The art direction of... wait, it'll come to me.

I know someone in the Daily Creative Department designed this cover. Ideas?

CRAIG WONDERS: Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not even the campus, is it? There's the IDS Tower, and the Northwestern National Bank sign...

The art of the can

I'm assuming I drew this for some sort of college beer can sculpture contest. Beyond that, I haven't a clue.


CRAIG COMMENTS: Bruce, you really could have had an alternate career as some kind of cartoonist, I think...

Bruce was hired as a copywriter, right?

The art of Bruce H. Or you get what you pay for from a free Creative Department.

CRAIG COMMENTS: Look at the hair on that babe! Too bad the plate of eggs and bacon doesn't look as appetizing.

The Art of Jeff Jones

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Jeff Jones is responsible for this clown.

Clip Art Joint

One of the many resources available to the Daily Creative Department was a collection of small books of clip art (although with all the original art flying around, we didn't have to use them much)--notably insurance accident clip art of people falling down stairs. Here's one example of the use of clip art. Where we found fencers is anybody's guess.

CRAIG ASKS: Bruce, did I work on this with you? Seems a little like my sense of humor. Or maybe John's.

JEFF V. FAWNS:  This is pretty funny. guys.  I don't recall ever seeing it.  I assume you cut and repositioned the guy on the left's arm to make two pictures out of one.  I know I wasn't involved because the third "panel" would have entailed the man on the right being skewered by the other one's sword.

The Airbrush Cometh

In an attempt to provide our clients with the latest technology and to give the FFG the chance to fool around with an airbrush, Jeff Jones somehow convinced the Daily to pony up for said airbrush. Jeff J. got really good at it as I recall; he could render a mean donut.

I'm Melting.

A sad day in the Daily Creative Department: many of the 45 records used to entertain and inspire us were tragically left on the heater, misshapen nearly beyond recognition (and they sure as heck wouldn't play). If you can remember more of the gone but nearly forgotten, blog away.

King Ocar Ardine

Another popular pastime of the Daily Creative Department was to find advertising radio scripts printed in Communication Arts Magazine and perform them (often recording them). I particularly recall the scripts for King Oscar Sardines where the "esses" weren't pronounced (hence the title of this post) and Time Magazine with John doing the female parts (so to speak).

The Art of the Typewriter

I distinctly remember one slow day in the Daily Creative Department when Jeff Vlaming came up with the idea of creating a cartoon character using only the keys of John's typewriter. He'd type letters and spaces as the "drawing" came to life on the typewritten page. And darned if the final image didn't look exactly like one of Jeff's drawings as if he had used a pen instead!

Tail Gunner

When things got dull at the Minnesota Daily or lunch rolled around, a very popular way for the FFG to pass the time was to play Tail Gunner, the addictive video game on display either at Big Mike's Sub Shop or the Improper Fraction (a little help here). Not so much skill was required as was the ability to hit a button 500 times a minute.

CRAIG ASKS: What was the game you and Jeff loved to play down at the Improper Fraction, the one where that was basically a box in the center of the screen that shot "laser rays" from each of its four sides at attacking somethings? Space Zap?

BRUCE ANSWERS: Space Zap sounds right! In fact, I think that was the video game where all you needed was the nervous system of a humming bird.

John is more than amused by Craig.

Now, who, exactly, is Bandito Di Smoochos?



From the infamous June '92 white-water rafting trip! Granny isn't in the photo. She fell overboard.



Craig makes Jeff V. smile too!



BRUCE ADDS: I don't remember how we all got to Colorado. I do remember pulling the seats out of the car to sit around a campfire. I remember introducing the FFG to Lisa's brother's (Bob's) kids and Craig giving little Britte a shoulder ride. And I remember a grandmother falling out of the raft and Bob pulling her back in by her life vest. Also, gloves without fingers and those things that keep your sunglasses from falling into the river.

Jimbo and Bob

Here is the original paste-up for the Jimbo and Bob ad. Gotta love that border tape!



BRUCE ADDS: I wish I still had the original to that James Garner caricature! I also wish I had the caricature I did of Craig when he grew a beard. As I remember, I had Craig saying, "Look at this neat-o beard!" as he was pointing to his chin. I also remember Craig disliking it immensely, ripping it off the Creative Department door to which it was taped and tearing it to shreds, perhaps thinking we (me) were making fun of him for some reason. Does anyone also remember Craig pulling apart a cassette tape (and maybe throwing it out the window)? Was it a recording of Craig made surreptitiously?

CRAIG PLEADS: Aw geez...can't we just give that "Underdog" story a rest for a while? How about until after I'm dead?

DOWN IN THE VALLI

T

Ad campaigns were rare enough in the Daily so when the beloved Valli Restaurant in Dinkytown okayed this series of ads it was the stuff of Daily creative department history. I'm uncertain how many ran, -- give me a number, anyone -- but with the succinct, witty headlines, the whimsical "broken line" illustrations and the lack of Cooper Black anywhere in the ad, it was considered a truly high-brow campaign.

The alternative ideas shown above, were not. (If anyone's interested, we're still looking for a headline to the "beartrap" illio.)

BRUCE TRIES: Things could be worse. You could have eaten at Stub & Herbs!

BRUCE ADDS: OR...Only a few things are sharper than our steak knives.

Party Quiz

Who knows why 4/5 of us (and pushy broads) were having a get-together in May of 1992?






Here's a hint:

CRAIG ANSWERS: Judging by that last photo -- my party gift of "Shrimp on the Barbie" -- I would hazard a guess that this was the going-away party for Bruce and Lisa before they left on their trip to Australia! And look at picture 3 -- John was amused by something I said. We have photographic proof!

BRUCE ADDS: Did I remember to thank everyone for that get-together? I still have that shrimp-on-the-Barbie and have to laugh every time I think of it! I also have photos of everyone giving each other back rubs later in the evening, negatives available for a price.

Just a memory jogger (or if it's yellow then it's Jello)

Does anyone remember the record that was played over and over with someone calling on the telephone?

JEFF V. SUGGESTS: Calling on the telephone repeatedly?  More information needed.

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!