Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 54 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 54: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from the satirical magazine collects brief humorous observations and wordplay typical of 1920s American humor. The "Hic-trola" section mocks hiccupping—a drunk person trying to recite a poem phonetically, with "hic" (the sound of a hiccup) interrupting every line. It's a drinking joke. Other items satirize contemporary social changes: women's fashion (short skirts creating awkward situations on streetcars), the decline of religious faith (daughters consulting lawyers instead of praying), and generational shifts (modern women litigating rather than accepting hardship). "Luther Reed" reference likely alludes to a contemporary playwright, though specifics are unclear from the image alone. The humor relies on observational jokes about male vanity, corpulence, and life's minor frustrations—typical of this era's magazine humor, which favored wordplay and social commentary over elaborate narrative.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
52 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Try This On Your Hic-trola The old oaken hic bar rail; the brass hic bound bar rail; The foam hic spattered bar rail that hic hung by the bar; Hic— * * * Our Monthly Maxim Late in bed, early to rise, makes dark rings beneath the eyes. * * * Now that Luther Reed has written a villian-less play, the husband must be guilty of a bum cellar or something like that. * * * A New Version Here's to the short skirt and the street car steps. May they never meet. * * * The old fashioned woman who used to take her troubles to the Lord, has a daughter who now takes them to a lawyer. * * * If at first some men don't succeed they fail, and fail again. * * * A fat man has another advantage over his thin brethren—he knows exactly where his cigar ashes are going to land.