Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 39 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Whiz Bang* (a 1920s humor magazine) contains brief satirical quips rather than visual cartoons. The humor targets: **"Monkey-gland treatment"** references a then-contemporary fad where wealthy men underwent dubious surgical procedures using monkey tissue, supposedly to restore youth/virility. The joke mocks ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II for denying this treatment—suggesting that's somehow *worse* than his actual WWI misdeeds. **Sheep gland tablets** similarly mock this medical craze, joking a man wasted money on fake supplements, then got swindled by a bootlegger (Prohibition-era illegal alcohol seller). **Income tax joke** satirizes the absurdity of new income tax laws: miscalculate and face jail; calculate correctly and remain so poor you'd enter a poorhouse anyway. The final aphorism warns against trusting deceptive people and dangerous animals—generic wisdom humor. The page exemplifies *Whiz Bang*'s style: topical satire on 1920s fads, politics, and social anxiety, delivered as quick one-liners rather than illustrated gags.
📄 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 39 ignorant men. The mole on the face of a mighty man never made the man mighty. Use your brains or lose them. * * * A certain young chap of my acquaintance took sheep gland tablets for a whole month and then let a bootlegger fleece him. * * * According to the village Dirge, the Nobel peace prize for 1922 was awarded to Fred Hommes, enterprising Robbinsdale garageman, who flaunts the sign: Automobile Repairing and Ford Fixing.” * * * The ex-Kaiser denies the report that he underwent a monkey-gland treatment, in prepa- ration for his marriage. People have said some hard things about Wilhelm since 1914; but it is understood that this is the statement which he resents most of all. * * * If your income tax figuring is wrong you go to jail, if it is right you go to the poorhouse. * * * The young man who sits and says little at the evening party, is more usually a hundred per cent better hope than the goop who fluently shoots the—well, you know! * * * Beware of the forepart of a woman, the hind part of a mule and all parts of a hypocrite.