Humor

Laughter cures all that ails you so they say (whoever "they" are). I haven't come across too many old comics or cartoons with a pinball or amusement game angle to it surprisingly. I've got a couple of hundred Sad Sack cartoon strips from WW2 and nary a mention (I guess Sack was too busy peeling potatoes). Nothing in Dotty Dripple either (this was a strip along the same lines as "Blondie").

Anyway, included here are some of the cartoons I've come across.

Pfennig Arcade

This cartoon is very detailed. It ran in Yank, The Army Weekly, in the August 6, 1943 issue. According to Billboard, "Every arcade machine has from the peep machine to the target gun been remodeled to make sure Hitler's 'supermen' will really die laughing." The cartoon text is very hard to read so I'll repeat it here. At the top it says: "Don't get frightened. This is Sgt. Ralph Stein's booby trap de luxe, a special penny arcade for German soldiers only." Refer to the numbers in the picture for the other notations.

This dope's next of kin will get the Iron Cross when he hits the jackpot, which is really a mortar. The Nazi colonel is very virile but he won't be after he gets a taste of 16,000,000 volts. Won't Hans be surprised when the live ammunition goes through the screen, exploding the naval mine... Pfc. Schnall loves filthy movies. When he turns the crank, a mechanical hand bops him with a grenade. Thrilling? This guy is too strong for his own health but wait till he rings that big loud gong.

They'll Do It Every Time

This syndicated cartoon ran March 9, 1943, portraying the operator of an immense crane in a war plant amusing himself when off duty at playing a coin-operated crane.

The Wake of the News

This cartoon has quite an interesting story behind it. It ran in the Chicago Tribune, 55 years ago on January 25, 1941 and was created by Arch Ward. The story with the cartoon is as follows:

The wife of the United States minister to Bulgaria, George Earle, recently denied a report current in Philadelphia that a ring she had been wearing contains an emerald from the Bulgarian crown jewels which, it was rumored, her husband won from King Boris on a pinball machine. I doubt that there is anything to the story, but if it is true it certainly is a precedent-breaking event. It probably would be the first time in international history that an American diplomat ever won anything.

It Never Fails

It Never Fails was also a syndicated cartoon. This cartoon would have been published in late 1942. It shows juke box competition to the max.