Due to the holiday we’re taking a week off from the “Sketch o’the Week”. I lieu of that, I thought this illustration I did as a demo for an illustration workshop I taught back in 2020 was a suddenly relevant piece of art to share! It’s real watercolors and everything!! READ MORE
As promised (or threatened depending on your perspective) we are moving on to caricature sketches of classic 1970’s sitcom stars, starting with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman of “The Odd Couple”. I meant to mention with last week’s “Gilligan’s Island” sketch the timeless question that fans of that show have been asking themselves for decades… “Mary Ann or Ginger?” Well the Odd Couple has a similar conundrum… “Tony Randall/Jack Klugman or Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau?” Okay… not exactly the same connotations but the point is those are two distinct camps when it comes to fans of Felix and Oscar. Randall and Klugman played the duo in the long running TV series,… READ MORE
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is this is the final sketch of my “TV shows Tom watched after school as a kid” series, which everyone must be bored out of their minds with by now. I have plum run out of shows I actually watched after school. I saved “Gilligan’s Island” for last for two reasons. First, it was the quintessential after school show for me. It seemed to be in endless syndication and was on every day on what appeared to be all channels, so I saw every episode multiple times over the years. Second, there are… READ MORE
Would you believe I almost forgot about “Get Smart” as one of the shows I loved to watch as a kid. Missed it by THIS MUCH! This was another show that for some reason never got syndicated on my local channels much, but when it did I never turned the dial. Show creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry are/were both comedic geniuses and this is one of the best TV comedies ever in my opinion. Here’s my caricature of stars Don Adams and Barbara Feldon as agents 86 and 99… sorry about that, Chief. READ MORE
Fresh Air! Times Square! Goofy caricature! We continue our sketch series of classic sitcoms with Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert from the 60’s series “Green Acres”. Much like the “fantastical gimmick” trend in sitcoms in the 60’s, there was a mini “rural” trend featuring three shows that all existed in the same world: “The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres”. You should probably include “The Andy Griffith Show” with that group as the original rural show, but there was never any crossover there. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were actually created based on the success of The Beverly Hillbillies. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were set in the… READ MORE
I have to admit I saw very few episodes of “F Troop” in syndication as a kid. It just wasn’t a show my local stations carried in the hours immediately after school when I watched TV. The few episodes I did see were mainly when I was home sick from school, and caught many old syndicated shows on during the day. My mom would put me in front of our TV on the couch, bundled up in blankets and sipping soup out of a thermos while she worked, and I’d veg out watching old shows. I remember F Troop being very reliant on slapstick/physical humor.… READ MORE
A very old joke… Ward and June Cleaver are at the breakfast table. “Ward?” “Yes, Dear?” “I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night.” “Leave it to Beaver” was a show I sometimes watched after school, although it wasn’t often showing in syndication on my local channels. It’s a classic so I think it needed to be representing in our “Classic Sitcom” series. So, here’s a sketch of Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers as Wally and Beaver Cleaver. READ MORE
When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly… even a ridiculous sketch like this! We continue our series of caricatures from classic sitcoms with Sally Field as Sister Bertrille AKA “The Flying Nun!” This was another of the run of shows in the 60’s that featured some kind of fantastical gimmick like witchcraft, genies, monsters, etc… in this case a young, 90 pound sister in a convent in Puerto Rico that can fly via strong winds and her starched coronet. Field famously hated the part and her experience doing the show. She was pregnant in the third and final season, and considered… READ MORE
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