Craig (finally!) gets the joke

Back in the summer of 1981, when only Jeff V. and I were left to staff the Minnesota Daily creative department, our primary task (along with annoying the account reps) was to create themes for the Coupon Bonanza supplements for each of the two summer semesters.

What we came up with will have to be the subject of a future post. Here's what didn't run. Drawing on inspiration from (I'm assuming) Tom & Jerry and Warner Bros. cartoons, Jeff tried to sell me on a comic strip he called Coupon Kitty:

Yes, I noticed that the mouse refers to Coupon Kitty as Q.T. Kitty here. These might not be the original drawings he did, but a re-drawing/tracing of the comic from some later date. Jeff will have to enlighten us.

At any rate, after he finished his original sketches, he excitedly put it under my nose and braced himself for the laughter sure to come. Instead, I think I gave him only a courtesy chuckle, saying it kinda funny, but didn't really do much for me.

And so, disappointed, he set it aside and we went back to brainstorming new ideas.

Then...

A full two weeks later, Jeff and I happened to be down in the production room for a meeting or checking proofs or something, and I started laughing uncontrollably. Jeff looked over at me and naturally asked, "What's so funny?" And I started replaying the Coupon Kitty cartoon to him, where the unfortunate feline gets run over by the steamroller and --

Gotta stop now. Laughing too hard again. Well, you get the idea.

JEFF V ADDS: Never mind Coupon Kitty's demise.... the same year, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out and Craig saw it and was ho-hum about the film... only after a period of reflection (and my hammering) did he come around to viewing the film in a positive light.  An apt comparison, Coupon Kitty and a Speilberg film, eh?

The above cartoon is, in fact, a redo of the original... as the date in the second-to-the-last panel is 1983.  There are, however, some other Coupon Kitty artwork (never used) that does exist, drawn on the Daily's famous 11" x 17" layout paper!

Okay, I didn't know how to spell Salisbury.

Mighty momentous milestone methinks.

CRAIG ADDS: It's a testament to Bruce's careful wordsmithing that even with a headline that crammed with "m" words, it didn't read like awkward alliteration.

CRAIG FURTHER ADDS: I just clicked on the ad to enlarge it because I was curious to read the copy -- and it was only then I noticed the taped-on fix to Harrison Salisbury's name. (Am I supposed to know who that guy is, by the way?)

BRUCE ADDS: Harrison Evans Salisbury (November 14, 1908 – July 5, 1993), an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (1955), was the first regular New York Times correspondent in Moscow after World War II. (Has nothing to do with steak.)

Sure you remember Bullwinkle's...

But do you remember Pudge's?

Jeff V adds:  A couple of fine examples of Bruce's artwork.  I like how the Pudge woman reflects the times... like she stepped right off of a Nagel print... and it's Bruce himself quaffing a cold one in the second panel!

BRUCE ADDS: You might have something there, Jeff.





And here's an extra from the back of the ad!

CRAIG ADDS: I remember Pudge's (it was in my neighborhood), but more importantly, I think I remember doing the Mug-Shot ad with Bruce (and unintentionally implying that excessive imbibing will lead to arrest and imprisonment; ah, the obliviousness of young ad people...)

The Mark of Bandito Di Smoochos!

The exact date is uncertain but, based on the letterhead below, it was sometime during the 1992 or 1993:

Attached was a photocopy of the following comics page from a Hispanic newspaper. A day or two later, Jeff called and asked what I thought of the comics. I told him it was kind of funny to see familiar comics in Spanish but didn't really look it over much. Jeff was surprised at my obtuseness, and told me to look closer at the page, where he had inserted three special comics (each with their own drawing and narrative style and written in pseudo-Spanish!) based on inside jokes for us.

Can you identify them?

The top strip -- Bandito di Smoochos -- was based on the "Thief of Kisses" nickname Jeff assigned me after I related my (once in a lifetime) tale of stealing kisses from two different women at a pub crawl the night before. And of course, answered the question of what I would look like in a Zapata moustache.

The fourth strip -- Carlos! Bambina di Salsa -- featured Carlos The Salsa Boy, the name we had once dubbed the low-level employee at Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant whose job it was to go table to table refilling the salsa bowls.

Finally, the second to last strip -- Senor Eduardo -- was based on nothing more than (I think) an offhand observation by Jeff's brother Jonathan that in Mexico, the old TV sitcom, "Mr. Ed" would be known as "Senor Eduardo" (which he would cap off with a deep-throated Mr. Ed impersonation saying, "Buenos dias, Wilbur").

You've got to appreciate how much work goes into these silly jokes.

P*A*R*T*Y

The year was 1983. The sitcom M*A*S*H was destined to conclude in what would be one of television's most-watched events. And the 5 Guys weren't about to pass up the chance for another get-together:

I think I must have read some spoilers beforehand, because some of the categories ("Goes Crazy," "Spin-Off") were pretty spot-on. My favorite bit in the whole crudely made, photocopied invite is my removal of the last check-box in the Hot Lips row. (She can't really bed herself now, can she?)

Here's the party photo:

(From left: Father Mulcahy, unidentified surgeon,

unidentified corpsman and Korean prisoner,

Hawkeye-wannabe, BJ-wannabe, Hot Lips-wannabe.)

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that, contrary to the invite, there was no M*A*S*H Vodka served. I cheaped out, as I recall.

(Plus, none of us drank vodka.)

And finally, since no funny joke ever goes untopped by Jeff, he followed up my invitation with his own version about the fates of all five of us...and dang it! I can't find it anywhere in my files! I'll keep looking...

JEFF V ADDS: I too have no idea where the mock invite is. I do, however, recall that among the array of fates that might befall one of the five funniest guys was 'wed Rose Woo', a reference to the last art director hired under the FFG dynasty.

CRAIG ADDS: Close, Jeff, but that's not exactly what you wrote. See below:

(Be sure to click and enlarge it so

you can read the whole thing)

JEFF V ADDS: Something that's fun to track over the many photos and drawings of the FFG is who had a beard and/or moustache.  In the above mock-invite you can see Bruce and John are both sporting a s'tache but in the photo from the MASH party Bruce and Jeff J. both have full beards, as did I.  Hey, what can you say... it was the eighties!

BRUCE ADDS: The above group photo reminds me of the first time 4/5 of the funny guys met John's girlfriend at the time, Andrea. John had rendezvoused with her at either the Improper Fraction or Stub & Herbs and the rest of us just happened to stop by. I remember it as both awkward and hilarious!

Craig Knows Where the Ketchup Is

Once upon a time at the Daily, Craig was in charge of the holiday Gift Guide insert and was simultaneously A) taking photographs for the guide B) writing pithy descriptions of Guide items and C) farming out illustration requests to the art directors. Needless to say, Craig was swamped with the chore, his every waking moment consumed by it.

So it was in this fractured, distracted mental state that Craig and I went to McDonalds for lunch off-campus. A cheery grey-haired retiree took Craig's order and then, just as cheerily, informed him where the condiments were located in the restaurant.

At that precise moment, Craig was hit with an eureka! answer to a Gift Guide conundrum that had been plaguing him. He shouted out in relief, finally having solved his work problem.

But to me, the onlooker, I saw a little old lady behind the counter tell Craig, "...And the ketchhup packets are over there." To which Craig shouted, "I KNOW...!" To which the startled old bag replied in a tiny voice, "I'm sure that you do..."

Modeling Careers Gone Awry

JEFF V ADDS:  The above photo of Bruce and me was actually shot at the Edina Country Club... as if you can see ANYHTHING in the background that suggests a posh location.  The top photo not only features a clueless Ron Holsacker (who, even posing for a camera, appears not to have any idea of what we were doing) but it's also a before-after kind of story: Bruce before, using the same ol' knapsack as the rest of the crowd and BRUCE AFTER, who not only owns a whole gaggle of bags, but is in color... and has a bodacious babe staring past him.

Students Dealt Winning Hand

And who remembers Coupon Harold:

CRAIG ASKS: Can Bruce or anyone else supply any background info/anecdotes to this entry? Wasn't this the Creative Department's first Coupon Bonanza cover?

BRUCE ADDS: Yup, this was the first Coupon Bonanza cover, at least the first that the FFGs did. The photo was set up in a back room in the Daily building. No one even bothered to write any body copy, but of course, in order to make the cover look right, massive greeking was used!


Also, this was the first introduction of Swisher Sweets cigars to the group, later to reappear at subsequent events including weddings.

The Great Coupon Caper

Click on each to enlarge...

CRAIG COMMENTS: Isn't this the first Coupon Bonanza that went beyond just the cover? Let's have some behind-the-scenes stuff here.)

BRUCE ADDS: Right again Craig. I do recall the outline of the dead body (underneath an open Daily window) causing a big stir among the curious passersby. Also, it was great fun going "on location" around campus snapping the photos. And (of course) I still have that hat.

The Great Coupon Caper (the teaser)

Cast (in order of appearance)

Raymond (Scoop) Baxter...........John Jarvis
Trench Malloy...........................Bruce Hannum
Rocky Ravelli............................Jeff Jones
Johnny Valmino........................Jeff Vlaming

Tuesday, April 29, 1980

Trench Malloy Movie Stills

From the Sea Captain with a monkey to J. Valmino given the 3rd degree to Trish the Dish. So when did Jeff shave?

Our 17th annual summer picnic

Stumbled on this the other day while rifling through a file of nonsense. Turns out there was a second Summer Picnic, nine years after the first one.  (Or perhaps it was our 17th picnic, since I had dubbed the previous one our 16th picnic.)

(Don't bother clicking to enlarge to read; 

you're not missing any jokes.)

(The fetuses, by the way, would have been Michael, Matthew and Isabel.)

Available virtually nowhere

I don't remember when these sartorial brainstorms happened, though I'm guessing it was in the early 2000s, probably during a phone conversation with one of the Jeffs.  It looks dashed off and was probably faxed to whoever it was I was speaking to at the time.  Whatever their origin, I obviously found it amusing enough that I created a second wave of designs based on memorable in-jokes back in our Daily days:

Scrambling for Clients

In case business owners didn't realize promoting themselves was good for business this mailer was sent out to prospective and existing clients. Craig or John had this Seussean poem and they thought it would fit the flier perfectly. Hey, even if the business owners didn't choose to advertise in the Daily who could help but adore the folksy, "down on the farm" poem? (Below is an alternate drawing for the flier and, of course, the Jeff V. "real life" version).

CRAIG ADDS:  What I recall most about this what my fervent belief that this was a dynamite promo idea (What cash-strapped business wouldn't be persuaded by a clever poem to plunk down money for an ad?) and how I made it my mission to bring it to life exactly as I pictured it in my mind -- only to see it ignored and unmailed by every single account exec in the office.

The one we've been waiting for: King Koupon!!

(Or at least, the one most of us have been waiting for. I suspect that Jeff J., not working at the Daily during this period, probably regards with with the same distanced amusement that I feel about say, the first Trench Malloy Coupon Bonanza story.)

Although, we didn't have the foresight to have video cameras recording the moment for posterity, I suspect this issue began with a tossed-off notion from Jeff, whose fascination with the big ape goes back to least age 12. 

What I find most fascinating though, is our post-modern approach to story-telling, using faked bits of "found narrative" and a collage-style layout.  I don't remember any particular source we were "aping" with this.  It could be one of the most creative ideas we came up with:

(Klick to read all the klever kopy.)

As promised, here are scans of the actual photos used, including my National Enquirer-worthy photo composites.)

(This shot, the Old Sea Captain's shanty, I believe was shot in the basement of the Daily building -- it's not the third floor men's room, though it may look like it.)
King Koupon rises up over Northrup Hall.  Note the body language of the four, all apparently unphased by the prospect of a 50-foot tall primate looming over them.)

Of course, that's John inside the gorilla suit, having the time of his strait-laced life lurching around campus in complete anonymity.  I seem to recall him saying hi to one of his professors (Bob Jones?) we passed on the mall, who absently just greeted him back without bothering to wonder who was behind the mask.

Along with Bruce in his Trench Malloy trench coat and Jeff in his Sea Captain getup, that's Trish (one of the two female art directors in our little department) in the white.  The remaining woman is John's youngest sister, forever known to us as Miss Matchbook, for some forgotten reason John's going to have to fill in.

And that's where our story ends...for now!  (Takes a lot of scanning.)  Watch for part 2, coming soon!