Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, May 1922 · page 9 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #33 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a 1920s humor magazine) contains three brief comedic pieces: 1. **"The Effects of Pedro"**: A rustic poem by a farm character named Gus, humorous for its rural dialect and mundane subject matter—a cow giving birth. The joke is that Gus treats this ordinary farm incident as dramatic poetry. 2. **Honeymoon anecdote**: A newlywed bride discovers her husband reading *Whiz Bang* instead of paying attention to her. She jokingly calls him a "bookworm"—the humor lies in the husband being absorbed in a *magazine* rather than romance. 3. **Robbinsdale bachelor item**: A brief rural gossip note about a local farmer arrested for illegally making "sour mash" (moonshine, during Prohibition). The joke's punchline—that he subsequently fell in love—appears incomplete or relies on missing context. The overall tone is small-town Americana humor, typical of the era's popular magazines.
📄 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 7 Gus must be getting into the class now, as when he was on the Whiz Bang Farm his apartment was No. 12. We have eleven stalls downstairs and the twelfth apartment is up in the hay loft. Here follows the latest effusion of Gus' poetic nature— The Effects of Pedro I was standing in the barnyard On a moonlight summer's night, I heard a mournful, groaning sound, It filled me full of fright. Then all was still and from the hill I heard a bawling calf, And like a goodly shepherd I went and got my staff. I climbed the slope and what a joke, It would have made you laugh; 'Twas no other than the Hereford, A likkin' her new calf. * * * A young couple on their honeymoon stopped off at Buffalo for a few days to take in the Falls. One evening while Friend Wife was dressing for dinner, her hubby picked up a copy of the Whiz Bang. Presently the bride tiptoed over to his chair and glanced over his shoulder. “Heavens!” she exclaimed, “I see I've married a bookworm!” * * * Our only Robbinsdale bachelor-farmer was recently pinched for making a “sour mash.” He fell in love with Neighbor Smith's widow.