October 20, 2009 

Oh It Is to LAUGH!

Blackface humor. Blegh.

I don’t know what’s worse: that it exists, or that I’m miffed I don’t get the punch line.


  • http://blog.mattalgren.com Matt Algren

    Apparently shoe dressing is a kind of shoe polish, and “Snowball” would probably indicate that it's white.

    Honestly, it's the funniest of the three jokes.

  • Dr. Novakaine

    Some people love what they call the “good old days.” I say good riddance, and this is one of the reasons why.

  • Dierna

    This is oddly a long running comic. It ran from 1917 – 1949.

    The joke is that the writer of the comic, Gene Byrnes, is a former shoemaker before he got into comics (oddly after breaking his leg while in a wrestling match….uh..). Hense the shoe dressing thing.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Byrnes

  • madwoman

    I like how they call the white guy “Pinhead”.

  • AuroraMoon

    I noticed that all of the hands are white… so that means the rest of the guys' face are covered in shoe polish, and really are white guys underneath.

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    yes “blackface” was a sort of comedy whereby whites would paint their faces black and acting as the stereotypical happy but lazy, carefree blacks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface

    Spike Lee's “Bamboozled” tackles this.

  • madwoman

    I like how they call the white guy “Pinhead”.rn

  • Anonymous

    I noticed that all of the hands are white… so that means the rest of the guys’ face are covered in shoe polish, and really are white guys underneath.

  • http://sezaarsez.wordpress.com/ sezaar

    yes “blackface” was a sort of comedy whereby whites would paint their faces black and acting as the stereotypical happy but lazy, carefree blacks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackfacernrnSpike Lee’s “Bamboozled” tackles this.