Yogi Anchovy Member of the Mafiosi with Porky Porgie Welsh Corgi

One Fish, Two Fish....

Just when you thought I might be done with the PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing series....

I suppose it really should have been Yogi Bear's head rather than that of a spiritual leader, but I already used the cartoon bear's head in another drawing in the series, so I had to make do with a human....

And Anchovies are a lot smaller than Porgies, so the relative scale is not very accurate.

Biggie Twiggy Miss Piggy

Biggie•Twiggy•Miss Piggy

(PuppyMonkeyBaby series drawing)

My sons had never heard of short-lived 90's rap star Biggie Smalls, nor of the 60's supermodel Twiggy.

According to Wikipedia, the Notorious B.I.G. is "consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time."

Twiggy was among the first international supermodels, was named Britain's "Woman of the Year" in 1966, and was arguably emblematic of late 20th century infatuation with unrealistically skinny, youthfully androgynous female models.

Are these people my sons should know something about? I'm not sure I successfully conveyed much beyond "Biggie is dead" and "Twiggy was skinny."

They are already familiar with Miss Piggy, but are pretty much not interested in her or in her Muppet confederates. Beyond some unavoidable enthusiasm for Elmo when they were each around the age of 2, neither has taken much to Jim Henson's progeny...with the exception of course of Yoda, if he counts. I was quite taken with The Muppet Show back during my 70's childhood. The program was on at night and combined slapsticky humor with more sophisticated entertainment. Now that there is a glut of programming specifically aimed at male juveniles available, my sons just don't have to tolerate watching singing puppets who make jokes that adults might appreciate.

And no disrespect intended to any of the three personalities involved. The rhyme was too good to pass up.

Nellie Minnelli Botticelli

Yet again with the PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing project.

In this case, citing three major inspiring influences on my childhood

Nellie, the mean girl on the 70's TV version of "Little House on the Prairie," (1974-82)

Liza Minnelli in her "Cabaret" (1972) outfit, and 

Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" (1480)

Just kidding...or am I? 

I definitely wanted to paint like Bottticelli when I was 12... around the age that I was watching "Little House on the Prairie," and probably was first impressed by Liza'a Sally Bowles.

Robby Bobby Holly Hobbie Visits with Rosie Josie Bela Lugosi

Robot Romance:

Robby the Robot hails from the 1956 film "Forbidden Planet." When I started this drawing, I realized that I had confused "Robby"with the "Robot" in the 1960's TV show "Lost in Space" ("Danger Will Robinson!") Although, as it turns out, the two robots were designed by the same person.... and Robby made an appearance on "Lost in Space" battling the other Robot. (The many things one can discover on Wikipedia when one should be sleeping.) At any rate, perhaps it is not just my addled brain that has conflated the two.

I don't know if police officers in Great Britain are still commonly called "Bobbies." As long as I am wallowing in references from my childhood in the 1970's, I am going to guess that my first "Bobby" references date from my horrified viewing of "The Benny Hill" show, a smarmy vaudevillish sketch comedy show that, Wikipedia tells me, ran from 1955-1991 in 140 countries. I saw bits of a few episodes in the 1970's and, puritanical midwestern girl child that I was, found the Britishness peculiar and the heavy handed "double entendre" jokes totally appalling.

And then there is Holly Hobbie.  I found the Holly Hobbie character back in the 1970's rather appalling also, although for totally different reasons. Again, according to Wikipedia, the human artist and author Holly Hobbie sold the annoyingly cute, rag dress and giant bonnet wearing girl character that became known as Holly Hobbie to the American Greetings company back in the 1960's. The Holly Hobbie franchise was quite popular during my childhood, there were cards and dolls and dresses and a whole sort of style embraced by my peers, or perhaps by their mothers.  At the time, I thought any fashion that entailed the wearing of long patchwork dresses was bad news. Many years later, Holly Hobbie the human went on to author and illustrate the "Toot and Puddle" series of books which are really quite nice, so I have moved past my dislike of her namesake franchise.

As long as I am endlessly harping on my gender political hang-ups regarding 1960's and 70's pop culture... here we also have Rosie the Robot from "The Jetsons" (originally 1962-63) and Josie from "Josie and the Pussycats" (1970-1) These two shows troubled me during my childhood also, but I suspect I've already said enough on this topic for one post.

As far as I know, I did not have any childhood problems with Bela Lugosi's gender politics. His name just happened to rhyme.

Tweety Beatty Nefertiti

I must have seen "Shampoo" on TV in some edited form sometime after its theatrical release in 1975. While my progressive parents did take me to see "Saturday Night Fever" when I was 12, I am pretty certain that we did not see the equally R rated Shampoo when I was 8. I do, however, remember watching the movie while I was a fairly young child. I think it must have been one of the first movies I had seen with such frank sexual content, as a I clearly remember Warren Beatty playing a womanizing hairdresser who manages to have sex with several women.

What could this have to do with Tweety Bird and the Ancient Egyptian Queen of the Nile? Well, clearly, not much. Perhaps Tweety and Beatty's character, George, have a little something in common in that they both exploit a bit of gender stereotyping to their advantage. George manages to seduce women without antagonizing other men because they assume that he must be gay. Tweety, all cutesy-voiced and eyelashed, is actually male (did you know? check Wikipedia if you doubt) and is capable of some really nasty violent physical action. Yes, that comparison is a pathetic reach, and still has nothing to do with Nefertiti...

But why shouldn't a "You're So Vain" era Warren Beatty have a Tweety Bird head and a diaphanous, royal skirt?......

None of this makes any sense to my sons.  They are familiar with Tweety and Nefertiti of course, and find the inclusion of a torso of a guy in a tank top briefly amusing. Oddly enough, I think they are mostly unfamiliar with hair dryers as we don't own one. (When we all had lice a while back and needed to use a hair drier to dry the topical treatment, their father resorted to using a heat gun from his woodworking shop, nearly melting the ears off of one child.)

They did have their hair cut in a salon once a few years ago, thanks to their Grandmother's generosity.  But in that case, they hairstylist was definitely not straight, nor was he Warren Beatty.

For whatever it could possibly be worth, that this is the 22nd PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing, and the 31st character in the series.
And, no, I am unfortunately not running low on rhyming combinations....

Poky Loki Hokey-Pokey Potato Gnocchi

NO DESSERTS EVER UNLESS ASGARDIANS NEVER TAKE OVER EARTH AGAIN!

(PuppyMonkeyBaby and then some)

To review: the parameters of the PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing series are: make three part characters composed of vertically stacked rhyming nouns or names that ended in the long "E" sound.

I could not come up with a really good solution for the lower body on this one, yet would not give up on the enjoyable combination of the Poky Little Puppy and Loki from Marvel's Avengers and Thor movies. Therefore, to overcompensate, I added a double lower third with gnocchi and "The Hokey-Pokey."  You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out..." That probably doesn't need to be said, does it? But not everyone has been forced to attend "Mommy and Me" style music classes during the last decade, so maybe it is not fresh in the mind the way it is for me. (Don't ask me how I feel about "The Wheels on the Bus")

"The Poky Little Puppy" may not be fresh in your mind either. It was a book that, strangely enough, I can remember disliking during my childhood. But this did not stop me from reading it to my own kids. Maybe it was the wall-eyed, dumb way the puppy is drawn that made me dislike it? Maybe it was the obsession with desserts that dogs should not be eating anyway. (Rice pudding, strawberry shortcake? Do mother dogs feed their puppies such things?) Maybe it was the mixed message that being slow might mean that you could get away with misbehavior and maybe even get to eat everyone else's dessert too. At any rate, the book ends with the wayward puppies being thwarted by the sign,  "NO DESSERTS EVER UNLESS PUPPIES NEVER DIG HOLES UNDER THIS FENCE AGAIN!" (they eat cake, and they can read!- if only I had such success managing my children.)

I think it is unclear whether the Poky Puppy or Tom Hiddleston's Loki character will be able to "turn themselves around" and not do evil things like becoming super villains or digging holes under the fence and coming home late for dessert...or for gnocchi.

Romney Swami Pacific Tsunami

Another PuppyMonkeyBaby series drawing I am afraid...with a particularly unconvincing portrait of Mr. Romney.

This year's Republican candidates have actually made me think back fondly to Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012. And he did try to stand up to Donald Trump recently. So, I am not trying to poke fun at him. His name just happened to rhyme nicely with other things.

Although in hindsight, I am a bit sorry that I did not choose Rudy Giuliani instead.

My sons don't know much about Rudy or Mitt, so it's all the same to them.

Betty Machete Alberto Giacometti

That's Betty White's head , Machete's torso, as played by Danny Trejo in the Robert Rodriguez movies of the same name, and the tweedy pants and legs of Giacometti, the early to mid twentieth century Swiss sculptor and painter.

All three of these people are somewhat obscure as far as my sons are concerned.  Betty White is the funny little old lady who swears in the Deadpool promotional video. I am not going to waste my breath describing "The Golden Girls" to them. And in the spirit of full disclosure, that show was broadcast in the late 80's to early 90's, a period when I did not own a TV set, so I have never seen it myself. I do remember her fondly from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," but as previously mentioned in my post about the Mary Mary Topiary drawing, I suspect it will also be difficult to explain the appeal of that show to my sons.

I showed them a picture of Machete in his full knife studded ensemble and of course they were immediately interested in watching that movie. Both "Machete" and "Machete Kills" are rated R, and feature such highlights as a woman who fires bullets out of guns that are in the place of nipples on her breastplate. Maybe we will try to hold off until "Machete Kills in Space" comes out. The IMDb website says it is in development.

We watched a recent episode of  "The Simpsons" last night which featured Mr. Burns's likeness inserted in several famous works of art, including Giacometti's "Walking Man."   My sons were astounded by the coincidence when they recognized the same sculpture from this drawing.

I am definitely not doing my job when it comes to exposing them to art history. I am also not doing my job when it comes to exposing them to music, politics, philosophy, etc. But you would think I could at least manage my area of specialty.

Daphne Daffy Muammar Gaddafi with Jeannie Houdini Benito Mussolini

Ladies with the legs of dictators:

Yes, it's another PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing, and probably evidence that the series has been going on too long....

When I was hatching the "Gaddafi" and "Mussolini" rhymes, I was optimistically thinking that there was going to be something really distinctive and recognizable about the legs of these two men.

During his unfortunate and long tenure as "brotherly leader and guide of the revolution," Mr. al-Gaddafi was known for peculiar and often over the top sartorial choices. He was fond of Michael Jackson-like highly decorated uniforms and garish floor length dressy numbers. He wore this  particular wrap to the G-8 Summit in 2009 where he was photographed shaking a much more conservatively suited Barak Obama's hand. The reporter for Time Magazine suggested that he looked like he "dressed for the evening-gown portion...of a beauty contest for sofas."

Il Duce was fond of very full jodhpur pants, and was perhaps distinctive for his height to width ratio. Hitler was only a bit taller, but in photographs his jodhpurs seem much less wide...and less prevalent.

As for the middle: that's Daffy Duck, and Harry Houdini, somehow both strange and hard to recognize in my drawing.

Daphne from "Scooby Doo" and Jeannie from "I Dream of Jeannie" were important characters in my 70's tv watching youth, I am not proud to say.

Scottie Scotty and Mary Mary

"I cannot change the laws of physics, Captain!"
Scottie Scotty Porta-Potty and Mary Mary Topiary:

A disturbing combination of two characters from significant TV shows of my youth.

I was certainly born too late to have been watching the original broadcasts of Star Trek in the late 60's on my parents 10" black and white TV.  But I did watch a whole lot of Star Trek in reruns during the 70's. Now that we live in a world where there are multiple cable channels devoted to 24 hours a day of children's programming, it is hard to recall the days when a young person would have to resort to watching Star Trek while doing her homework after school.

I think I might have been watching "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" with my parents in the evenings, as that program made its original run from 1970-1977. I watched a few minutes of a couple of episodes on YouTube earlier this week while I was trying to decide which Mary hair style would be the right choice, and was reminded how deeply the show was ingrained in my subconscious.  It was certainly not written for young children, but had enough brisk dopey jokes to hold nearly anyone's attention. More consequentially, the central concept of a single attractive woman with an interesting job living alone in a large city was ever so compelling to me as a young female person.

Sometimes I think the downside of the present day smorgasbord of constantly available kids programing is that our kids don't have to watch shows like the Mary Tyler Moore Show with their parents. While there were plenty of easy jokes about how Mary's boss Mr Grant was grumpy and her co worker Ted was dumb, the show also addressed topics like difficulties for women in the workplace divorce, homosexuality, and drugs. I watched it in the company of adults, and it presented a picture of what adult life might be like. This is not something one can say of most of the programming on Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel. While I do watch some TV with my sons, the shows are kids' shows. I rarely watch "adult" programming with them beyond action movies that are really aimed at 13 year old boys anyway.

But as I type this, I am reminded that our kids do watch a bit of adult-oriented, evening television programming with their father...(usually right around the time I am trying desperately to put them to bed) The programs in question are usually the reality shows that my husband favors, something like "Deadliest Catch," "Fast N Loud,"or "Pawn Stars."

So, I guess they are in fact gaining insight into what it might like to be an adult male.


(part of the PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing series)

Freddy Teddies

Freddy Teddy Spermaceti and Freddy Teddy Mario Andretti 
 
To be more specific: Freddy Krueger from "Nightmare on Elm Street," on top of Theodore Roosevelt, on top of a Sperm Whale, next to Freddy Fazbear the murderous animatronic bear from the "Five Nights at Freddy's" videogame, on top of a generic teddy bear, on top of the lower body of the world champion race car driver, Mr. Andretti.

The chances that the same person would both know who Mario Andretti is, and be familiar with the killer animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy's are probably slim to none. Unless you are an aging person who grew up in the 70's and then had kids later in life who are now obsessed with video games. Or maybe if you are the grandparent of those kids. Hi Mom!

My apologies to everyone else for the obscure noun choices. 
And then there's the Sperm Whale.... Technically, spermaceti is the waxy material in the whale's head that used to be harvested for oil. I don't think the whales are really known as "Spermaceti Whales," but Google does respond to that input. I really wanted the last term to be "Spiral Jetty," the famous earthwork constructed in 1970 by Robert Smithson (it's a fact rarely displayed on this blog, but I do have a graduate degree in fine art which is really paying off at times like this!) I just couldn't make the Jetty work visually as a lower body in the context of another Freddy Teddy with human legs.

Probably unfortunately, I haven't given up on using it in another context... I've still got Betty, Machete, Giacometti... and of course SETI, to work with.

(See the other PuppyMonkeyBaby drawings at this link)

The Harry Canaries

Harry•Canary•Woodland-Fairy and Harry•Canary•Little-House-on-the-Prairie
They don't look like they are feeling lucky.
(PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing #16)

An explanation starting with what is probably the most obscure element: the canary on the right is DC Comics' Black Canary. She was one of my favorite characters back when the kids were watching "Young Justice" despite being clad in a strapless top and no pants, More than just a screamer,  she was smart and somehow able to defeat Super Boy in hand to hand combat. Based on a Google search yesterday, I gather that Black Canary is also a character in the current TV show "Arrow." I borrowed the black jacket from that show as the blue blazer she wore in "Young Justice" looked a bit too much like it belonged with the Laura Ingels Wilder style skirt on the bottom.

As for the Harrys: (Harries?)
For some reason that I cannot discover, my sons are almost phobic about the idea of seeing any of the Harry Potter movies. They also adamantly refused to listen to me read the first book to them. I've seen parts of several of the movies over the years on TV after the kids' bedtimes, but we remain mostly a Hogwarts-deprived household.  My younger son guessed that the Harry Potter head in this image was Velma from "Scooby Doo" which does not say a lot for my drawing. He told me that he could not recognize Mr. Potter because I had neglected to draw his forehead scar. Somehow, I don't think that was it.

Unsurprisingly, the kids have not seen "Dirty Harry," but thanks to the magic of YouTube and various memes, they do know who he is, more or less. When I asked my older son about Dirty Harry, he said, "Are you feeling lucky?"

The woodland fairy is a generic concoction. I considered making the legs Tinker Bell-like, but decided that would be too boring. I wanted to draw some leaves I guess.

My sons have never seen "Little House on the Prairie," nor read any of the Laura Ingels Wilder books. The books were among my favorites at some point in my childhood. I remember that I was very disappointed and lost interest in the series around the time the Laura character got married, but that was many volumes in. These books are among the many that I have not managed to share with my sons. I could not even get them to listen to the "Chronicles of Narnia," so it seems unlikely that they would sit still for a description of churning butter.

There was some protest on Instagram about a previous image in this series that mixed genders- Bambi and Blondie. Just for the record, most of these have been determined by the sound of the rhyme more than any specific commentary beyond visual juxtaposition.

Blondies

Bambi•Blondie•Origami

takes a stroll with 

Blondie•Zombie•Mahatma Gandhi:

(Another drawing in the PuppyMonkeyBaby series)

Bambi's Blondie is from the "Blondie" comic strip- as in Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead, a newspaper comic strip that, remarkably enough, has been running since 1930 until the present. (The strip was also adapted into 28 low budget movies produced from 1938-50.) I read the strip in the morning newspaper during my childhood and always found Blondie's cartoon "shapely" figure and housewifely charms very disturbing.

The Blondie on the right is Deborah Harry, the lead singer of the eponymous 1970's & '80's new wave/punk rock band which was a feature of my early adolescence. I can't hear "Heart of Glass" without it evoking a seventh grade dance. 

She doesn't mean very much to my sons. They were both rather troubled by the outfit I chose for her zombie body. My older son opined that it was "inappropriate for a blog that kids look at."

They do know who Gandhi is.

Jessie•Nessie•Dressy-Bessy

From the PuppyMonkeyBaby series of drawings
(Exquisite Corpse style creatures made of three stacked parts with rhyming names that end with the long "E" sound)

The "Jessie" show is a bit of a sensitive subject around here. One child is partial to it- for sociological research purposes no doubt- and the other loathes it on principle. I am more in the latter camp...but despite my aging angry feminist concerns about the show's spin on class and gender, I know there are worse things he could be watching. 

The Loch Ness monster is always popular with my sons, but I found it difficult to put a water dinosaur in the middle of the body.

I had a Dressy Bessy doll back in the 70's...yes, it was the very early 70's...or maybe even the late 60's, dear god... She was paired with a Dapper Dan doll for boys. They had zippers and buttons and shoe laces for kids to practice fastening and tying.
Dressy and Dan did not have any Velcro however.
That's mostly the fastener of choice with my kids...

Belated Easter: Bunny Mash-up

Dummy•Grundy•Easter Bunny 

bumps a hip with

Smokey•Sonny•Chocolate Bunny

Another drawing in the PuppyMonkeyBaby series.

To be specific: that's "dummy" as in ventriloquist, "Grundy" as in Solomon Grundy, Batman's oversized undead antagonist in the Arkham game and other instances, with the legs of an actual bunny...

...And Smokey the "Only you can prevent forest fires" Bear, with the body of Sonny Bono without Cher in his best 1973 blazer, atop a partially unwrapped foil covered chocolate rabbit.

If I have to explain it all, both my drawing and the references leave something to be desired. 

And The Grundy torso came out too green and Hulk-like.

Needless to say, the kids were not particularly impressed.

Judy•Doody•Call of Duty

PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing project #11

Judge Judy with Howdy Doody and Call of Duty Black Ops, I think. I have deprived my long suffering sons of all incarnations of Call of Duty. They are vaguely familiar with who Judge Judy is despite never having seen her in action. Howdy Doody was a complete unknown for them. They pronounced him "super creepy" when I showed them a picture.

Charlie•Harley•Jacob Marley high fives Snoopy•Scooby•Sleeping Beauty

Just a boy and his dog:

(PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing #10)

Peanuts meets Harley Quinn from DC's "Batman Animated" and the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge's partner from "A Christmas Carol"
...and Scooby Doo and Disney's Princess Aurora.
 
I can't really explain this.
You can see the rest of the series and read an attempt at an explanation at this link.
But it probably won't help much

Pinkie•Paddy•Patty

A very quick drawing on the PuppyMonkeyBaby theme in honor of St. Patrick's Day. 

Pinkies are baby "feeder" mice generally sold frozen or live to feed to pet reptiles. 

For the "Paddy" part, I went with a generic Leprechaun costume, my apologies to Irish people everywhere. I thought about trying to draw St. Patrick himself, but that was not going to happen in 10 minutes.

Peppermint Patty's feet bothered me when I was a kid. In fact, I found the rest of her slightly troubling as well. I was an androgynous child, often mistaken for a boy myself, but strangely, I did not appreciate Patty's gender non-conformity. 

But to be honest, I disliked Peanuts in general, a fact which came up when the recent movie was released and my sons wanted to see it. My younger son and I saw the movie. I still did not like it much. Unlike my younger son, I was not impressed by the use of classic rock music. 

But I did enjoy drawing Patty's feet here. I'm thinking about drawing Charlie•Harley•Jacob Marley with an appropriate Snoopy creature....

Grumpy-Mummy-Playboy Bunny hangs with Grumpy-Gummy-Crash Test Dummy

Grumpies go for a low five:
PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing #8

I had a debate about the various bunny options: Easter Bunny, Chocolate Bunny, etc, but decided that I really wanted to draw the human legs rather than short furry or candy ones. This meant, however, that I had to discuss with my sons what "Playboy Bunnies" were...or are. I suppose they might still be around.

While images of women in high heels with fluffy tails profoundly irritated me during my youth, in the context of the overwhelming cornucopia of explicit images of women available online, the old fashioned Bunnies don't look too much worse than the average female superhero.  But as my sons are well aware, all those scantily clad girls do make me grumpy...or maybe just more grumpy than my usual baseline grumpiness. 

I had to swap the lower bodies between the Grumpies. I originally had the Gummy Bear on top of the Bunny legs and that made the stumpy Gummy paws look unfortunately suggestive of female secondary sexual characteristics.

We don't want this to look too weird after all.

Winnie-Wookiee-Gingerbread Cookie and Krusty-Chewie-Baby Huey

Chewie Wookies:
PuppyMonkeyBaby Drawing Project #7

Winnie the Pooh
Wookiee from Star Wars
Gingerbread Boy Cookie

and

Krusty the Clown from the Simpsons
Chewbacca from Star Wars
Baby Huey from the 1950's cartoons