Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, July 1921 · page 29 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #22 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humor advice column from *Whiz Bang*, a 1920s American satirical magazine. The page contains five Q&A jokes playing on wordplay and contemporary slang: 1. **"Third rail girl"** — a sexually dangerous woman (the third rail being electrified/deadly) 2. **"Height of indifference"** — dark humor about being emotionally numb to discomfort 3. **Kissing comparison** — crude joke implying both situations are unpleasant 4. **Book-borrowing problem** — solved by a joke about generational conflict (old man marrying a "flapper," the modern young woman) 5. **Camel feet insult** — plays on camels' desert adaptation, implying the woman's feet are dry/neglected The humor relies on period slang ("flapper"), insulting gender stereotypes, and puns. The advice column format itself parodies advice columns while offering deliberately unhelpful, joke-based responses. This reflects 1920s popular humor's reliance on insults and wordplay rather than situational comedy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 27 Questions and Answers Dear Captain Billy—What is meant by “A third rail girl?”—Inoa Recipe. It probably means one dangerous to touch. * * * Dear Captain Billy—What is your idea of the height of indifference?—Goofey Gander. Spilling coffee in your lap and not caring which leg it runs down. * * * Dear Captain Billy—What is the difference between kissing a horse and an ugly girl?—Paul Bearer. No difference whatever. In either case it’s a horse on you. * * * Dear Whiz Bang Bill—I am a great lover of literature, but find that friends borrow my books to read. Did you ever hear of anything like it?—Oliver Mudd. We know an old fogy who married a flapper. * * * Dear Captain Billy—My sweetheart got angry at me last night and said I had feet like a camel. What did he mean?—Rebeccah. He probably inferred that your feet had gone too long without water.