Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 18 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from the satirical magazine contains multiple short jokes and quips typical of 1920s humor. The main piece, "Hard to Explain!," plays on marital suspicion and double entendre. When a wife calls her husband at a mountain cabin to check on him, he claims to be "washing out my X, Y, Z's." The telephone operator interrupts, saying she's "wringing" them—a pun suggesting suggestive activity rather than laundry work, implying infidelity. The remaining items are brief gags about relationships: warnings about distracted driving while courting, the instability of love in canoes, aging women becoming nostalgic, marriage as complicated ("knotty"), and character observations. The humor relies on wordplay, innuendo, and domestic situations—standard fare for this era's populist comedy magazines aimed at working-class readers seeking irreverent, risqué entertainment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
16 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Hard to Explain! A bit in doubt as to whether her husband had gone to their mountain cabin with male escorts, friend wife decided to call up and find out. The following conversation took place: Husband—Hello! Hello! Wife—Hello, dear, what are you doing? Husband—Why, I was just washing out my X, Y, Z's. Central on the wire—I'm “wringing” them! Bang!!! * * * Mother may I a-riding go? Yes, my sweet Lucille But give your friend this sound advise, Keep one hand on the wheel. * * * All forms of love, I know tis true Are bound to cause a quake or two But still I'm betting, the most upsetting Is love in a canoe. * * * A girl is getting old when she begins to sigh over the pictures in the album. * * * Living together when tied with the bonds of matrimony is often a knotty life. * * * The solid man has no sediment in his make-up. * * * What is home without a cellar?