Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 11 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous anecdote from *Whiz Bang*, a satirical magazine popular in the 1920s-30s. The joke is a simple escalating absurdity: the narrator encounters a youth carrying a cat in a birdcage, claiming he's "taking mother's canary for an airing." When asked where the bird is, the boy replies it's "inside the cat"—meaning the cat ate it. Later, the boy returns with a bulldog, saying he's taking the cat home. When asked where the cat is, he answers: "Inside the dog." The humor relies on deadpan delivery and the boy's apparent literal-mindedness. It's a chain of increasingly ridiculous pet-transportation mishaps, playing on the idea of naive efficiency gone wrong—fitting the column's title "Farmyard Fun and Filosophy." The joke mocks both the boy's obliviousness and the adult's patient questioning, characteristic of early 20th-century American comic storytelling.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Farmyard Fun and Filosophy 9 WELL, sir, I thought all along that my little Whiz Bang farm was the last word in efficiency until I bumped up against an experience in Minneapolis recently. It was on a little side street opposite Loring Park that I ran across an awkward youth carrying a bird cage in which sat a contented Tom cat. “What are you doing with the cat in a cage, son?” I asked. “Taking mother’s canary for an airing,” he replied. “And where’s the bird?” “Inside the cat.” Before my street car came along, the youth returned, leading a bulldog. “Where to now, sonny?” “Taking mother’s cat home.” “Where’s the cat?” “Inside the dog.” ... . YOURS till the calves come home. Whiz Bang Bill