Author: DOuG pRATt

Jackson, Drink Your Beer

The “critical mass” achieved by television viewership during the mid-50’s led to the transformation of radio from what it was to the hit record format for kids it became. That turned Rock and Roll into a force that changed the world. One of my pet peeves is the assertion that RnR is nothing more than Rhythm and Blues. It isn’t, because by its very definition Rock and Roll is a combination of White and Black influences. You want an example of purely Black music from that time? Here’s an awesome 1955 “race record” (as R&B had previously been called) that deserves far more views than the sub-200 it has at the moment!

Sven Flintstone

Scott Shaw! (exclamation point included) is a professional cartoonist specializing in Hanna-Barbera characters, especially the Flintstones. A couple of weeks ago I did a favor for Scott by posting this video.

https://youtu.be/yy1uZqdF3wM

I’m a Svengoolie fan, and I record his MeTV show on my PC-DVR every Saturday, so it was easy for me to grab the segment with Sven’s shout-out to Scott. I was careful to include the action right before the break, so that Kerwyn’s joke made sense.

Oliphant SycoFANt

Political cartooning, like printed newspapers, continues its long, slow decline. (Sometimes not so slow.) One of the greatest practitioners of the art was Pat Oliphant. Now retired, much of Oliphant’s work has been collected at the University of Virginia, which is now holding an exhibit.

Even without Oliphant’s consistently original ideas and humor, I have always admired his art. His ink line, for all these years, appeared to me as having come off of a brush. The late Jeff MacNelly, who died 20 years ago in his early 50’s, used a brush, but to my surprise, as this video shows, Oliphant inked with a pen. Even more surprising, he used acrylic ink, not India ink.