I Could Jazz All Night

Black text on a white background with a red and white checkered outer edge

Comic Celluloid Buttons (or Comic Motto Buttons, as they became known sometime in the 1940s) hailed from Johnson Smith & Co. catalogues and became popular in the early to mid-20th century. Recognized by their iconic checkered border, featuring salacious slogans and witty banter, the catalogue promised, “Get acquainted – wear these comic celluloid buttons. Slip one or two of these buttons on your lapel and then wait for the wisecracks to begin. The girls get lots of fun out of them. At parties, you break the ice right from the start. Just give one of these to your guest, and it gives the party a flying start.” 

Johnson Smith & Company began in Chicago, Illinois in 1914 as a mail-order novelty and gag gift supplier, settling in Racine, Wisconsin in 1926. Johnson Smith & Co. or Johnson Smith Company sold an array of toys including pinback buttons with suggestive slogans meant as ice breakers.

The phrase "I could jazz all night" is a colloquial expression. The word "jazz" originated as slang in the United States in the early 1900s, meaning liveliness and energy. It later became associated with the energetic and exciting musical genre around the 1910s, some sources suggest that a sexual connotation may have developed, likely suggesting a desire to continue experiencing the excitement, energy, and perhaps the more illicit pleasures associated with the Jazz Age and its music.