Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, December 1924 · page 16 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #67 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a 1920s humor magazine, contains several joke formats typical of the era: **Vaudeville joke**: A racist minstrel-show style riddle ("What has four legs and flies?") featuring "Rastus" and "Mr. Interlocutor"—stock characters from blackface entertainment, reflecting period entertainment conventions. **Movie joke**: References "Bull Montana," likely a silent-film actor, joking that an actor named Pedro would be rebranded with an Americanized stage name. **"Prize Dumbells"**: Humorous anecdotes about foolish people (milking a cow by its tail, taking an umbrella up a mountain). **"Alphabetically Speaking"**: A children's joke playing on abbreviations—B.C. ("Before Clothes") and A.D. ("All Dressed")—the humor lying in reinterpreting religious/historical abbreviations as clothing references. The page represents typical early-20th-century American satirical humor: crude, often relying on ethnic stereotypes and slapstick-adjacent absurdism now largely considered offensive or dated.
📄 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]= Whiz Bang Vaudeville “What is it, Mr. Interlocutor, that has fo’ legs and flies all around?” “I’ll bite, Rastus. What is it that has four legs and flies all around?” “A dead hoss, Mr. Interlocutor.” * * * Tune In On This One GUS WILL NOW WARBLE: WHEN PEDRO JOINS THE MOVIES, WE’LL NAME HIM BULL MONTANA. * * * THE PRIZE DUMBELLS THIS MONTH GO TO CILLY CENSELESS, WHO TRIED TO MILK A COW BY PUMPING HER TAIL UP AND DOWN, AND TO ARCHIBALD SCHNITZ, WHO TOOK AN UMBRELLA WITH HIM WHEN HE CLIMBED MT. RAINIER. * * * Alphabetically Speaking “What does B. C. mean?” asked little Ethel. “Before Clothes, of course,” answered little Eddie. “Then,” said Ethel, “does A. D. mean All Dressed?” =[14]=