ a gripping thriller in which the Westbound Limited surprises every one by arriving on time. That has been the mission of Lire for forty-four years—to make people laugh. These comedies will serve to increase the scope of Lire’s activities as a medium of entertainment. The Life CARTOON COMEDIES will be released through the Educational Films Corporation, the acknowledged leader in the distribution of short pictures. The second comedy, “The Missing Link,” is the tender love story of a frankfurter who went astray. Watch for the Life CARTOON COME. DIES. They will fill a long-felt want in the movics. Notion Picture Theatre Owners: There are readers of Lire in every city, town and hamlet in the United States and Canada. They appreciate the high reputation of the magazine itself, and they will watch eagerly for Life CARTOON COMEDIES. Twenty-six of these comedies will be released, starting in July. Ask your local Educational exchange about them. They will SHR<BEES ETRE CROGRANE put Lire into your program. __ (BUD TERNAL PRINTING CORPORATION. BROOKLYN, NEW YORK comicbooks.com t