Comic Comics #5

Captain Kid enters the Podunk Cross Country Race with help from his friend Pudgy—who's secretly sabotaging him with a fake "shortcut" that leads through treacherous terrain, confusing forks, and a cave full of snakes. Racing against the clock and his own scrambled nerves, Captain Kid must find his way back to the real course before it's too late.

A young hillbilly guide takes some city folk on a tour of the countryside and explains the finer points of rural life—including one scarecrow with a particularly impressive track record. This 1946 humor piece plays with the clash between country know-how and city innocence in a lighthearted way.

When a reckless driver veers off a mountain road with a carload of eggs, his passenger—the magical Mystic Moot—transforms the wrecked car into a jet plane, then a flying horse to get them to town on time. But with a furious wife waiting and the clock ticking, even magic can't seem to keep this hapless fellow from disaster in this wild 1946 romp.

Joe Miller, a serious actor tired of having jokes published under his name in the Joe Miller Joke Book, attempts to escape his embarrassing reputation by starring in a new Spanish play—but his innocent misunderstandings of the language only generate more laughs at his expense. As he fumbles through rehearsals and interactions, the relentless joke collector continues to document his every mishap, turning Joe's serious comeback into yet another source of comedy gold.

Jetsam Joe gets twenty-four hours of shore leave and promptly falls for a con man hawking barrels of "magic water from the Fountain of Youth"—paying $10,000 for the dubious cargo and smuggling it aboard ship. When pirates attack and drink the mysterious water as a toast to their victims' doom, Joe watches in amazement as the swashbucklers rapidly shrink into infants, but a whack on the head from the Captain suggests Joe's adventure might be nothing more than a dream.

Dopey Danny Dee finds himself swimming ashore fully clothed after a boating accident with Jack Small—but before his companion can ask what went wrong, Danny's already heading back into the water. In true dopey fashion, he explains his priorities: save himself first, then go back for Jack.

Mal Arky thinks he's found the perfect setup when he manages Kanvasback, a perpetually losing fighter, against the undefeated K.O. Strong at Madison Square Garden—until his dim-witted charge decides to outsmart everyone by actually fighting to win. It's a hilarious collision of incompetence and dumb luck that turns the manager's sure bet completely on its head.

Rubbernose Randolph barges into a gas station demanding fuel with all the aggressive swagger of a self-made man, lecturing the attendant about the importance of "push" and ambition—only to learn the hard way that sometimes the world has other plans. This one-pager delivers a satisfying comeuppance wrapped in classic 1940s humor.

When reporter Gloria puts out an extra about mayoral candidate Tiddle E. Winks's underhanded tactics, her boss—Editor Alonzo Q. Fishook—finds himself in the middle of the scandal he wanted to avoid. As Winks comes looking for revenge, Gloria's quick thinking with a camera turns the tables in ways neither of them expected, giving the Snortville Sneeze the story of a lifetime.

When the notorious bandit Poncho terrorizes a frontier town with gunfire and mayhem, Sam the Sheriff must find the courage to confront him—while nearly everyone else, including the lawman himself, scrambles for cover. It's a classic showdown between order and outlaw, where one man's bravery turns the tide.

Colonel Corn and his pal Korny Kobb decide to take up tennis, but the Colonel proves hilariously unprepared for the sport—misunderstanding everything from what a "serve" means to the basic terminology of the game. What unfolds is a two-page comedy of errors as the two characters clash on the court in this 1946 humor story from Comic Comics.