Life, 1927-12-08 · page 29 of 40
Life — December 8, 1927 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical cartoon about coin-operated fortune-telling weighing machines, popular at the time. The joke mocks the machines' absurd personality readings based solely on weight. The cartoon follows a street-cleaning worker and other patrons as they step on a scale that dispenses cards with flattering but ridiculous character assessments. A "cruelest gunman" receives a card praising his sweetness; a man with less imagination than a horse gets praised for psychic powers; a heavy woman is told she possesses "grace of a fawn." The satire targets two things: (1) the pseudoscientific pretension of these machines, which claimed to divine personality from body weight, and (2) the universal inauthenticity of their praise—everyone gets compliments regardless of who they are, making the readings worthless. The humor depends on readers' familiarity with these novelty machines, once common at arcades and amusement parks. The final line ("I'm getting tired of being stepped on") provides dark comedy about the operator's perspective.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Few Minutes in the Life of a Weighing Machine HERE comes a poor egg who has pushed a street-cleaning broom for twenty years...wonder if he'll get weighed. yep, he did. ..a hun dred and forty-eight pounds. . . let's see, what card will I give him... good -You Ane Lancety Onoinat ix Your Orena- vions AND Your Ipeas Are Too Par Apvancep to Permir You to Remain IN Paces... see this bozo stepping on me now... he’s the cruelest gunman in the city hundred and ninety-four pounds . this card oughta give him a laugh »-You Are Very Sweet anp Lovety 1x Spite or Your Ten- pexcy to Worry Your Lire Our Over Trirces ann You Atways Win tun Love ann Texner Re- carp op Otiers...look at this shrimp. ..he has imagination than a horse’s hoof...a hundred and seventeen pounds...You Have Some Psycitc Power anno Arr Fonp or tuk Occurt anp Mysterious... hope that big dame don’t step on me whe she did...two hundred ninety-seven pounds. .. You tue Freetness or Tue with THe Grace or A You Love tur Dance 1 lay off me for a wh here’s a one. . Suporpinate less ind Comnine Gazer Fawn, wish th .I'm getting tired of being stepped on all the time.... Robert Bo: The Only Thing REEN: Do you know of any- thing that will stop falling hair? Brown: Yes, catch it while it is falling, old top. IVE. a man a couple of loud ties and it’s Christmas. FAIR CO-ED: Do you play basketball? SHEIK: No, right now I'm going in for hockey. Life Fitrr is The Sunshine City’ as you would see it fr On Woe left is Mirror Lake; on the right is ‘ampa B ful J Recreation Pier; in the center is Ss. Pesersburg's | Everyone Has a Good Word for “The Sunshine City” HEREVER you are, wherever you may go, you will find that everyone who has visited St. Petersburg has a good word for “The Sunshine City.” It is only natural to infer that there must be a sound reason for such universal favor. And there is! St. Petersburg has not “just grown”™ to its present enviable position as one of the leading resort centers of America. Na- ture, it is true, gave this city the advantages of a marvelcus climate and a matchless location. But to these the citizens of St. Petersburg, with a definite plan, have added almost everything possible to make it an ideal community in which to live, a mest delightful playground, the resort me: tropolis of Florida's Gulf Coast. All Kinds of Fun Among other things theSunshine City has rovided what is be- lieved to be a greater variety of recreation and entertainment thanistobeenjoyedin any other city of the South. There's never moment here always son aviation highways... bowlin: train here). weekly. There are twice daily there's the one of the finest in the w lectu Su ate: concerts, of the ment almost " Jreds of fi and hui s are moderate. eneral nd and ftPeter rida “The Sunshine City comicbooks.com