Baffling Old Comic
Friday, September 25, 2009 at 11:32AM I like a good mystery as much as the next guy, but this comic, from a 1960 issue of a Dell publication called "1000 Jokes"* (yeah, I do some pretty strange things with my spare time) has me completely flummoxed. I'm serious, I've been looking at this thing for days and I can't make and sense of it:
Does it have something to do with the fact that a lot of people are smoking during the intermission? Is that funny? Does it have to do with the fact that there's a naked woman standing outside smoking? Is that funny? I pride myself with knowing quite a bit about the era and the culture at the time (you know, a guy is looking at a ferocious dinosaur skeleton and he says the monster's expression reminds him of his wife, stuff like that), but, even wearing those goggles, it makes no more sense.
I even tried taking a couple steps back, as it were, and included the next cartoon on the same page (by a different artist) to see if it made sense, and it's slightly more funny:
See, it looks like the guy's going to start pegging people off with a slingshot as they stand outside the theatre at intermission. I know it's how I feel. But it's pretty damn funny. Right? It's strange, because every other joke in the damn book elicits at least a knowing smirk from me, except this one. Perhaps I will draft a strongly-worded letter to the publisher.
*The magazine "1000 Jokes" actually has well under 100 jokes. I counted. Maybe they're talking about the entire run of the publication.
Reader Comments (6)
Maybe this is a reference to this movie? A poor joke about how she's a stripper so she'd be uh... smoking nude at the intermission?
I don't get it either, even if I'm right.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056048/
(PS I know the movie is 1962 but I'm figuring it could have been announced as early as 1960? )
Note: I'm not trying to be a smartass! If you already thought of and discarded the movie Gypsy then disregard my idea...
I think you're thinking along the right lines. A "no smoking inside theater" sign would definitely help this comic.
Conor had it right....the "musical play" is about Gypsy Rose Lee the famous stripper. Worked on that musical a few times myself!
Conor had it right....the "musical play" is about Gypsy Rose Lee the famous stripper. Worked on that musical a few times myself!
Okay, solved!
Solved? You think that that is all there is to it? I dug into this back in the January and give up the next day. Solving Connor's concerns about the timeline by figuring the subject to be the Broadway production and not the film seemed only to be part 'A'. Perhaps you're correct and it's an a different sensibility that the joke here speaks to.
First hand experience of this occurred when I had those wonderful, naive blossomings that occur when we move from of life's seasons to the next...Fall, or late summer any way, so blossoming should be whithering.... While in a cinema- don't remember the film but a guilty pleasure for sure, Seth Rogan or the like - it was a couple years back, I found me and the young 'uns present laughing at exactly opposite times. Am want to like the GOOD physical comedy but found myself asking what was coming of the young today such as were the cruel or bawdy or toilet natured gags that incited laughter.
Ahh, f...it, I'm just old.
But still, may keep this open in my mind for mulling...the crowding under marquee + smoking...?
All this from Googling about looking for comics in the public domain for newsletter use. I'd forgotten about "Gypsy" 'til the "recruits" toon. Please avoid posting another one of these for a few quarters or a year n a bit, I've work to do. LOL