Judge — May 21, 1921

# Analysis This page is primarily **promotional content**, not a cartoon or satirical article. It's an advertisement for *Judge* magazine itself, titled "Making the Clock Tick a Smile a Minute." The text argues that *Judge* serves an important social function by providing humor and laughter to readers. It emphasizes that the magazine's writers and artists work hard to find genuine, "honest-to-goodness humor" among submissions, carefully curating content. The piece notes recent improvements in *Judge's* sketches, poems, and pictures, claiming each issue is "a rib-tickler." The advertisement concludes with a pitch for subscriptions: readers can pay one dollar for ten weeks rather than buying individual issues on Tuesdays. It reflects *Judge's* position as a major American humor publication competing for readership during the early-to-mid 20th century.

# Analysis of "Judge" Magazine, May 21, 1921 **The Cartoon:** Walter De Maris illustrates a scene showing figures in what appears to be a dark interior space. The dialogue reads: "Are you a real bandit?" / "Sure. Now be quiet!" / "Oh, I'm so glad. I was afraid you were just a common burglar!" **The Satire:** This is a class-based joke playing on 1920s social distinctions. The speaker expresses relief that their robber is a "bandit" (perhaps suggesting someone with romantic or political credentials—possibly referencing Robin Hood-style outlaws or revolutionary figures popular in post-WWI discourse) rather than a mere "common burglar" (ordinary criminal). The humor satirizes how even victims could be snobbish about the *type* of criminal victimizing them, reflecting period anxieties about class status and crime during Prohibition-era America.

# Analysis This is a fashion satire page drawn by E.W. Kemble. The caption states "Tucks in various styles and shades will be the vogue in Hicksville this summer." The drawings appear to mock rural or small-town fashion trends through exaggerated caricatures of men wearing various hats (bowlers, cowboy hats, caps) with prominent facial hair. Several figures say "Howdy Cy!" and "Howdy Hy!" — suggesting rural male nicknames. The satire targets the adoption of "tucks" (pleated fabric details) as fashionable in a provincial setting called "Hicksville." By depicting rough, whisker-faced men in crude clothing discussing these supposedly fashionable details, Kemble mocks the incongruity between high-fashion trends and their adoption in unsophisticated rural communities. The humor lies in imagining frontier types taking city fashion seriously.

# Analysis of "Radio Wrinkles" Page **The Cartoon:** The top cartoon depicts a man (labeled "head") operating what appears to be an early radio device, telling an alligator "I haven't the heart," while the alligator asks "Wonder what ails master?" The caption explains that a man named Dorf kept alligators as traveling pets but has grown too fond of them to kill for new suitcases—hence his dilemma. **The Story Below:** "Radio Wrinkles" is a comedic piece satirizing early radio communication. It mocks the chaos of international radio broadcasts, depicting garbled messages, crossed signals, and absurd misunderstandings between callers in different cities (Jerusalem, Detroit, Halifax, Paris, Edinburgh, Moscow). The humor relies on readers' familiarity with radio's notorious technical unreliability and the comedy of miscommunication across distances—a cutting-edge technology still novel enough to be funny.

# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page **Top Cartoon ("When a Man's in Love"):** This appears to be a humorous domestic scene showing a couple's telephone conversation being interrupted by various mishaps—vehicles crashing, chaos ensuing. The satire mocks how romantic couples monopolize phone lines with trivial conversation while causing disruption, a contemporary concern when shared party-line telephone systems were common. **Bottom Cartoon ("Tired Business Man—Nothing like Golf for Outdoor Exercise"):** This satirizes the leisure activities of businessmen during Prohibition era. The "ice" vendor (likely concealing alcohol) serves drinks to golf players, mocking the hypocrisy of supposedly "respectable" businessmen secretly obtaining illegal liquor during Prohibition. Both cartoons employ visual exaggeration to critique 1920s social behaviors and technology.

# Judge Magazine Page Analysis This early 20th-century satirical page contains several humor pieces: **Main Cartoon (top):** A woman viewing modern art in a gallery dismisses Futurism as unwelcome, saying she'll never live to see such things. The satire mocks both avant-garde art movements (Futurism) and presumably conservative resistance to modernism. **"The Original Thought":** A mordant commentary on originality—the author believes he's had a novel idea until discovering the same thought in the Bible, suggesting there's "nothing new under the sun." **"The Problem":** A racist dialect joke stereotyping Black Americans, using offensive language and perpetuating harmful caricatures common to early 20th-century American humor. **"Nursery Stuff":** Darkly humorous nursery rhyme variations, including one mocking labor movements (the "eight hour day" complaint). **"Do You Get It?":** A doctor joke: a patient leaves cured simply because the doctor has no prescription blanks—satirizing medical practice or hypochondria. The page reflects period attitudes, including casual racism, that modern readers should recognize as historically revealing rather than humorous.

# "Some Neglected Historical Facts" This Judge magazine page presents humorous pseudo-historical "corrections" about famous historical figures. Each panel offers absurd, made-up "facts" presented as if rectifying overlooked history: - **Napoleon** never wore a van dyke beard (contradicting common depictions) - **Julius Caesar** wasted no time hunting collar buttons (anachronistic humor—collar buttons didn't exist in Caesar's era) - **Columbus** preferred classical music to jazz and cars (anachronistic again) - **Noah** had no middle initial - **Rome's fire department** was "practically a failure" (likely referencing Nero myths) - **Adam** was detained at his office and never shaved - **Shakespeare** hand-wrote all his plays The satire mocks the tendency to invent or misremember historical "facts," presenting deliberately absurd claims with mock-serious authority. It's gentle humor about how historical narratives become distorted or embellished through repetition and popular culture.

# "Scared Off" - Judge Magazine Satire This page's main cartoon depicts a young man trying to propose to a wealthy man's daughter, but the father interrupts repeatedly, assuming the visitor represents one of many creditors. The father lists mounting debts: a tailor's bill for a riding habit, damages from a carriage accident, unpaid Scotch golf clubs, a lawn circus subscription, a milliner's bill of $600, and shoes costing $375. Each time the young man attempts to explain his actual purpose, the father mistakes him for a different creditor. The suitor eventually flees in embarrassment without ever stating his intentions to marry the daughter. **The satire targets** the extravagant spending habits of wealthy young women in the early 1900s—their expensive tastes in clothing, sports equipment, and entertainments created such substantial debts that a potential suitor cannot even gain an audience with the father. The joke suggests that courting a wealthy girl is impossible because her creditors have already monopolized her father's attention and finances.

# Political Cartoon Analysis: "The Eagle Eye Rifle Club Celebrates Its Annual Target Shoot at Yapp's Crossing" This is a crowded satirical illustration depicting a small-town gathering. The cartoon mocks a rural American community through exaggerated chaos—children, animals, and adults occupy a central square lined with business storefronts (meat markets, dentistry, real estate offices, etc.). The satire appears directed at the "Eagle Eye Rifle Club" and the town of "Yapp's Crossing." The caption's note indicates that "worthy citizens" requested Judge publish this image to mock the town's reputation, explicitly disclaiming association with "the Island of Jap or the controversy now raging in the public print about the last-named benighted place." The reference to "Jap" suggests this cartoon coincides with anti-Japanese sentiment, possibly relating to early 20th-century U.S.-Japan tensions. The cartoon ridicules rural American towns as backward, disorganized places—a common Judge magazine trope mocking provincial life compared to urban sophistication.

# What This Page Contains This page from *Judge* magazine presents several unrelated humorous items: **"What Killed Methuselah?"** uses biblical genealogy as the framework for a joke: the article calculates that Methuselah died at age 969, the same year as Noah's flood, leaving ambiguous whether he died of old age or drowned—a play on the absurdity of extreme longevity. **The cartoon** depicts a social gathering where a daughter describes attending a lecture by an impressively tall, dark man with a "pointed beard," but admits she didn't get a program identifying him. The humor lies in her focusing on his physical appearance rather than his actual lecture content—satirizing how audiences (particularly women, per period stereotypes) prioritize social gossip over intellectual substance. The other items are brief jokes about life's minor annoyances and social observations typical of the era's light humor.

# "Off Duty" by Walt Mason (illustrated by Ralph Barton) This is a humorous satirical story about widespread shirking of professional duties. The narrator attempts to hire lawyers and tradesmen but finds them all absent, pursuing leisure activities instead: one attorney is joyriding in a new car at "ninety miles an hour," another is golfing, a third is fishing with buttermilk and a corkscrew. The satire extends to ordinary workers—bakers neglecting their ovens, grocers abandoning shops for baseball games, tinners pursuing medal-winning greasy-pole climbing contests instead of their trades. The moral anxiety is explicit: this culture of play-over-work will destroy society ("in ten years or maybe four the world will be a wreck"). The piece reflects early 20th-century anxiety about leisure culture and work ethic, presenting recreational pursuits as dangerously seductive distractions from civic and economic responsibility. The illustration shows fashionably dressed leisure-seekers in stark contrast to the abandoned storefronts.