Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 53 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 53: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains satirical humor typical of 1920s American magazines, mixing nursery rhyme parodies with social commentary: **"Mother Goose Revamped"** modernizes the classic rhyme about the girl with a curl, replacing innocent morality with innuendo—when she's "bad," she becomes "very INTERESTING," suggesting scandalous behavior. **"Mary's Little Lamb"** similarly subverts the original, replacing the lamb with a "pretty limb" (leg). The joke concerns post-WWI fashion: women wearing shorter dresses to display legs, framed as "tact" rather than impropriety. **The Town Tankard quote** satirizes hypocrisy: condemning vices publicly while privately indulging them. **The "Anna Lyzer/Para Lyzer" line** appears to be wordplay—possibly "analyzer/paralyzer"—though its specific reference is unclear. **The Miss Featrice Bairfax notice** parodies advice columnists while joking that wartime France has made her unshockable regarding romantic scandals. Overall, the page reflects post-WWI social anxieties about changing morality and women's behavior.
📄 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 51 Mother Goose Revamped I once knew a girl Who wore a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead And when she was good She was very, very good But when she was bad She was very INTERESTING. * * * First we abolish what we consider an evil, opines the Town Tankard, and afterward se- cretly embrace it. * * * Mary's Little (?) Lamb Mary had a pretty limb, She realized the fact— That's why she wore her dresses short She showed a lot of tact. * * * No, Dia, Anna Lyzer is not a twin sister of Para Lyzer. * * * We are surely tickled to death that Good Friday does not fall on Easter Sunday. * * * Notice! Miss Featrice Bairfax who conducts the de- partment of this great military journal of uplift, will advise you on your matrimonial and love affairs. Write to her freely; she has been in France long enough not to be shocked. * * * ---What'll it be, Gents, a lollypop or a nut sundae?