Last week, we considered a postcard showing a well-dressed young lady showing that she’d thought of you by holding up a finger with a string around it. Being of a basically guttertrending mind, I questioned the choice of finger for this, but had to admit the US Postal Service, historically very conservative about what it lets go through the mail, had postmarked it and sent it along. I have a few other postcards whose morals could be questioned. Take this driver. He knows he isn’t out of gas. His passenger knows he’s not out of gas. The MOON knows he’s not out of gas.
By the way, prior to the “out of gas” excuse, the go-to story, which extends back into the days when couples would go out bicycling together, was that there had been a bad puncture. Just to bypass any double entendres, this car does have a flat, which makes it all okay to be mailed.
What city couples did when they went out to the country is again left up to the imagination, though Walter Wellman has added “Do Not Disturb” signs (paying off the “No Trespassing” gag) and a few discarded shoes.
The moral here is obvious. When you get back from the country, you should not let your wife unpack your suitcase. The garment being brandished was not even allowed to be exhibited in shop windows in some communities, but the Post Office had no trouble letting this picture through.
I think the wife, like the Post Office, should be glad she’s showing just an ankle to prompt his memory.
This quite irreverent reference is found on postcards from the 1910s through at least the 1950s. The Post Office may have been grateful people were still familiar enough with their Bibles to get the joke.
The meaning of this joke depends on knowing what it meant when a woman “turns on the heat”, but in the heyday of the phrase, the scene of the scantily clad lady and the repairman was repeated on numerous postcards. (And comic books. AND movies.)
You can guess that what she REALLY means is a style of hat. So this is perfectly proper.
And speaking of rough sailing….
This was a wildly popular joke in wartime. Someone asked me whether it was the man or the woman who was being offered the management job. I had to duck after I said that obviously HER role was Labor.
Of course, the fact that she is pushing a baby carriage CAN be unrelated to the dialogue (despite the fact the Junior is thumbing his nose to reinforce the punchline.)
And this is really just my mind touring the gutters again. The gag of farmers shooting city slickers in the backside is ancient and non-controversial. I’m the only one who assumes this is the father of the hitchhiker above, recognizing the jasper from town, and aiming just a little lower than regular comedy calls for. Yeah, I can’t unsee it, so I’m passing it along to you, and NOT through the Post Office.
Blogsy Babbles 