Life, 1928-11-23 · page 23 of 36
Life — November 23, 1928 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts a prizefighter asking his doctor to let him finish a boxing match so he can achieve "All-American" status—enabling him to endorse Lucky Strike cigarettes. This satirizes the commercialization of sports and athletes, mocking how athletic achievement had become merely a stepping stone to lucrative endorsement deals rather than an end in itself. The lower section contains humorous dialogue featuring working-class characters speaking in exaggerated ethnic dialects (likely Italian immigrants), discussing shoe-shining work and small-town economics. The tone is comedic rather than malicious. The final joke about a surgeon performing a prizefighter's appendectomy, referring to the incision as "where I slice into the rough" (golf terminology), plays on the boxer's athletic background for a pun. The page satirizes American commercialism, celebrity endorsements, and working-class immigrant life, using humor typical of early-to-mid 20th century American magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Please let me finish the game, Doc—I gotta make the All-American—so's I can indorse Lucky Strikes.” Philosophy trouble—no time for chase women an’ drinka bumma hootch.” “What do you do with all your tion of only three hundred and twenty- “ 5 Sg 1 ff our town had a popula- Stine ‘em dark, Gus. ee . K., boss.” low’s business?” “ . : My meesus she taka an’ putaway in | imately two thousand. “You aart 20 tad Bot 9 good. bank. Getta reech. Some day stoppa shoe | “Discover oi “Sure “always ‘canna keeck but whatsa | Shine—jus’ sitta ‘roun'—sleepa alla time.” | “No, we have a Chamber of Commerce lif’? Keeck lika anyt'ing don't make| |,You'd get tired of doing that." _—_| now. mora peopla getta shoe shine. Keeck da | Maybe yes, maybe no. W hen I get| ————— weath’, rain come anyway.” seecka jus’ sitta roun, I go out an make | DON’T PRESS NOW, DOC! “I guess you must work pretty hard | Some oth’ fella gimme shoe shine.. at that, Gus.” Wanna put in newa laces, boss?” “Sure worka hard. Keepa fella outta Robert Lord. money?” five souls. This year we have approx- “Here,” said the famous surgeon as he prepared to lift the prizefighter’s ap- | pendix, “is where I slice into the rough.” comicbooks.com