Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1922 · page 28 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #32 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from the satirical magazine contains several ethnic stereotype jokes typical of early 20th-century American humor. **"Our Chestnut Rack"** features Irish and Scottish stereotypes. Two Irishmen ("Pat" and "Mike") rob a Scotsman ("Sandy"), finding only a nickel—the joke being that Irish are portrayed as dim-witted criminals who don't realize how poor their victim is. The subsequent short pieces trade in crude ethnic caricatures: a poem about San Francisco mocking Irish speech patterns, another mocking Cubans/Hispanics with broken Spanish and food references ("hot tamale"), and dated slang humor ("'stoo bad"). **"Our Monthly Motto"** presents a flirtatious, sexist saying about preferring women in person to phone conversations. The final joke setup ("spoiled mulligan") likely references Irish stereotypes, with "mulligan" being a term sometimes applied to Irish people. This represents period-typical magazine humor relying on ethnic ridicule rather than clever wordplay—content that would be considered offensive today.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
26 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Our Chestnut Rack Two Irishmen held up a Scotchman, who had put up a terrific battle, but finally was over- come. After the two Irishmen had gotten San- dy's pocketbook, which was tied up with a stout string, they ran away. Unwinding the string and poking his fingers into the corners of the thing, Pat finally located a solitary five cent piece. Looking at it a mo- ment in silence, he turned to his companion and said, “My gausch, Mike, suppose he'd had a dime, he would have killed both of us.” * * * Here's to the good old sea gull, That cleans up Frisco's Bay; With a tummy full of sardines He flies to San Jose. * * * To Molly of Havana Mia Mamacita, she's una grande fool; She makes me hot tamale, Then sets it out to cool. * * * Our Monthly Motto “A girl in your arms is worth two on the 'phone.” * * * “Did you hear the joke about the spoiled mulligan?” “No.” “'Stoo bad, 'stoo bad.”