Life, 1929-05-31 · page 30 of 36
Life — May 31, 1929 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page collects brief humorous quips and cartoons typical of 1920s satirical magazines. Key content includes: **Main cartoon**: "Podgkins decides to buy a flesh-reducing roller"—a multi-panel joke about a rotund man using an exercise device that paradoxically makes him fatter, mocking both weight-loss products and their ineffectiveness. **Social references**: - A jab at "talkies" (early talking films), suggesting American actresses need voice doubles for polysyllabic words - A crack about Lindbergh being overshadowed by celebrity even at his wedding - A reference to **Mabel Willebrandt**, a Prohibition enforcer, implying she's so strict she'd sabotage the Statue of Liberty's torch (which actually went out in 1924) **Other gags**: Include rural electrification jokes, cinema costume anachronisms, and drunken homelife humor—typical period comedy reflecting post-war American anxieties about modernity, Prohibition, and changing social norms.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
28 The only ambition in life a paper napkin has is to get down off a diner’s lap and play on the floor. —Kay Features. Visrror: Tell me, is this village lighted by electricity? Inuasitant: Only when there’s a thunderstorm, —Tit-Bits, Docror (inquiring after boy who had swallowed a half dollar): How is the boy today? Anxious Morner: No change yet. —Satyr. A cinema is showing a film made twenty years ago. The costumes worn by the characters are strange to modern patrons, who, however, owing to their familiarity with the films of today, immediately recognize the dear old plot. —London Opinion. ON RoweR y i nT) iff Repuces PANE and after daily and thoroughly— sean pate? London Opinion. “My word, sir, you are in form today! This is the biggest divot I've ever ‘andled!” —Punch (by permission). A critic says that the “talkies” pre- sent a problem to many American ac- tresses. I am told that some of them have doubles for words of more than three syllables. —Passing Show. Lindbergh will be considered impor- tant, even at his own wedding. —Tom Sims for Kay Features. Consraste: Come along, sir. Haven't you got a home of your own to go to? Tue Gentieman (who has had @ good time): Yesh—but there's a wife in it. —Humorist. The torch upheld by the Statue of Liberty went out recently. It was of- ficially stated that it was an accident caused by a broken cable, but a good many people will continue to think it was blown out by Mabel Willebrandt. —New York Evening Sun. comicbooks.com SS) Ree. a. eo