humor

As I’ve often said, normally the most interesting thing to me about vintage sheet music is the cover art; this because I’m so musically illiterate that the only way I am able to carry a tune is to buy sheet music *ba dum dum* But did you know that inside the cute collectible covers, there’s actually music?!

And sometimes, the very best music is hiding under very plain, boring, wraps. Seriously, these covers are nearly blank (save for some fonts hubby would identify for me — if I cared to let him handle my vintage sheet music), but I’m fascinated anyway.

I Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle

This copy of Jingle Jangle Jingle is proof that my mom, who sang parts of this song, wasn’t as nuts as I thought. I guess if I watched any classic Westerns, I’d have heard of it; but that’s not my genre. And now I know, should a music trivia contest break-out any time soon, that this song was not written by Gene Autry but by Frank Loesser (music by Joseph J. Lilley).

(And while I’m being so particular, I’d like to note that I was at first incensed that some idiot had yard-sale tagged it with a 75 cents sticker; but it appears that the sticker is original, a way to mark-up the price from 60 cents.)

Before we go any further, I should clarify: When I say “the very best music”, I mean in terms of collecting stories and discoveries. Like I said, I can’t read a note of it and even if I could, I’m no music expert — but I sure do know words. Lyrics. Good stories. Or bad stories, as the case may be. For sometimes, that bland manila paper cloaks some serious racism. Double the “OMG” (Oh My God) points when the racist tunes were formerly the property of a nun. (To be fair, Sister Patricia also owned this cheeky little naughty clock song. I’m not sure that makes things ‘better’… But at least I’m being completely truthful, so spare me the ruler, Sister.)

Ham-ing It Up With Vintage Sheet Music

Another such “goody” I would have missed if I had merely been waiting for fetching cover art to catch my fancy is Ham & Eggs, by John Martin:

When the borders hear the dinner bell
And gather ’round the table;
They eat whatever they are served
As fast as they are able;
Roast beef, veal, or corn beef hash
Stewed prunes and a cup of tea
Is the bill of fare at the boarding house
But here’s the bill for me.

Chrous:
H-A-M and eggs, there’s nothing in the world can beat;
They go to the spot whenever I long for something good to eat
The Dutchman loves his sauer kraut
And the Frenchman fried frogs legs;
But when I’m hungry, what I want is H-A-M and eggs.

When I take my girl to a swell cafe
And ask “what are you eating?”
She answers “Oysters and Champagne”
Lord, how my heart starts beating;
I’ve just got one dollar bill
And I’m in an awful stew;
So I tell the waiter to bring us on
Some ham and eggs for two.

(Chorus)

My mother in law was very sick
We thot that she was dying
And every body in the room
(Excepting me) was crying.
But she’s up and ’round to day
Strong as ever on her legs;
For they brought her back from the very grave
With a dish of Ham and Eggs.

(Chorus)

When I got married years ago
My wife was quite good looking;
But we were nearly starved, because,
She was no good at cooking;
So I bought some Ham and Eggs
Put ‘em on the frying pan,
From that day all my trouble ceased
And I’m a happy man.

(Don’t forget the big chorus finish now!)

I guess when they said it was a “Comic Male Quartette” they weren’t kidding.

The cover also boasts that “Every Quartette Should Have This Fine New Number In Their Repertoire. A GREAT ENCORE NUMBER” For some reason I want to get a hold of the writers at Scrubs and see if they want a copy of this tune so that Ted’s Band can sing it.

Then again, why not ask the actual cappella band themselves. They’re called The Blanks, and you can’t get much more full circle than that when you started out talking about rather blank sheet music, can you?

I paid 50 cents for this fragile old piece of paper mocking a woman for the way she dresses. (At first glance, I was certain it was mocking the man; but the ape proffers a red dress with white hearts.) I’m not sure why I had to have it; but I did.

Vintage Cross-Eyed Ape Fashion Joke

when you walk by
people GAPE –
who picks your clothes
a CROSS-EYED APE?

It’s funny, in that simple childlike rhyming playground mockery sort of a way. And I just love the illustration. Certainly someone saved it all these years — charmed by it for all the reasons I am. But I have no idea what this fragile piece of old paper is supposed to be…

Was it a page in a book? While there’s no printing on the reverse, it’s possible; sometimes illustrations (especially those with color) had single pages to themselves (these are called “plates”).

If it comes from a book, what was the book about? Just a silly joke book? Or was it a silly page illustrating one point in the text?

Were there more pages like this?

Did the original owner find the page loose and save it? Or did they tear it out themselves?

Or maybe it’s not from a book at all. Only the right edge of the paper seems to be without nibbles, cuts and other imperfections — suggesting this is not the original size. Maybe it was an advertising or promotional piece… Some sort of flyer, an advertising circular, whose product &/or company name have been cut away by an original owner who liked the joke &/or illustration.

Then again, there’s all those hearts… Was this some sort of Valentine’s Day themed thing?

Since there is nothing else on the paper to identify it, no artist credit, date or other copyright or publishing credit, I may never know what this paper was originally intended to do or where it comes from. But, like the heavy crease lines from folding which have begun to tear, it doesn’t decrease the value to me. Not just the 50 cents I paid or even the thrill of research to figure it all out (I am geeky like that), but the fun of looking at it. The joke still works, after all these years.

Vintage Fold-Out Linen Postcards

Included in a recent lot buy, a vintage set of linen fold-out postcards by Curt Teich & Co., Inc., nine cards long, printed on both sides. They’re not dated, but I’m guessing they are from the 1930s or so (though Curt Teich did make linen cards through the 50s).

These fold-out postcards were apparently in some sort of envelope — a more traditional paper envelope, not the colorful folders you see with those Hollywood folio types. A bit of it is still attached to the top.

What’s so fascinating about these postcards is that they are not scenic souvenir images; these vintage postcards feature a selection of equally vintage jokes.

The humor includes the corn-ball jokes you’d expect, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants, “sorry I haven’t written” sentiments, & fisherman jokes. They hold up about as well now as they did then (I’m sure everyone has always smirked and rolled their eyes more than laughed at these jokes).

Many of the postcards contained risqué humor — some at the lady’s expense…

Same Old Moon Vintage Postcard

Others at the gentleman’s expense.

Vintage Risqué Postcard

Other cards were truly the products of their time, with Black Americana images we’d call racist today.

Black Americana Postcard With Girl On Potty

Scenic images on fold-out postcard would seem to make more sense than these humor ones… Because the cards are printed on both sides, there’s no place to send a note with the, “weather is wonderful, wish you were here — but you’re not Ha Ha Ha!” message — so purchasing a set as a memento of your trip a set of cards with scenes you’ve seen would make sense. But apparently someone did send these off to someone back home — or at least I’m assuming that because the envelope is torn off and missing. And there’s a note penciled on this one about painful sunburns:

Penciled Note About Sunburn On Vintage Postcard

I’m not sure the original recipient found these postcards very enlightening as far as their friend’s vacation went, but I find them to be a fascinating little time capsule.

Good morning, everyone: Christmas is here, you’re watching the Star Wars Holiday Special bootleg Santa brought last year, and if you’ve ended up on Santa’s ‘good-little-kid’ list this year, too, maybe you got what you want under the tree.   In an attempt to, you know, get some brownie points with the elves, I put my Santa letter into christmas-carol format.   Hopefully Santa doesn’t count rhyming schemes when analyzing his incoming mail, but I did my best.   If you’d like to sing along, it’s written to the tune of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen (audio here):

Dear Santa, I’ve been good this year,
No problems caused by me,
I thought I’d write a short list here,
if guidance did you need,
to pick out just the bestest thing
that I could ever see,
And Star Wars is just the thing for me,
wouldn’t you think?
My suggestion is what my collection needs.

I want a vintage Obi-Wan
the rarest that there be,
his saber is collapsible
not one-piece blade, you see,
they were just made in
one small batch,
are few and far between,
oh eBay has failed me once again,
once again,
I can’t find him for sale, that ol’ Ben.

If Obi Wan cannot you find
A YakFace will do fine,
In Europe and Australia
was he sold to fans sublime,
The market in the States was foul,
Star Wars was in decline,
so a YakFace is very rare to find,
stateside,
but it’s not too spendy, if you check the Guide.

One day I sold my Boba Fett,
twelve-incher, he was big,
because he lacked accessories
and paint-flakes did he bleed,
but now I wish I had him back,
Oh, Boba, why’d you leave?
But Christmas is here and now you see,
I have a real need,
I’d like another — with accessories.

In Christmas memories of mine
Star Wars was prominent,
My uncle dressed as Santa and
gave Jedi accoutrements,
but years have passed and now I lack
the toys that came and went.
Collecting is tougher now ‘cuz boys
play hard with their toys,
now grownups still ask Santa for Star Wars.

WWII was a great boon for publishing in many ways.    In the interest of entertaining soldiers abroad, exceptions were made in the paper ration process for publishers, so long as they printed books that would be of interest to servicemen during their off-hours.  Publishers brought cheap, portable paperback books to the front lines throughout the world, but encountered the question: what do they want to read? The Department of Defense made arrangements for Pocket and Penguin to publish useful books, like aircraft spotter manuals, and much of what sold well were the publisher’s regular best-seller lists.  However, the availability of approachable literature to the soldiers was creating a huge new generation of casual readers.   One of my favorite genres to really see growth due to WWII are the comedy paperbacks.

WWII didn’t create the genre, however.  The bread-and-butter books of publishers weren’t always the big-name authors, but were instead small collections of previously-available content repackaged for the mass market.   1931’s The Pocket Book of Boners, edited and illustrated by none other than Theodore Geisel himself, had already been selling well before it shipped out to PXs around the world.  After it hit the soldier’s outposts, by 1942 it was #4 on Pocket’s Army best-seller list, behind a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book (also an anthology of previously released material), Nana by Emile Zola (already over 60 years old by that time),  and the dictionary.  When thefreely-distributed, cheaply-made Armed Services Editions were being planned, books of humor were the third most numerous titles of any other genre.   Bennett Cerf, an expert in storytelling and bookselling, quickly assembled The Pocket Book of War Humor and sent it to the presses. These light-hearted, low-effort books of humor helped our soldiers get through their tours of duty, and when they returned stateside they brought their taste in literature with.

This burst in quick, cheap wit continued beyond the end of the world war.   Bennett Cerf continued publishing his collections of funny micro-stories and brief punchlines, while others got into the act as well.   Magazines also saw their popularity grow, and their need for short, entertaining articles bred a generation of witty writers well-suited for an anthology of their comedy bits.  Kermit Schafer epitomized the genre of re-publishing previously used funny bits by building it into a publishing empire with his Bloopers series of books and albums.  Nearly all the content was gleaned or recreated from radio broadcasts, had previously been published in his syndicated column, and much of the content between books was repeated from previous editions as well.   One facet of humor books that continued to see strength that would soon dwindle were the race-based joke books, who, for the most part, repeated the same jokes with a different nationality filled in the blanks.  The 1950s’ public attitude was focused on white picket fences and apple pie, with little tolerance for ‘fringe’ content, but as the decade began to close, writers were beginning to reflect the growing social iniquities via satire.

One of the earliest were the Mad Magazine, who published books under Ballantine, bringing their edgy humor and satire to paperback form.   Books like Mac Bird, Golden’s Only in America books, and handfuls of Harvard/National Lampoon books gave humor paperbacks an edge that had been largely missing during their earlier years.   The interest in censorship still hovered over much of the media, resulting in the Comic Code, varying enforcement of the Hay’s Code, and the introduction of movie age-ratings.   However, books tended to be more immune due to their status as ‘literature’.  The race-based joke books also took either a self-referential tone, or later evolved into non-race  books like ‘blonde jokes’ or ‘redneck jokes’, and moved away from general interest into naughtier ‘party’ books for adults.   While some books kept their innocuous form and cater to a more juvenile audience, the satire of the 60s and 70s was most decidedly adult in nature and subtle references.

Those more innocuous humor books, some repeating re-worded jokes that were indistinguishable from Bennett Cerf’s content in the 1940s, continued to find their audience among children.    Services like Scholastic’s SBS brought small catalogs of cheap books into student’s hands on a monthly basis, and those title lists often included more than one collection of jokes or funny comics.  While most are completely unremarkable, Scholastic had a knack for selling timely books, like the Pac Man themed humor on the left.   While the jokes were largely juvenile and simple, it matched their audience’s sentibilities, and Scholastic joke books are quite numerous.

The wide appreciation for humor books and their cheap production expense has created a collectible market with an enormous amount of items to collect.    Particularly in the fifties and sixties, the humor books from large presses were produced in enormous numbers, and largely survived well, and cost remains quite low.   Somewhat rarer books, like the early Mad or the Harvard Lampoon books, have a higher demand and were produced in relatively low quantities compared to the usual mass-market runs.  Still, they can usually be found for lower prices than their rarer cousins, and many were produced as series, encouraging a collector to obtain every volume, rather than any single one.