College Humor (magazine)

This article is about the magazine. For the website, see CollegeHumor. For other uses, see College Humor (disambiguation).
Cover of the September, 1925 issue.

College Humor was an American humor magazine published from 1920 to 1943.

History

College Humor was published monthly by Collegiate World Publishing.[1] It began in 1920[2] with reprints from college publications and soon introduced new material, including fiction. The headquarters were in Chicago.[1]

Personnel

Contributors

Contributors included Carl Sandburg, Paul Rhymer, Walter Winchell, George Ade,[1] Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, Groucho Marx, Ellis Parker Butler, Katharine Brush, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald.[3] Editor H.N. Swanson later became Fitzgerald's Hollywood agent.

The magazine featured cartoons by Johnny Gruelle, James Montgomery Flagg, Franklin Booth, John T. McCutcheon,[1] Sam Berman, Ralph Fuller, John Held Jr., Otto Soglow and others.

Staff

The first editor was H. N. Swanson. After he resigned in 1932, managing editor Patricia Reilly took over.[4] The magazine's sports editor was Les Gage in 1930–31.

1930s–40s

The cover price in 1930 was 35 cents (for 130 pages of content). Dell Publishing acquired the title for a run that began in November, 1934. In the late 1930s, it was purchased by Ned Pines and turned into a girlie magazine. Collegian Press, Inc. was the publisher in the early 1940s.[5] The magazine was retitled College Humor & Sense for parts of 1933 and 1934.

The magazine ceased publication in Spring 1943.[5]

Other uses

  • A radio variety program titled College Humor aired on the NBC Red radio network on Tuesday nights in 1941, sponsored by the Raleigh Tobacco and Cigarettes division of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. It shared the same timeslot placement to the Raleigh-sponsored, Red Skelton-led Raleigh Cigarette Program, contemporary schedules show. Produced mainly by college students and young comedians, the show focused on "the traditional hi-jinks which purportedly and really transpire on a college campus," according to a review in Movie-Radio Guide. Emceed by Tom Wallace with the Bob Strong orchestra, it featured comedians including Marlin Hurt, Franklyn MacCormack, Eddie Firestone and Linn Borden, as well as singers Virginia Verrill and Mary Ann Mercer.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Patricia Hall. Raggedy Ann and Johnny Gruelle: A Bibliography of Published Works. Pelican Publishing. p. 53. ISBN 978-1455610846. Retrieved 28 August 2016.
  2. ^ John T. Hetherington (2014). Vic and Sade on the Radio: A Cultural History of Paul Rhymer's Daytime Series, 1932–1944. McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 978-0786463039. Retrieved 28 August 2016.
  3. ^ See Fitzgerald, F. Scott and Zelda. "The Girl with Talent," College Humor, April 1930.
  4. ^ M. W. Childs, "She Gave Up 'Serious Thinking' and Became an Editor," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 4, 1932.
  5. ^ a b "Magazine Issues. College Humor". Magazine Data File. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  6. ^ J.C. (June 28, 1941). "Movie-Radio Guide Visits: Radio's Variety Show, "College Humor"" (PDF). Movie-Radio Guide. Vol. 10, no. 38. Triangle Publications Inc. p. 36.