Life, 1928-08-23 · page 30 of 36
Life — August 23, 1928 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical humor page featuring short jokes and anecdotes from various sources, lampooning modern life circa the 1920s-30s. **Key satirical targets:** - **Poverty & education**: A street beggar says school wouldn't help him anyway—mocking both his hopelessness and institutional failure - **Consumer culture**: A man does exercises because his son bought a toy car—absurd materialism affecting family priorities - **Early talking pictures**: A movie supervisor demands retakes over trivial sound details, satirizing overzealous new technology adoption - **Marriage/relationships**: Multiple jokes mock women (chorus girls after money, wives as economic burdens) and men's romantic foolishness - **Economic anxiety**: References to stock market losses and installment buying reflect Depression-era financial precarity - **Class divisions**: Servants, working men, and the wealthy appear as distinct social types The cartoon style is simple line-drawing caricature. The humor relies on irony, exaggeration, and period-specific social anxieties about modern life, technology, consumerism, and gender relations. The international attribution (London, Paris, Mexico City) suggests Life reprinted humor from foreign publications.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Our Foolis LIFE “Aut Scissors aut Nullus” “Begging on the streets again! Didn't I tell you you'd do better to go to a school?” Yes, sir; I went, but they wouldn't give me nothing.” “What are you doing reducing exercises for? You're not fat." “No, but my boy has bought a baby model car."’ —Evtrveooy’s Warxiy (Loxpox). WHEN IS AN AMATEUR? Finst Atipere: Are you an amateur or a pro- fessional? Secon Dirro: That is what I would like to know.—St. Lowis Post-Dispatch. “M. with elephant for outdoor advertising work."—The World, Ovr ideal outdoor advertising man is a man with restraint, not clephants.—New Yorker. —Exctrsion (Mexico Crry). CONVALESCENT Ove little Doris, after a month's illness, seems to be getting a little better. In a typical mo- ment yesterday she called us twelve cents’ worth of bad names, at four cents a name, threw a glass of water at her sister, played the reed organ with a hammer and climbed under a bed to make faces at her mother. *‘Just what do you think you are?"’ we asked. “I'm a skunk," she announced with an air of pride.—Chicago Evening Post. Berwaro: But why won't you marry me? Is there someone else? Berry: Well—er—I hope so.—Answers. “"Hey—instead of throwing my hat to the toreador, you might throw him your own!" “'Imfpossible—mine's a new one." —L'Iccusrearion (Panis). e x ntemporaries n — of ‘oc . ie: THE DIALECTICIAN AND THE TALKIE A Mytiicat story of a movie “supervisor” og pe a talking picture is that, while looking at and e listening to the rushes, he exclaimed: sig “Retake on that!"* “Why?" said the director. ‘There's nothing wrong there."* he “Yes, there is,"’ replied the super. “I coulda't hear the final *k’ in ‘swimming.’ "Variety ser wi loo iD tes be Cc ba “That's Mrs. Warrior's third husband, isn't i?" = “Yes. She's two down and one to go." —Sprorrinc anp Dramatic News (Lonvoy), g THE INSTALLMENT AGE ! “‘Jostrn, if your father could save a dollar a week for four weeks, what would he then have?" “A phonograph, a new suit, a refrigerator and a set of furniture.""—Country Gentleman The Poor Working Man “There, sir, you see it ain't just vacation time for everybody.” —Le Penix Burv (Panis). WELL! WELL! Tree was once a wealthy business man who was wooed and won by a chorus girl. But o the evs of the wedding he told her that he had lore riost of his money on the Stock Exchange: “There is just enough left,"* he sighed, “to tke a smill house in the suburbs—that is, if you sl want to marry me." “What does money matter,’ said the chors girl, ‘while we have each other?" So they got married. But on the day after the wedding she fousd ut that he really had Idst his money. —Lindon Calling. comicbooks.com