Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, July 1922 · page 18 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #35 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humor advice column featuring absurdist, deadpan jokes typical of early 20th-century American satirical magazines. The "Dear Captain Billy" format mimics genuine advice columns, but answers are deliberately ridiculous non-solutions. **The jokes:** - Geographic puns (a "bang" creating locations) - Washing a profane parrot's mouth with soap (literal interpretation of cleaning speech) - "Painless dentists" — they don't feel pain, only patients do - Slang definitions contrasting "bindlestiff" (jobless tramp) with "gandy dancer" (employed tramp), the humor being minimal difference - Bed bug advice: exhaust them through years of chasing you between floor and bed The humor relies on **misdirection and literal interpretations** of figurative complaints. No specific political references are visible—this is pure comedic nonsense aimed at readers seeking entertainment during the interwar period. The tone is cynical about human problems having simple solutions.
📄 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 17 Dear Skipper—Was it the bang in Bangor, Maine, that made Long Island Sound?—G. Ografie. Yes, and it also made Cape Fear. * * * Dear Cap'n Willyam—My parrot uses pro-fanity very profusely. What shall I do?—Katy Didd. Wash its mouth with soap. * * * Dere Captain Billy—Are there any painless dentists?—P. Parker. They all are, it doesn't hurt them. * * * Dear Captain Billy—What is the difference between a “bindlestiff” and a “gandy dancer”?—Gob Boone. A “bindlestiff” is a tramp who takes the hardest of the world's hard knocks but seldom returns them, and a “gandy dancer” is a “bin-dlestiff” with a job. * * * Billy Dear—Each night after retiring, I am greatly annoyed by bed bugs, and would like some advice as to how I can have this annoy-ance stopped.—U. Killem. Try sleeping on the floor, until the bugs discover the change and follow you. Then go back to bed, and so on. After doing this for a few years the bugs should get tired following you around, and go elsewhere.