Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 54 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 54: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 1920s radio broadcasting's novelty and absurdity. "Captain Billy" (the magazine's owner) claims to have created "wireless photography"—a fake technology—supposedly showing a woman bathing, mocking both radio's miraculous reputation and crude humor. The fake radio station callouts parody actual early broadcasters with increasingly risqué jokes: Deacon Miller plays a suggestive song title; Captain Billy nearly tells a "traveling salesman and chorus girl" joke (a known risqué format); a "Polecat" broadcast is worthless; and "Laun Dree" (laundry, a pun) makes innuendo about pajamas and clotheslines. The final joke depicts young Jimmy mimicking radio sign-offs during prayer—satirizing how radio's broadcasting conventions were becoming embedded in everyday speech and behavior, even among children. The humor relies on radio being still-novel enough that its conventions seemed both impressive and ridiculous.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Farmyard Fun and Filosofy 49 Open Circuits on the Radio ONE of the miraculous offshoots of the radio is wire-less photography. Adhering to his policy of keep-ing up with the times, Captain Billy has gone to great expense to establish a wireless studio in the attic of the red cowshed. The photograph presented on this page undoubtedly is the best example thus far produced in this new field of art. It is a radio photograph of a young lady taking a bath. Gus took the picture. WEAF: Deacon Miller's orchestra will now play: “My Sweetie Went Away with Hot Lips.” WLAG: Capt. Billy will tell bed-time stories to the kiddies. “Once upon a time a chorus girl and a traveling salesman— oh, no, that's the wrong story.” ZYX announcer: “Polecat is now broadcasting! Put on your gas masks! The story isn't worth a scent.” BVD: Laun Dree broadcasting the first lesson in radio. “Girls and boys, the difference between an antenna and a clothes-line is that the antenna draws the waves, while the clothes-line waves the—pajamas.” Deacon Callahan's young son, Jimmy, has become very much interested in the Whiz Bang farm radio thingamabobs. The Deacon says that Jimmy went home the other night and prayed in this wise: “God bless mamma and papa, and sisters, and grandma, and make me a good boy. This is J. C. Junior, signing off. Good night, God.”