Life, 1928-12-07 · page 13 of 64
Life — December 7, 1928 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **"Mr. Lardner's Christmas List"**—a humorous roster of names (likely celebrities, politicians, and public figures of the era) that Ring Lardner supposedly intended to give presents to, with a comedic final note that he "don't intend to" give gifts to most of them. The cartoon below depicts a domestic scene: a woman at a bathroom sink is attempting to gargle while a boy makes noise in the background. She pleads, "Bobby, please stop that noise—I'm trying to gargle." This is straightforward domestic humor about the conflict between a mother's grooming routine and a child's disruptive behavior—a relatable, timeless scenario requiring no historical context to understand the joke.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Mr Damon Runyon, Bill McGeehan, F. P. Adams, Dotty Parker, Greta Garbo, Thomas Meighan, Dave Belasco, Granville Barker, Mary Pickford, Lily Gish, H. H. Rogers, Stuyvey Fish, Herbert Hoover, Herbert Swope, John Roach Straton and the Pope, Henry Raleigh, C. D. Gibson, Thornton Wilder, Will Durant, Oscar Wilde and Henrik Ibsen, Mabel (“Peaches”) Willebrandt, Robert Benchley, Peter Kyne, Robert Sherwood, S. Van Dine, Helen Hayes and Ethel Barrymore, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, William Hearst and G. H. Lorimer, Edna Ferber, Frazier Hunt, Philip Armour, Arthur Mecker, Connie Mack and Tristram Speaker, Walter Catlett, Leon Errol, Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford, Irvin Cobb and Scott Fitzgeral’, . Lardner’s Christmas Dudley Digges and Pauline Lord, Oscar Shaw and Gertie Lawrence, Vilma Banky, Ernest Torrence, Florenz Ziegfeld, Charlie Dillingham, Alfred Smith and Chrystal Herne, George S. Kaufman, Jerry Kern, J. P. Morgan, Caleb Bragg, | Fielding Yost, Alonzo Stagg, James B. Cabell, Sherwe Anderson, John McCormack, Otto Kahn, H. L. Mencken, Julia Sanderson, Charlie Chaplin, Allan Dwan, Billy Sunday, Cotton Mather, Josie Herbst and Willa Cather, | Letty Grove and Edgar Guest, St. John Ervine, Percy Hammond, Buster Keaton, Buster West, Buster Collier, Buster Brown, Buster Up and Buster Down, George H. Ruth and Leo Donnelly, Charlie Ross and Marcus Connelly, | Big Ed Walsh and Willie Kamm and List 'Georgie Gershwin, Vincy Youmans, | All the Levys, all the Newmans, | All the Vanderbilts and Astors, | George Jean Nathan, Ed Lee Masters,— That's a partial roster or Eddie Wynn (that ever willing ham), | List of Pere I'm a friend to, Whom I ain’t bought presents for | And moreover don’t intend to. Ring Lardner. EVERLASTINGLY AT IT Cotumsus kept right on tying; Robert Bruce reales never to give up; Grant announced that he would do it, if it took all summer; and the clothiers of America continue to proclaim that styles in Men's wear change radically, at least once a year. THE ABSOLUTE MONARCH Wire: Oh, John; I’ve such bad news. Hussy: What's the matter, dear? Wire: The cook has ordered us to leave on Saturday. “Bobby, please stop that noise—I'm trying to gargle.” comicbooks.com