Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, May 1922 · page 32 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #33 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a 1920s-era humor magazine) contains several brief jokes typical of the era: **"This Is a Nice One"**: A joke playing on Jewish immigrant dialect humor. "Abie" (a stereotypical Jewish name) smokes in a "No Smoking" garage. When confronted, he responds that the sign doesn't say "Positively"—a quibble about precise wording reflecting period ethnic stereotyping. **"Nightly Prayers"**: Dark humor about bedbugs, common household pests of the era, rewritten as a child's prayer wishing them injury. **Boy/Pop exchange**: Absurdist humor about gradual cruelty. **Captain Billy quip**: A pun about starfish being a mermaid's "husband" (star + fish). **"Speaking about stocking styles"**: An innuendo joke about a professor admiring girls' legs/stockings via a class roster—reflecting period attitudes toward women. **"Baby Needs Shoes"**: Joke about a baby swallowing dice and coughing up "seven"—wordplay on gambling outcomes. The magazine emphasizes crude ethnic humor and slapstick sensibilities typical of early 20th-century American comedy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
30 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang This Is a Nice One Abie drove into the garage all surrounded by Henry's offsprings, with a big stogie stuck in his face. “Hey,” yelled the irate garage man, “don't you see the sign, ‘NO SMOKIN’?” “Vell,” said Abie, “it don't say Positively.” * * * Nightly Prayers Now I lay me down to sleep, Under the pillow bedbugs creep, If they should bite before I wake I hope to gawsh their jaws will break. * * * Boy—“Say, pop, I’m going to cut off the dog’s tail.” Pop—“Why don’t you cut off a little every day and make it less painful for him?” * * * Captain Billy—I should think the star-fish of the sea would be a mermaid’s husband. * * * Speaking about stocking styles, our Colgate friend says it would be lots of fun to be a pro- fessor in a girl’s school looking over the class roll every morning. * * * Baby Needs a Pair o’ Shoes I know my baby will be a good gambler when he grows up because he swallowed a pair of dice the other day and just naturally coughed up seven.