Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1922 · page 5 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #32 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical column mocking Hollywood's emerging celebrity culture circa the 1920s. The author criticizes the film industry's approximately 30,000 workers—particularly actors—for ostentatious behavior: wearing flashy clothes, driving loud cars with vanity plates (referencing "Fatty" Arbuckle's "606"), and throwing rowdy parties. The satire targets two culprits: the celebrities themselves and their press agents. The author argues that press agents deliberately exaggerate mundane events—a simple home party becomes a "Neroesque orgy"—to manufacture scandal and publicity. The reference to Waldemar Young (likely a screenwriter/publicist) suggests this was a known practice. The joke's final twist is begrudgingly envious: despite mocking their antics, the author admits Hollywood people probably do have genuine fun and excitement—which ordinary readers lack. It's early celebrity-gossip satire highlighting the gap between manufactured image and reality.
📄 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 3 Drippings From the Fawcett READERS of this little bundle of farm- yard foolishness and filosophy may have gotten a kick out of some of our jabs at —on the Pacific Coast near Los Anglaise. There are estimated to be about 30,000 peo- ple engaged in the motion picture industry in Hollywood and environs. Out of this crew there are a lot of lame-brains, a goodly sprinkling of nincompoops, who flaunt their peccadillos with a too-apparent wish to have them noticed and press-agented. They wear brass-band clothes, ride around in noisy cars with license tags like “Fatty” Arbuckle’s “606,” and live noisy lives. By the very nature of their employment they are in the public eye and everything they do comes under the public’s microscope. Every move they make is published to the eager world by their zealous press agents. A home-brew party in a bungalow comes forth a “Neroesque orgy in a mansion,” as Waldemar Young put it. And yet, goodness knows, they probably have enough of the real kind—and we envy them.