Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 62 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 62: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* contains two antisemitic jokes typical of early 20th-century American humor magazines. The main story uses a common antisemitic trope: a Jewish passenger falls overboard and is swallowed by a shark, but survives inside the shark's stomach. When the shark is killed and cut open, the Jewish man ("Abraham") emerges unharmed and immediately begins profiteering by selling bananas—a stereotype linking Jewish people to petty commerce and materialism. The second joke references "Ike," a Jewish farmhand, mocking Scandinavian ("Swede") women for supposedly requiring politeness after romantic advances. Both jokes rely on ethnic stereotyping—depicting Jewish characters as commercially shrewd and conniving, and Scandinavians as simple or unsophisticated. This reflects pervasive xenophobic attitudes of the era toward immigrant and minority groups. The humor is cruel rather than clever, exploiting prejudices the magazine assumed its audience shared.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
60 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang I Wisha Wuza Whale! A steerage passenger on a liner, recently from Australia, said that when they were three days out of Sydney, a prodigiously large, man-eating shark was observed to the starboard. The crew, desiring to see a little change of routine, threw a three-legged stool overboard, and, much to their surprise, the monster recovered it and swallowed it whole. Curiosity prompted the crew to dispose of a bunch of bananas in the same manner. Again the shark repeated his previous action. A Jew, becoming interested more in the proceedings of the minute than his necessary equilibrium, pitched, head first, over the rail. True to his former behavior, the man-eater consumed the Jew at one swallow. Of course the awe-stricken crew immediately set about the task of harpooning the sea-monster, and, in the course of an hour, succeeded, and hauled the catch on deck and quickly had it severed in halves. Well, there was ingenious Abraham sitting on the three-legged stool selling bananas at ten cents a dozen! * * * Ike, our Jewish farmhand, has been throw-ing slams at Tillie, the Scandinavian cookee. Ikey insisted that Minnesota Swede girls say “Thank you,” when the boys deign to kiss them goodnight.