Humorous Exaggeration in Cartoons and Speeches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One way of providing humor is via exaggeration (employed by Toastmasters for Tall Tales speeches, as described in a December 2020 magazine article by Kate McLure titled True Lies). I have been looking at some old cartoons from the English humor magazine Punch with wild exaggerations. As shown above, rather than just a double decker bus you could imagine one with five enclosed stories, more like a skyscraper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You also could imagine speeding up an escalator to where it flung passengers onto a mattress.

 

The bus cartoon came from page 241 of a pdf at the Internet Archive from 1923, and the escalator cartoon came from page 98 of a pdf from 1925.   

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two more examples with baggy trousers and daily newspapers are from pages 288 and 526 of that pdf from 1925.