Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 10 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* contains three short, unrelated humorous anecdotes typical of the magazine's format: 1. **Teacher/Vesuvius joke**: A child's innocent but irreverent comparison of a volcano to hell—humor from childish bluntness. 2. **Scandinavian/Cricket joke**: A visiting stranger mistakes a Saengerfest (German-Scandinavian singing society) for cricket sounds. The humor plays on ethnic stereotyping and miscommunication, with "Olaf" (stereotypically Scandinavian name) making an absurdly wrong explanation about how crickets "sing." 3. **Deacon Miller sketch**: A rural deacon visits a young lawyer's locked office displaying a "Return in 20 minutes" sign. The setup suggests the deacon will misinterpret why the office is locked (implying impropriety with the stenographer), though the punchline is cut off. These are typical period humor aimed at small-town American audiences, relying on ethnic caricature, rural naiveté, and mild innuendo—standard for 1920s-era magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
10 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang OUR VILLAGE teacher drew a picture of Mount Vesuvius with fire coming out of the top. She asked Timmy Callahan what it looked like to him and Timmy said it looked like hell. A VISITOR, while walking along the village street of Robbinsdale, heard the singing of the local Scandinavian Saengerfest. He stopped to listen. Olaf was standing nearby admiring the sweet chirrup of a cricket. “What beautiful singing,” suggested the stranger. “Yes,” said Olaf, “they do it by rubbing their hinds legs together.” DEACON MILLER harnessed up his gray mare one day in December and plowed through the snow drifts to town to see a young lawyer on business. This rising young barrister had some very important dictating to do; so in order that he and his pretty but hard-working young stenographer should not be disturbed, he locked the office door, first putting out a sign which read: “Return in 20 minutes.” When Deacon Miller saw this inscription on the door he scratched his head for a moment and