Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten
and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate
sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
Over Sexteen
Date: 1951
Discovered at: Prairie Village Estate Sale
The Cover Promises: "Prudes Won't Think It Funny!" Also: Prudes talk like Bizarro Super-Man!
Representative Quote:
"He made a perfect 36 on the golf course today."
"Nine holes?"
"No. Fifth Avenue model."
In the days before everything was dirty, dirtiness itself was often the joke. In once-scandalous jokebooks like Over Sexteen and its sequels -- all written by men more horny horny than marble-eating hippos are hungry hungry -- what at first appears innocent always turns out to be dirty.
A typical joke runs, "He bought his girl a bicycle and now she peddles it all over town."
Also dirty: the sweet science of boxing.
See, in 1951 pre-marital sex was exactly like boxing. You would hide in your corner, pummel each other and hope to win on points. Also, spectators could only differentiate the participants by trunk color.
Dirtier cartoons await you after the jump!
As with sixth grade boys, a dirty-minded King Midas, or the writing staff of Two and a Half Men, everything Over Sexteen touches becomes a lame sex joke. On and on it goes, with pre-sexual revolution gags about honeymoons, farmer's daughters and the very idea that women might enjoy sex, too.
What shocks today is not the sex but the persistent sense that the mere fact of sex is scandalous. Consider the old maid who found a hobo in her bed and then spent the whole night with her stomach "on the bum." Or the bachelor who was thrown out of his apartment after his downstairs landlord heard two sets of shoes drop.
Of course, much of Over Sexteen is so predictable that your Crap Archivist can spring a pop quiz.
"One of our New Jersey customers found himself in the Times Square section of New York and stopped a flashily dressed young man to ask, 'Where can I find the 42nd Street Ferry?'"Can you identify the real punchline?
Shocking Detail:
Over Sexteen marks a bold early break from the stifling rules of '50s decorum.
Cartoonist Bruce Dolen dared to shatter Eisenhower-era taboos against motorboating.
Highlight:
Your Crap Archivist has nothing against the making-the-innocent-seem-dirty approach. In fact, I practice it regularly. Take this bold statement from the dust jacket -- probably the one truly innocent thing in the whole book.
The hardest day of any boy's life comes when he tells his mother he's flap-happy.
At times, Over Sexteen reverses its strategy.
Here, it takes the overtly sexual ...
Showing 1-7 of 7
With the doctor and the nurse holding the box of rectal thermometers, we are supposed to get the doctor's unspoken response, which is to essentially tell the nurse to put them where they are designed to go. Does that help?
After my mother died, I discovered that not only I but my too siblings had all snuck peaks at the copy of Over Sexteen on the top shelf of my father's bedroom bookcase. I arm wrestled them for his copy (he died many years before) and am proud to have it still. It was my earliest introduction to off color humor, and some of the jokes are quite good. I do agree with much of your assessment of the book as a "sign of the times" cultural relic. Still, it makes me laugh.
One of my favorites:
Mary had an aeroplane
In it she loved to frisk
Wasn't she a silly girl
Her little *
I own the whole set. I got them at a thrift shop and bought them as a gag gift but ended up keeping them. They are truly a slice of Americana. Before playboy and penthouse, before Rap music and Tabloid Sexpot news there was this..... I find them very entertaining although the jokes do go over my head sometimes. I guess being a female I just don't think that way. It is so easy to berate everything but being a student of history.... even ancient history...these jokes aren't really new... they are simply current with thier times. Men will always be men and woman will always resent them for that..... Just my point of view.... I personally have no Penis envy.... my husband is always complaining about his stuff getting stuck to his leg...who needs that ?
Next time you see Shannin and Parks at the boat show be sure to ask them what thye think about motorboating.
This might betray my tough guy image but I have to say "Hooray for Crap Archivists everywhere!"
The punchline is implicit:
"To keep tabs on yer HOT ass, Toots! Now go make me some coffee."
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