Life, 1926-09-09 · page 10 of 40
Life — September 9, 1926 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece by Phyllis Ryan parodies the Cinderella fairy tale as a modern "big business" scenario. Prince George F. Charming arrives with a glass slipper, but the joke centers on commercial opportunism: he's portrayed as a salesman promoting the shoe's practical benefits rather than romance. The accompanying cartoons mock corporate efficiency and self-promotion. The humor targets early 20th-century business culture's obsession with marketing and salesmanship, even for something as traditionally romantic as a prince's quest. The slipper becomes a commercial product to be "endorsed" and sold rather than a symbol of love. The piece satirizes how American capitalism was infiltrating even classic romantic narratives.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
2 Prunella: you vskp TO WEAR CORSETS. WItY DID you GIVE THEM U Priscilla: 1 WADA COUPLE OF COMPLAINTS. Complete RTIST: I put into this picture everything that I had. Friexv (admiringly): Yes, and | should say that you put in everything your model had, too. Post: THAT PROHIBITION AGENT YoU WERE AGAINST 18 ONE OF THE HI R OFFICIA Parker: We AiN’T ABOVE TAKING MONEY, JusT uP Le Cinderella and Big Business RINCE GEORGE F. CHARMING picked up the glass slipper and looked at it with a speculative gleam in his 3 sing it into the back pocket of his rose-velvet ki he strode off, very princely, to summon the heralds and tribunes. With his usual efficiency he organized a posse and set out to comb the kingdom for that certain party. Cinderella lounged in the fireplace and wished she were dead. In her b-s-m lay the mate to the glass slipper. She had just rescued it from her mean old sisters, who had been using it for an ash-tray. She was sighing in an elegant manne “Wurra, wurra,” she sighed. “Wur: ing?” s Prince Charm- At that instant there were great goings-on in the street—shouts and cheers and a trumpet solo with a hot break. She rushed to the porch and found her two sisters being forced, ree in tan into a glass slipper which NOW You TELL ONE did not fit them, to the least. They were J with chagrin and looked ugly enough to satisfy even Cinderella. A large man, all pink . ” and white, leaned on his iE SOMrse, “ af horse. She recognized him the’ Congress : y as her lover. man to the farmer, She recognized the horse, “this talk of giving too, It was the royal you relief is nothing steed, Theresa M. of Wil- bat talk. mington. The prince spoke. “Come here, you lovely he purred amiably, “and give this game And, indeed, Cinderella was as she stood there, covered with ashes from I » her hair all over and her clothes half falling off. stepped forward and offered her grimy foot. . H. himself placed the slipper thereon with no trouble at all. Cinderella blushed with pleasure and the prince’s eyes blazed. h!” he cried. “So you're the lady who has been imprisoning her feet in glass shoes. Do you know that the feet need more care than any other part of the body? Do you want to spend your old age a slave to corns, bunions and fallen arches?” From his bejeweled doublet he drew forth a sample Now I have here,” he continued, “a shoe that not only fits well but looks well. It is endorsed by blah, blah, blah. ..”” You know the happy ending yourself. Phyllis Ryan. Loquacity LICE: Doesn't Marjorie talk a lot? Virainia: My, yes! You'd think that she was the dummy at bridge! comicbooks.com