Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 50 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 50: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains satirical one-liners and jokes typical of 1920s humor magazines. The jokes target: **Gender relations and marriage**: Jokes mock both romantic idealization ("love like a rushing brook") and women's infidelity ("assistant husbands"), reflecting post-WWI anxieties about changing gender roles. **Modern women**: References to women smoking, dancing the "shimmy" (a scandalous dance), and the dark joke about "shooting their husbands" reflect concern over women's newfound freedoms during the Jazz Age. **Prohibition era**: The final joke about "Father will be home with a load" alludes to illegal alcohol smuggling during Prohibition—a common practice husbands undertook. **Hollywood culture**: A song lyric about bungalows in Hollywood reflects the era's fascination with California's emerging film industry. The humor is crude and misogynistic by modern standards, but represents period anxieties about women's liberation, changing social mores, and Prohibition's impact on American life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
48 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Plug it Up He—My love for you is like a rushing brook. She—Dam it! * * * Oh, for a world of equal balance. Here we find some women with no husbands atall, atall, while others have husbands and assistant husbands. * * * Women are like automobiles. Some are chummy road-sters and some are merely runabouts. * * * A New Melody One of the latest song hits in Southern California is “And we will get a little bungalow in Hollywood and live our own sweet way.” * * * Indeed, Aloysius, you're right—socks are the most frugal things in the world. They wouldn't think of dropping a scent until they're washed. Hoping you are the same, I am, Antiseptically speaking, Yours for safety first, Bilious Billy. * * * Do you need any typewriter supplies? Yes, send me two pounds of candy and a box of chewing gum. * * * About the only amusement women appear to have nowadays is smoking cigarettes, shaking the shimmy, and shooting their husbands. * * * We wonder where the pictures that used to hang in the bar rooms are now? * * * Here It Is Again Don't bother bringing in the firewood, Mother. Father will be home with a load.