Saturday, December 24, 2016

Rube Goldberg Wishes You a Merry Christmas

Over the course of his 35 years or so as a daily and Sunday newspaper humor cartoonist, Rube Goldberg celebrated many Christmases in pen and ink. Here is a selection of just a few of his Christmas-themed offerings.


1909 - December 25 
Goldberg's first hit comic was Foolish Questions, which debuted in 1908. It catapulted him into national fame. The basic idea is that someone is asking a painfully obvious question and usually there is a sarcastic, surreal reply. At least one newspaper ran the following on Christmas day, 1909:





1911, December 25
Santa takes a well-earned rest




1922, December 21



1922, December 22 - Life's Little Jokes
A semi-regular series Goldberg created in the early 1920s



1923, December 24 - Steve Himself
Yet another short series Goldberg ran



1924, December 22 - Bozo Butts
For a summer job in college, Rube Goldberg collected patients and drove them to the San Francisco insane asylum. He was one of the "men in the white coats." Perhaps he drew on that experience for this short series.



1924, December 23 - People Who Put You To Sleep
One of my favorite series of Goldberg's -p- always makes me laugh,  Lamp that guy asleep on top of the speaker!



1925, December 24 - Life's Little Jokes




1927, December 24 - Bobo Baxter
In late 1927 and for most of 1928, instead of rotating his short series randomly among his many one-shots, Goldberg briefly settled down with one single comic strip, about a wacky inventor who creates a flying bicycle. This is the visually appealing Christmas episode.




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