Sketch O’The Week
August 30th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This sketch of Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway and Joe Flynn from “McHale’s Navy” got a new life a couple of weeks ago when the author of an upcoming book about the history of that show emailed me and asked about using the art on the book’s cover. I did not think a pencil sketch was appropriate for a book cover, so we settled on a price for use of the image and for me to add gray washes to the drawing so it had more of a finished look. This will be on the cover of a “McHale’s Navy” book coming out sometime later this year. READ MORE
August 16th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
For once no big names from the pop culture/entertainment world bit the dust this week, and we can get back to our TV sitcom series! We are currently doing 1970’s era shows, and this week’s sketch features Freddie Prinze and Jack Albertson from “Chico and the Man”. This show was groundbreaking in that is was the first U.S. TV series set in a latino neighborhood. With the success of “Sanford and Son”, NBC wanted to create another show centered in a minority community, this time a Mexican-American area of Los Angeles. Supposedly the show’s concept was heavily based on some of the skits from the comedy team Cheech and Chong.… READ MORE
August 9th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated! “Laverne and Shirley” was a huge hit as a spin off from the show “Happy Days”. Here’s my sketch of stars Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. The show was a favorite in the Richmond household and my parents and siblings and I used to watch it on Tuesday nights right after “Happy Days”. How ingrained into our pop culture psyche was this show? The hard drives on my wife’s computer are named “Laverne” and “Shirley”, and her backup drive is “The Big Ragoo”. Our daughter’s hard drives are named “Lenny” and “Squiggy”. I haven’t seen an episode in probably thirty years, but it made… READ MORE
July 26th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
We have to take a break from our sitcom sketch series in honor of the late Tony Bennett, who passed away last Friday at the age of 96. How can you not love Tony Bennett? He was an American Institution. A true legend of the entertainment world, he had multiple top ten albums spanning almost 60 years (“I left my Heart in San Francisco” in 1962 and “Love for sale” in 2021). Twenty Grammys. Lady Gaga loved him. What a legacy he left. RIP Mr. Bennett. READ MORE
July 12th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
It’s the big one!!! I’m comin’, Elizabeth!! It’s back to the 1970’s with our sitcom series, this week featuring one of my all time favorites, Demond Wilson and Redd Foxx of “Sanford and Son”. I was surprised a few years ago to learn that “Sanford and Son” was not an original show, but an American remake of a British show called “Steptoe and Son” from the early 1960s. The BBC show was about a grumpy old man and his son who ran a struggling old junkyard/salvage business. “Sanford and Son” came about because of the success of another American sitcom that was adapted from a British show. “All in… READ MORE
July 5th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
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
June 28th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
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
June 21st, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
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
