You know those tiny little men's cartoon books found in antique mall baskets once in a while? Pocket-sized cheapies with a dame on the front and tiny, unreadable cartoons inside? You know, the ones which were about...hold on....well... "4 inches by 5 3/4 inches and 100 pages consisting of the following purported departments or divisions of the magazine: Girls Will Be Legal Eagles Show Biz Whizzes Kid Cut Ups Office Pips Here Come the Tigers With some 11 pages not contained in the table of contents and ...with 29 cartoonists represented by cartoons...most of whom who contributed single cartoons, but one in particular was named on 19 different drawings"
Your tax dollars at work in 1961, when a barrage of lawyers working on the public dime took the publishers of "Chicks and Chuckles" to Court. The extensive case was necessary to determine if the little rags qualified for a second rate mail permit. I mean, please....you can not have just ANYTHING being sent through the US mails. This landmark case, which I am sure made the careers of many a fine lawyer (Me...? oh, not much, really....I just worked on the, ahem... CHICKS and CHUCKLES case) was just one of many similar trials. In fact, I am linking here to another splendid example of courtroom charades which challenged the rights of the notorious "French Cartoons and Cuties and "College Laughs" to spread their bile in mail trucks and mailboxes across America. Thank God I live in a country where the mere chance I might be exposed to a 4 x 5 boob joke is so carefully considered. Must read documentation of censors in the early 60s. Links to the text of Departmental Decisions for Chicks and Chuckles and French Cartoons and Cuties
Books by Jim Linderman HERE
