Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, September 1921 · page 9 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #27 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three brief anecdotes rather than traditional cartoons. The content reflects early 20th-century American humor, including problematic stereotypes. The first anecdote uses an ethnic stereotype, presenting a Jewish farm worker named "Ikey" speaking in exaggerated dialect ("It won't be long now"), a common comedic device of the era. The second anecdote is a light travel observation about tourists visiting Minnesota, noting a car bearing a Pennsylvania license plate. The third anecdote describes a fishing expedition at "Breezy Point Lodge" in Northern Minnesota. The humor culminates in an absurdist tall tale: anglers catch a pike so large it had swallowed a fawn, which kicked through the fish's belly. This exaggerated hunting/fishing story type was popular frontier humor. The magazine appears to be a humor publication featuring this mix of everyday observations, ethnic jokes, and tall tales typical of early 20th-century American popular entertainment.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 7 “IT WON’T be long now,” insisted my new Jewish farm hand, Ikey, as he grabbed the axe this morning to cut the daily supply of wood. * * * WE SURELY are getting lots of tourists in Minnesota this year. Just at the close of the hunting season we saw a pennant on the back of a Ford of the vintage of 1904 or 1905 which read “Clymer, Pa.” * * * FISHING season was brought to an eventful close at my summer resort, Breezy Point Lodge, in the Indian country of Northern Minnesota this month and now all we have to do is sit around all winter and recount experiences with the hook and line. The day the season closed four of us boarded a raft and put out into Big Pelican Lake for a day’s angling. I had a very strong line and towards the close of the day was rewarded with a big bite from a Great Northern pike. The pike nearly ran away with the line, but the four of us held on and Mr. Fish pulled us almost to shore. When we reached shallow water we grabbed the line and made a half hitch around a tree while one of the party pumped the fish full of shotgun pellets. It was then we discovered that the fish had swallowed a young fawn and that the fawn, after being swallowed, kicked its legs through the belly of the fish, and thus the fish, when it reached