Life, 1927-02-24 · page 7 of 39
Life — February 24, 1927 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page contains satirical humor pieces about early automobiles and social pretension. **Top cartoon**: A composite advertisement reader interrogates an automobile salesman's grandiose claims about quality, prestige, and manufacturing superiority. The satire mocks how car advertisements use extravagant language to sell relatively simple products, and how consumers are gulled by marketing rhetoric. **Bottom cartoon**: An automobile dealer introduces his brother (also a dealer) to his family, captioned "I want you to meet the wife and the little accessories." The joke satirizes how businessmen reduce their families to mere possessions or business assets—treating wives and children as commodities like car parts. Both pieces ridicule commercial excess and materialism of the early automotive era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Liffe The Composite Advertisement Reader Looks at an Automobile “WELL, Mr. Representative of a great industry with branches in principal cities, I want to see your latest model, that truly fine small car, with quality, leadership, a commanding position, world-wide prestige, pride of ownership, and a statement from the president of the company. “It must be of surpassing beauty, first in volume of sales, all that money can buy, recog- nized by discriminating womenkind, the forerunner of to-morrow’s vogue, the logical successor to the finer cars of yesterday, practically fool- proof, and a masterpiece of manufacturing genius which expresses the highest stand- ards, mects exhaustive tests, ranks high in the public's favor, improves with use, gives unbounded | satisfacti and has a dis- tinctive silhouette, changes, an illustrious clientele, a chassis by distinguished body builders, cushioned in rubber, and visited by fre- quent inspectors, A new experience we, and T asked the man who owns one, and I know that it is ineffably smooth, the ultimate in unfettered motion, and vibrationless beyond be- lief; but although arts and science, royalty and literature unite in the wost remarkable tribute ever paid to any motor car, still when better cars are built you will build them, and until then T shall be content with my “Stow OLD ARE you? “D SAID 1 WAS EIGH “Yes, BUT OW OLD ARE you Now?” bieyele, and can I have a little gaso- line to take off this grease spot from my vest? Tam much obliged. Good morning.” W. W. Scott. “PORTER tribute your » what do you at- failure to be ows Ponrtician: Hard work and clean living. Partial Comfort WHOSE love is given over-well Shall look on Helen's face in hell; While they whose love is thin and wise May view Jolin Knox in Paradise. Dorothy Parker. dutomobile Dealer (introducing a brother dealer to his family): soe, 1 WANT YOU TO MEET THE WIFE AND THE LITTLE ACCESSORIES. Aftermath Scene: Office of Live’s Alibi Con- test Judges. Time: One hour after the final award has been announced. The Judges are still prostrate. There is a knock. qhteen thousand disap- pointed Alibi Contest contributors enter menacingly. HEIR We really can't see the point to those prize- winning Alibis. What makes you think they are better than the ones we submitte Tir Jupers: was this w Spokesman: Well, you see, it Curtain They did not win the $50. L. C. Beutel. Pp. S. His Lucky Day let you in on a secret— mith’s wife has just left him.” at! Now what's the secret of it? AT the rate baseball scandal is progressing it will be years be- fore it is brought up-to-date. comicbooks.com