Chicago Spanking Review Special Presentation

Humorama Spanking Positions #2

Last year (2012) we did a special on cartoon girls and live models in various spanking positions, and I've "uncovered" enough additional examples to justify presenting them here as Humorama Spanking Positions #2. A few of these aren't from Humorama, but I don't think anyone will want to quibble. First, it's bottoms up once again for hard-working secretaries in some more versions of the time-honored "bend over the files" gag.

At left is one by Lowell Hoppes, similar to another cartoon of his that we presented last time. At right, Bill Wenzel enhances the gag by having a spectator not simply leer, but have to fight off the temptation to swat her with his one free hand.

From Snappy (May 1960) (Click to double-size.)

From the cover of Good Humor (August, 1967). This was a Charlton publication, not Humorama, but of course Bill Wenzel published all over the place.

Another way to introduce some variety into these gags is to replace a secretary bending over in an office with a maid bending over in the living room:

From Fun House Comedy (March, 1966). Art by Ramon Henri. Click to double-size.

From Breezy (June, 1954), artist unknown. Click to double-size.

O.K., that was enough of a break - let's get back to secretaries! This one is by John Gregory, who also did Secretary Spanking #14. The boss instructs Miss Martin to stoop rather than bend to reach the lower files in order to relieve the traffic jam caused by the men wanting to watch her bend over. Someone should explain to this killjoy that stooping (meaning the knees are bent) is nowhere near a good as bending over (knees kept straight) when it comes to giving a good line to the body, and certainly not as good for paddling and caning.

Maybe these pen manufacturers don't bend over backwards for anyone as their salesman claims, but one of their secretaries certainly does bend over forwards (to reach a low box, natch), much to one customer's delight.

From Snappy (May, 1959). Art by John Gregory.

From Stare (Feb. 1953). Art by George Troop. Click to double-size.

From Whiz-Bang (Feb. 1954). Click to double-size.

One problem with these bending-over gags is this: how do you get the girl's skirt up to expose her slip or cami-knickers? Charlie Eatmon solved this problem by setting his cartoon in a pet store window, where a helpful parrot pulls up the young woman's skirt as she bends over to reach - yes, a low file (strangely located in the display) - giving a nice view to a rather goofy-looking guy. This reminds us of that preposterous Skygirl pose where a bird is pulling her dress up while she's clinging to an airplane - in flight!

Eatmon does the bending-over position quite well, with the feet level and the knees straight, enhanced by the use of high heels (which make the wearer bend over further) and he gives us a nice round bottom just perfect for paddling. He never did any true "spankers" as far as we know, however, and he was a very minor contributor to Humorama.

From Popular Jokes (May 1967). Click to double-size.

Quite similar to the last example is this one by Stanley Rayon. Once again a pretty girl bends over and displays her wares in a store window, but this time the gag is the "$5.00 Special" sign which suggests a humorous possibility to our two spectators. Worth $5.00? We'd say so!

What works for a secretary works for a nurse in a doctor's office as Miss Kelley chooses an inopportune moment to bend over the files and drives up the patient's vital signs just as the doctor is trying to measure them. The unknown artist provided the nurse with a see-through dress that's more like a nightie.

From Humorama (January 1958). Click to double-size.

From an unknown digest (Click to double-size).

Very similar to the episode in the doctor's office above is this one drawn by Bill Ward in which once again a nurse chooses an awkward moment to bend over, although the patient doesn't seem to be complaining and neither are we as Ward did a fine job on her behind and the positioning that allows her to display it. The difficulty we noted earlier in raising the dress is handled here by having her nurse's uniform get snagged on the coatrack. The only thing missing is a nice big paddle.

Click to double-size.

Both of these bending-over exercises came from the August, 1978 issue of Funhouse (Click to double-size).

Ramon Henri makes his second appearance as yet another secretary bends over the files to liven things up in the accounting department (see his Secretary Bends Over the Window Sill above).

From Cartoon Parade (July, 1963). Click to double-size.

From Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang (later a Humorama publication). Click to double-size.

Artist unknown (click to double-size).

Bending over in the garden was seen on occasion in Humorama, most notably in Gene Bellos' Fence Gag Spanking. The joke here, such as it is, revolves around the "keep off" sign. Below I enlarged and reversed the figure for some reason.

From Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang (artist unknown - click to double-size).

Not everyone works in an office. These two men work in a sewer, and bending over for them is a young woman checking on her baby. As you can see, Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang was even less subtle than Humorama, of which it later became a part (for how long is not known).

From Sick #134 (Fall 1980). Click to double-size.

Here's a non-Humorama example of the "bend over the files" gag that shows its durability: it's from a 1980 issue of Sick magazine. Sick was a MAD imitator and competitor, never exactly in competition with Humorama which of course aimed at the adult market. Some CSR readers may remember the television series WKRP in Cincinnati, which owed a great deal to The Mary Tyler Moore Show but wasn't bad as an ensemble-type sitcom.

In this parody called "W-K-R-A-P in Cincinnati", Jennifer bends over the files while Les Nessman thinks about giving her a swat and Mr. Carlson looks on. The faces being caricatured belong to cast members Gordon Jump (Carlson), Richard Sanders (Nessman), and Loni Anderson (Jennifer).

The script here is by Arnold Drake; the art is uncredited but is probably by Jack Sparling. We'll visit this panel and Sick #134 again at a future date, because there was a spanking of sorts in another feature from this issue.

From Stare (October, 1960). Art by Beattie (first name unknown, Click to double-size).

In tracing the development of the humorous spanking cartoon, which we will do in a future article, it is necessary to consider what I call the "Behind in Jeopardy" cartoon genre, a sub-category of which deals with a pretty girl partially undressed in the doctor's office about to get a shot where she sits down. Most of these don't feature the patient in any kind of spanking position, the ostensible subject of this article, but this one does: the girl bends over to receive her shot, displaying a very nicely proportioned behind. The gag here, not very well-stated, is that the cami-knickers apparently feature her own needlepoint (a type of embroidery using yarn), although we don't see any. In any case, the patient here will soon "get the point", and with those knickers down, too!

From Popular Jokes (May, 1967). Signature missing but definitely the work of George Morrice Click to double-size.

It's harder to find examples of girls in something resembling the OTK position than it is of them bending over, but I have come up with this rather strange piece by "Big Six" member George Morrice. The girl's position on the bed may have been intended to be kneeling on hands and knees, but it's really closer to over-the-knee except that there's no knee, if you see what I mean.

Another odd thing is that she's wearing only her cami-knickers and stockings below the waist even though two gentlemen are visiting. To us, it looks like she's inviting them to spank her - and needless to say, if any of us spankos were in their place, we'd certainly oblige her!

Wink (April, 1955). Click to double-size.

This one may look familiar, because someone extracted the figure from the cover of the April, 1955 issue of Wink and I've seen it used several times on the 'net. The nice, painted cover features a girl weighing herself on a scale. She must be somewhat nearsighted because she finds it necessary to bend over to read the dial, which is o.k. with us as it provides a nice view, and not just of the dial! Such bending-over gags were readily accepted by this time - they don't ever seem to have been controversial the way OTK spanking was, which is interesting - and in fact, the first known secretary spanking cartoon came out just about the time this issue did, somewhat earlier than Bill Wenzel's first one at Humorama (see Secretary Spanking #26)

Two things about Wink that make it of interest to spankos: (1) along with its sister Robert E. Harrison publications, it had a number of spanking photographs as far back as the 1940's, some of which we'll see next year, and (2) the title was briefly revived circa 1972 - by Humorama! (Thanks to Steve W. for discovering this startling fact).

From the August 1969 issue of Stare (Web-Ed's collection. Click to double-size.)

From the August 1966 issue of Gaze (Web-Ed's collection. Click to double-size.)

Now let's switch gears and take a look at some pin-ups. At left is an unknown model bending over, not far enough for our tastes, but at least with a nice wide stance.

At right is the strangest photo of this type I have ever seen in a Humorama publication. It's only three years older than the other one, yet it looks more like something out of another era, perhaps a "what the butler saw" type of peep show from the 1930's rather than a girlie picture from 1966. It's basically an upskirt shot, not very sophisticated, and frankly not showing all that much except a humdrum pair of black knickers! Humorama must have been short of material in August of 1966 for this one to make it in.

From the February 1965 issue of Stare (Web-Ed's collection. Click to double-size.)

From the December 1965 issue of Comedy (Web-Ed's collection. Click to double-size.)

Almost as strange is this shot at left of Jean Gray (not to be confused with Jean Grey the X-Man) bending over a barrel in which she displays her "split back" cami-knickers. Don't ask us why there's a candle burning next to her right foot. This picture comes close to demonstrating where the expression "over a barrel" came from, only missing having the hands tied at the bottom and a spanker with a suitable implement, although I've heard there is a different origin for the phrase.

At right an unnamed model wearing sequined drawers bends over and places her hands on a bench, rather typical paddling or caning position except that she's twisting over to the right. I'd prefer the pose to be straight, and would also like to see a better-fitting costume. This photo looks like it might have been snapped in the dressing-room backstage at a strip club.

From the December 1971 issue of Stare (Web-Ed's collection).

Hands and knees is a workable paddling position, and the freelance photographers who were published by Humorama would occasionally use it also. This is the only photo of model Yvonne West we can recall. She doesn't look too happy, maybe because she hasn't been spanked yet.

(Web-Ed's collection. Click to double-size.)

With no apologies to Noel Coward, who wrote the screenplay for Brief Encounter, "A brief encounter with Laura Monique" was advertised on the cover of the August 1978 issue of Popular Jokes, which I'm pretty sure was the longest-running of Humorama's full-sized magazines. I'm not sure how her hands can reach her knees like that without her bending over further, which would make this a better spanking position - probably the twist to the right is pulling her left hand up.

From the May 1981 issue of Popular Jokes (Click to double-size.)

At left, Betty Farrell displays a very well-proportioned and spankable bottom, while below an uncredited model bends over in the bathtub - admittedly not the best place for a paddling.

From the February 1980 issue of Funhouse (Click to double-size.)

From the November 1960 issue of Snappy (Click to double-size.)

The models who appeared in the pages of Humorama varied tremendously in quality, from very ordinary-looking women who were willing to take off their clothes one day to girls like Diane Webber and Bettie Page who had successful modeling careers. And like Diane and Bettie, Joyce Nizzari had been a Playboy Playmate of the Month (Dec. 1958) as well. Her pose there had been bare-bottomed, so it's only fitting that she should bend over for an unknown photographer (probably Bunny Yeager) around that same time.

From the December 1956 issue of Joker (Click to double-size.)

Next, a pair of wedding-night scenes from the same digest in which the bride bends over to pull her dress over her head. First, cami-knickers made out of a flour sack reminds us of Dan DeCarlo's Hill Country Spanking #2. The unknown artist provides us with a well-proportioned, well-positioned bottom, though not much in the way of a gag.

From the December 1956 issue of Joker (Click to double-size.)

Second, poor Paul Hamilton shows again that despite studying other Humorama artists, he never mastered the basics of drawing with a bride who has a skinny right arm, no left arm, and most amazingly, no head! She does have some hair and a fairly generous-sized behind, however. This cartoon was drawn before Hamilton tried to imitate Dan DeCarlo's effects, and I'm not sure whom Hamilton was trying to imitate here. (Hamilton did one spanking cartoon, In the Pink Spanking.)

From the July, 1959 issue of Gee-Whiz (click to double-size).

Forney Mumford was an occasional contributor to Humorama, doing no known spanking cartoons. I'm not sure that the caption, "I brought along everything except the spread", is as vulgar as it might at first appear to be. Perhaps some different meaning was intended, but if so, it's been lost in the more than 50 years of changes to the vernacular that have taken place since it first appeared in 1959. Mumford gives us a decent hands-and-knees spanking position, although he doesn't draw sexy females as well as The Big Six (Ward, Wenzel, Stiles, DeCarlo, Homer, and Morrice) or other stalwarts like Stanley Rayon did.

From the March, 1961 issue of Jest.

A rear-view mirror provides a rear view in this cartoon by Bill Power. This is the only "bend over the drinking fountain" gag I have seen, although given Power's habit of, shall we say, "recycling" other cartoonists' ideas, there could be another one out there somewhere.

From Pack O' Fun (October, 1956).

In most of these gags, it's good fortune that's responsible for getting the pretty girl to bend over, but in this case a clever bicycle shop owner uses the pretext of finding the right bicycle seat to fit the girl's behind in order to induce her to assume the position. Two spectators smile at their good fortune at being on hand for the fitting.

The hands-on-knees position is well-done here, with the raised head and shoulders arching the back and turning her bottom up - just perfect for paddling! The only problem is that the unknown artist used solid black for her dress, obscuring the contours of her bottom. Speaking of the artist, he signs his name only with a capital "G", and I don't know who he is. The girl's face is rendered somewhat in the style of Frank Beaven, but the men aren't. Beaven used several different known signatures, including a capital "F", and it's possible he was trying to disguise his identity, but unless I run across some more cartoons signed "G" we'll probably never know for sure.

This one is from a non-Humorama publication called Pack O' Fun (October, 1956).

One feature in the later Humorama publications was the "Rear Admirable" which I mentioned in Humorama Spanking Positions 1. Let's see two more of these meritorious derrieres, belonging to Joan Metrick and Amber Dean. Joan is twisted too far over to be in good paddling position, but Amber is much better situated, except that she's kneeling on the floor, which is a little too low for our purposes. Put her up on that couch, and everything would be just fine.

Joan bent over for us in the May, 1977 Popular Jokes, while Amber assumed the position in the same publication two and a half years later in November, 1979.

(click to double-size)

Next let's take a look at some models who aren't exactly in spanking position, but are nonetheless quite spankable. At left, Lisa St. Clair takes down her shorts revealing her bare bottom as if she had been instructed to do so prior to getting spanked. This is a really great fantasy picture as you can easily imagine the spanking that comes next.

At right, Heidi Anderson's bikini bottom is nowhere to be seen, but her bare bottom certainly is! The caption reads "Reflections and Ideas," but the only idea that comes to our mind is to give Heidi a good spanking, paddling, or caning on that beautifully-proportioned bottom of hers!

(click to double-size)

From Zip (July 1971) (click to double-size)

From Gaze (August 1966) (click to double-size)

At left, Flora Hutchins reveals another well-proportioned and highly-spankable bottom. I'm not sure what the positioning of the unnamed model at right was supposed to represent, but to me it suggests her saying, "Wow! That paddle really stings!"

(click to double-size)

In Humorama Spanking Positions 1 I revealed the surprising fact that Julie Newmar had been a Humorama model! I knew that Julie had been a dancer and actress right from the start of her career, so I was puzzled at what seemed to be a professional modeling gig. Since then I have found some more photos that leave no doubt that Julie did a fair amount of modeling very early in her career. First is another photo of Julie in a Humorama publication, the March 1965 Zip although it certainly must have been printed earlier. They have her wearing horn-rimmed glasses here, but even that couldn't make her look plain.

This one from ten years earlier, the March 1955 Comedy, was obviously early in her career because she's still going by her given name of "Newmeyer". The bikini shows off her figure, sure, but how many Humorama models could have executed a leap like that? Obviously, Julie studied ballet for a number of years.

On the cover of the May, 1957 issue of Show a very young-looking Julie shows us a little more than we're used to seeing. Bare bosoms were o.k. by this time (still mildly controversial, perhaps), and bare bottoms were poised to scandalize the more prudish, but you wouldn't see either on a front cover yet, so Julie keeps just a little hidden from view.

Note the cover blurb for "Natalie Wood: Hollywood 'Bad' Girl". Now, Richard Windsor has long maintained that Wood was a secret spanko, and over the years I've discarded my early skepticism and come around to his point of view. I don't have this magazine, but I have to wonder if the article suggested that "bad girl" Natalie needed a spanking.

And going all the way back to 1953, here's Julie on the cover of the December issue of Eye. This is one of her heavier bodyweights, and I actually prefer her this way since she always had a tendency to be too thin. (Yes, I know, models can never be too thin according to the people who hire them, but I don't agree.)

As an interesting aside, this Eye may have been another one of Martin Goodman's publications (there was a British magazine with this title also), and it was certainly added to the Humorama line in January, 1960, following the same format as the other digests. It had two spanking cartoons that I know about, and was the shortest-lived Humorama digest I have yet documented, lasting only six issues. Perhaps Goodman changed the format because it wasn't selling well, but if so, the format change must not have improved enough sales enough to prevent the book's cancellation.

Since I'm supposed to be presenting Humorama models in spanking positions, here's a still frame I extracted from Batman. Her positioning is really quite excellent here, but unfortunately the director made this a distance shot, and there must have been a break when he cut to another camera for a closer view because Julie was repositioned in it. The long distance and the still extract process resulted in a low-resolution photo, unfortunately, but we can still imagine giving Catwoman (not Julie!) some of the good swats a bad girl deserves.

I wouldn't want anyone to think I had some sort of schoolboy crush on Julie, although I certainly knew who she was when I was growing up, remembering her from Mackenna's Gold (1969), where she did a brief nude swimming scene, and of course from Batman. I do admire her, though, for she was a very good actress on top of being a dancer and choreographer. Predictably, she was wasted in Hollywood, which always did everything it could to diminish everyone's talent by assigning them to committee-designed hack projects.

A wistful Catwoman (Julie Newmar) tries to reach out to Bruce Wayne (Adam West) in this well-acted scene from Batman. Studio executives paid attention to beautiful actresses, but only for their bodies, and if they had any real talent it usually went unnoticed. Julie would have been a dynamite lead actress in a romantic drama, but she was seldom if ever given the chance to play in one. (We may discuss a couple of episodes of Route 66 she did when we get around to presenting the spanking from that series).

It's a great pity she couldn't have had a longer career on stage, having appeared in Silk Stockings (1955), Li'l Abner (1956), Damn Yankees (1961?), and Stop the World - I Want to Get Off (1962). But despite being artistically superior to film, the stage always had fewer roles to offer, and many actors and actresses had to move from stage to films and television in order to find work.

Julie had an affecting feminine quality when she chose to let the audience see it. I'm not talking about raw sex appeal here, but femininity. Her role as Catwoman on TV's Batman, for which she is probably best remembered today, didn't give her too many opportunities to display that side of her personality, but there were a couple of scenes where we got a glimpse of the fragile and vulnerable woman below the surface. The shot at left is from one of those scenes - perhaps I should have presented it in video format, but I think the quality I've been discussing comes across even this way.

From Popular Jokes (November 1979). (click to double-size)

Jim Linderman over at Vintage Sleaze has decried the changes that came over Humorama in its later days. While I basically agree with his assessment - Humorama's attempt to "keep pace" with the raunchier mags of the late 70's was not a pretty sight - they did at least have more bare-bottom shots than they had in their earlier days. This one, of Bess Eaton bending over in an office setting, is a pretty good example of a model in paddling position, except for the strangely cramped surroundings. Usually, one bends one's secretary over the desk so there's plenty of room to swing that paddle! Bess's ample bottom makes a fine, tempting target nonetheless.

From the March, 1960 issue of Jest (click to double-size).

Maureen Reynolds bends over the laundry basket for us now in one of my favorites of these Humorama positionings. What I like about this one is that we view Maureen from her left side, which is exactly the view we'd have just before placing our left hand about her waist and fitting the paddle to her soon-to-be blazing backside! With high heels that force her to bend over further to reach the basket, Maureen is just bending far enough (right-angle bend between upper and lower bodies), and her raised head helps turn her bottom up. Nice wide stance, also!

Jem (January 1962, click to increase in size).

The cover of the January 1962 issue of Jem magazine provides an unlikely source of a spanking position as a young lady is bent over a clothesline, while the man responsible for this unorthodox method of hanging the wash winks at us knowingly. A carpet beater would have fit right in to this scene, and been very useful here as well. The cover blurb asks, "Are female robots necessary?" a question to which I have no answer, and more intriguingly mentions "Naughty girls with hearts of gold stone", making us wonder if they knew the proper remedy for such girls, as CSR readers do.

Jem followed very definitely in the footsteps of Playboy. It seems to have been in print from the late 1950's to the early 60's, and was published by bodybuilder Joe Weider! For me the most interesting thing about it is the occasional appearances by Weider's wife Betty Brosmer, who was a top model of the time and one I'd certainly like to have seen in spanking position. [Not long after those words were written, I got my wish - see below.] Although it had a few cartoons, no actual spankings in Jem are known at this time.

Betty Brosmer, displaying an extremely fit form. (click to enlarge)

Betty Brosmer bends over! Click to increase in size.

As I mentioned above, Betty Brosmer was one of the top models of the 50's and early 1960's, reknowned for her incredible figure, which measured something like 38-18-35, and no, that 18" waist is not a typo! I had searched out known pictures of Brosmer (there are many, including a few that found their way into the occasional Humorama digest) but could not locate anything remotely resembling a spanking position. And then, while running a completely different search, I chanced upon this one.

Overjoyed as I was upon finding it, I couldn't help but notice the resemblance of Betty's pose to those of models Barbara James, Nan White, Vicki Carpenter, and Sally Mansfield which were presented in Humorama Spanking Positions 1. Surely, I thought, they must all be the work of the same photographer, and since this one is credited to the legendary Bunny Yeager I could only conclude she most likely did the others as well. So not only do we aging fans of models from the 1950's owe Bunny our gratitude for providing us with so many swimsuit shots of Bettie Page and other models, we must also thank her for posing some of those models bending well over with feet wide apart, well-positioned for a good paddling!