Tales from the Theme Park
February 2nd, 2017 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
This story is legendary, and comes from back when I had an operation at Six Flags St. Louis. At the park locations we are always ribbing each other over the quality of each other’s work and the guest’s reactions. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear one of the artists who is not drawing at the time do a fake cough masking the word “Yamistem” (aka “you missed him”) at an artist who is drawing. We would sometimes joke about how the customer clearly hated the drawing an artist just did (after the customer had left of course). One summer one of my artists (name withheld…… READ MORE
June 28th, 2016 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
This happened around 1993 or so at a short lived nightclub complex in downtown Minneapolis called “Mississippi Live”. I had set up a single artist location in a big commons area where patrons could come out of the various clubs and bars that opened into the area with their drinks. Lots of very drunk people. One of the staples of a live caricaturist’s repertoire in an adult setting like that are “boob gags”. Not exactly highbrow humor but your play to your crowd. Quite a few of the women joke about giving them bigger breasts in the drawing, and 100% of the men with them… READ MORE
June 21st, 2016 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
Here’s another in a long line of “nobody believes a theme park caricaturist does anything but theme park caricatures” story. This just happened earlier this summer when I was filling it at one of my locations in Minnesota: A couple sits down to get their caricature done. One of them is wearing this shirt: Me: “Hey, I did the artwork for that shirt! I do a lot of work for Jeff Dunham!” Her: “Yeah….. Riiiiiiight.” Me: “—-” Okay, so it’s not much of a story. It’s just funny that so many people find it hard to believe that anyone who does live caricatures at theme… READ MORE
May 12th, 2016 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
Getting new, fresh samples on the walls of my theme park operations was always a challenge… especially since I spent most of my free time doing freelance work. So, since much of my freelancing had to do with caricature, I would often convert the caricatures I did for various jobs into samples for the parks. This sample of comedian Tom Green from 2002 is an example: I had originally done that caricature for a job for MAD (#406, June 2001): This led to the following exchange with a 10 year old kid out at the park: Kid (looking at the sample on the wall): That’s… READ MORE
April 21st, 2016 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
Last Sunday’s mailbag reminded me of this story. When you work a theme park caricature stand you meet a lot of people. Every once and awhile I’ll get told I look like some celebrity. In the 80’s when I was just a kid I heard John Travolta quite a bit. Jon Cryer from “16 Candles” a lot as well. Once I got into my late 20’s early 30’s the one I got all the time was Paul Rieser. In fact, here’s an example of one of the more forgettable ones: I’m in my mid 30’s drawing at Valleyfair one summer day when two really good… READ MORE
January 28th, 2016 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
The Worst Return Ever When you work drawing caricatures at a theme park or in a retail setting you will occasionally get returns. Unavoidable. Ultimately the customer is the client, and it’s your job to do a piece of art that makes them happy so they pay for it. That is not such an easy task considering the art you are creating is meant to make fun of the very party you expect to pay for it. Returns happen, and since the theme park you work at is all about kissing their “guests” hindquarters far past the point of all rationality or fairness, you have… READ MORE
September 22nd, 2015 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
It’s another thrilling tale from the live caricaturist trenches at your friendly neighborhood theme park! There are many annoying things that transpire around you when working at a theme park, but by far the worst is repetitive noise. Things like the repeating park soundtrack, shows that play near you a dozen times a day, games barkers that say the same thing over and over on their microphones, etc. Theme park management usually does nothing to help people keep their sanity when things get out of hand, so sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. Way back in the 80’s when I worked… READ MORE
July 28th, 2015 | Posted in Tales from the Theme Park
There is a funny story at the end of the historical stuff, so if you don’t care about how airbrushed caricatures got started in theme parks, skip down to the last three paragraphs. The Origin of the Airbrushed Live Caricature There are many different techniques used to color live caricatures, from the old “chalk and glove” method to prisma color stix (essentially crayon), to pastels, to watercolors. Airbrush is one you see in a lot of theme parks and tourist centers all around the country. While I’m sure a few of them started doing it independently, the vast majority of them are offshoots of the… READ MORE
