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For National Cartoonists Day: Several Sit-Coms About Cartoonists
Happy National Cartoonists Day!
A good a time as any to peruse the comics and cartoons section of Travalanche, with its 180 or so posts. It’s not our main bailiwick, so be prepared for a bit of a hodgepodge, with posts on topics including not just comic strips, but comic books, animated cartoons, and some of the people behind the scenes who create them.
Today we present a little bagatelle that IS in our wheelhouse. Over the course of blogging at a certain point I realized that there is an unexpectedly copious amount of TV sit-coms that have cartoonists as main characters. What’s that all about? It seems to be a comforting idea somehow. Cartoonists are eccentric, funny, maybe irascible, but usually kind of harmless. I usually picture them wearing a sweater. At any rate, you might have thought there’d be one or two shows with a character who does this exceedingly rare job for a living, but as you can see there are at least a dozen. Follow the links (where links there are) to learn more.
The Tab Hunter Show (1960)
Movie heart-throb Tab Hunter played the artist behind the strip Bachelor at Large, which he based on his own swinging dating life. Critics dismissed it for being too much like The Bob Cummings Show and Bachelor Father. It only ran one season.
Keep It In the Family (1980-83)
British sit-com for ITV about a cartoonist (Robert Gillespie) who hates the strip his publisher makes him do, and does everything he can not to draw it.
The Duck Factory (1984)
Here’s one that has escaped me ’til now, and to learn of its existence fairly blows my mind. Prior to his being cast on In Loving Color young Jim Carey starred in this sit-com for MTM! This is a big deal; I have no idea how I never knew about it. Carey played an animator of a cartoon show called Dippy Duck. Also on the show were Jack Gilford, Don Messick (the voice of Scooby Doo), and Jay Tarses. It was cancelled after 13 episodes.
The People Next Door (1989)
Wouldn’t you like to watch a sit-com created by Wes Craven, with a theme song by Dr. John, and starring convicted pedophile Jeffrey Jones? Jones played a cartoonist with an imagination so vivid that his creations manifested themselves in real space. The cast included SNL‘sMary Gross, and Christina Pickles from St. Elsewhere. Only five episodes aired.
Bob (1992-93)
In Bob Newhart’s third sit-com series the popular comedian played an artist who drew a superhero comic called Mad Dog. Some of the supporting cast included Cynthia Stevenson (whom I always associate with Robert Altman’s The Player, which came out that same year), Betty White,Tom Poston,Dick Martin, and a pre-Friends Lisa Kudrow. Unlike Newhart’s first sit-com, which ran six years, or his second, which ran eight, Bob only lasted two seasons.
Caroline in the City (1995-99)
Lea Thompson was fresh off the Back to the Future trilogy, and the big screen reboots of The Beverly Hillbillies and The Little Rascals when she got this terrific starring vehicle, which ran for four years. (Speaking of cartoons, she was also in the notorious Howard the Duck). One of the show’s strengths is that her job as a successful comic strip creator adds color to the world of the show, and informs it, it’s not what it’s about per se, it’s about the character. As the title implies it’s a “working gal in the metropolis” motif in the tradition of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Near the end of its run Sex and the City launched, which had a similar theme but with more titillation.
Woke (2020)
Created by African American cartoonist Keith Knight, this Hulu show starred Lamorne Morris as a version of himself. The premise is that he was a guy who tried to avoid controversy…until that proverbial traffic stop that all black Americans fear awakened his social consciousness. It ran for two seasons.
For related reading, see the Comics and Cartoons section of Travalanche.
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