Life, 1929-01-04 · page 28 of 36
Life — January 4, 1929 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page compiles humorous anecdotes and visual gags satirizing contemporary foolishness. The main comic strip (top left) depicts a woman's escalating bathroom mishaps with a toothpaste cap—a visual punchline about domestic absurdity. The text snippets mock modern society's peculiarities: - A New England shop sign ironically mimics colonial language while selling ordinary eggs - A job posting refusing candidates with more than two children reflects post-WWI economic anxiety - A child claiming he was born at "the Polo Grounds" (a baseball stadium) rather than a hospital humorously captures children's logic - References to Prohibition-era bootleggers and the absurdity of wartime scarcity (carrots being expensive in France) The page satirizes everyday foolishness—urban pretension, economic hardship, parental bewilderment, and social hypocrisy—through brief, punchy jokes. This format was Life magazine's signature approach: collecting contemporary absurdities to amuse readers by holding up a mirror to their own society's quirks and contradictions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The tooth paste cap. —Tue Humorist. Gare sign in a New England suburb: YE OLDE FRESH EGGS —Boston Transcript. “Two thousand francs too expensive?...Don't you know that carrots have gone up’ —Perir Bev (Panis), OREGON Want ad in the Hood River Oregon News: Wanteo—Reliable orchard man for steady job. Don't have more than two children if you can help it. A. J. Grow, Phone 4073. —American Mercury. No tonle better than Abbott's Bitters. Sample by mall, 25 cts. C. W. Abott & Co, Baltimore, Md. DURING WHICH INNING? Jum, 4, small but wise, had been in the company of visitors the day before. At one period, when his mother had left the room for a minute or two—just long enough to get the iced tea iced—one of the guests had asked him where he was born. He was telling the story, next day, to a play- mate, about what he had said when asked that question. “I knew I was born in the Woman's Hos- pital, But I thought that sounded sort of sappy, 80 I said the Polo Grounds.” —Philadelphia Public Ledger. June, four years old, is fond of her sister, but now that sister is learming to talk, June finds her road much harder to travel. One day they were playing together, and baby Doris came running to mother, crying. Mother, look ing at June for an explanation, was Prompuy informed: “Doris bit herself—right on the ear,” —Liberty, “Here's a Rolls Royce for your birthday, darling,” announced the aged millionaire. “Well,” countered the chilly wife, who had been in the show business before she found the meal ticket, “what do you want me to do? Kiss you or something?” —American Legion Monthly, In a Pinch use ALLEN’S FOOT-EASE Jor (having just borrowed a cigarette): Tm afraid I'll have to bother you for a light, too, old man, Bit: Do you want to borrow the blindfold, too? —Terxas Ranger, Tracer, to Tarpy Puri: Why are you late again, young man? Puri: My sister was married this morning. Teacner: Well, see that it doesn’t happes again, —Chicago Tribune. Rino-Masrer: Who broke that trapeze? Acrosat: I did, mister, with my little acs —Dartmouth Jack-o-Lantera, Cuuantie (remembering an old expression): Tl love you till the cows come home, darling! Yvoywe: Don’t you dare insult my parents! —Film Fun. Jor Frisco says the weather is so cold bis bootlegger told him to put alcohol in the lat bottle sent over. —Veariety, Castile’s in the heir. —Coanert Win0w, comicbooks.com nn p—panon BT: