Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Legacy of the One-Minute Cartoon

About 18 years ago, I worked as an audio-video technician for a large Canadian university. Looking back now, I have to admit it was one of the best jobs I've had: the work was diverse and interesting, my co-workers were all superfun drinking pals, and the environment was quite casual.

I would kick off many a shift with a one-minute cartoon. I did this purely to entertain myself and several of my co-workers when we gathered at Master Control to organize our equipment deliveries for the shift. Each doodle was drawn with a black Sharpie on a 4" x 5" piece of scrap paper, and was always created in one minute or less. Sometimes my colleagues would give me a topic, sometimes not, but they were always juvenile, silly, and very crudely drawn. Each finished drawing was tacked to the wall of the control room until it eventually evolved into a sort of patchwork quilt wallpaper. Of course, I assumed they were torn down and tossed out after I moved on to a different job.

Then last week I bumped into Tony, a cherished friend of many years and the Master of Master Control, still employed with the University. We went for a few pints and he told me he would e-mail me some jokes that I'd really enjoy. A few days later, I received a series of scanned illustrations -- Tony had in fact saved the one-minute cartoons from extinction and had scanned them for posterity! I'm very grateful to him for having the foresight to preserve a little piece of our work-art history. Some of them are dated and a bit cliché almost 2 decades later, but they really cracked us up back then.

click each image to enlarge

6 comments:

Chris said...

Fun! I like the Fifth Dentist and the Loch Ness Monster toons in particular...

Econauts said...

That's some good, oldtime stuff, woman.

steakbellie said...

"The 5th Dentist"
Brilliant,

Also, what is Radloff doing driving Jesus's Chrysler?

pistols at dawn said...

I am always partial to Kool-Aid Man, wherever he may be (usually my dreams).

CoffeeDog said...

Love Jesus Chrysler!

Birdy said...

OK, "Jesus Chrysler" might just become my new favorite curse/exclamation.