Charles Addams: Rabbit Season

Chas. Addams was probably making fun of hunters with deer strapped to the hoods of their cars in this cartoon from Addams and Evil of brave rabbit hunters. At this time of year, the image takes on a secondary meaning. If it had been meant to be an Easter cartoon, an Easter basket might have been subtly drawn in the back seat or have been shown strapped to the other fender of the car.

Another Addams Cartoon

Just for a little fun. Here is another scan from Addams and Evil.

Charles Addams; Lord Calvert at the Beach

Variations on a theme are a staple with Chas Addams. Two single panel cartoons from Addams' second collection of cartoons, Addams and Evil, from 1947, have Lord Calvert punch lines.

The first time I looked at this cartoon, I thought the image was just a joke about someone at the beach getting a fantasy photo of himself. The humor was in wondering why someone would go to the beach to get a photo of such a "wish I was back home" scene. Because of my researching the Addams cartoon posted a couple of days ago, I now realize this is another gag about a Lord Calvert advertising campaign from the 1940's.

Charles Addams Cartoon

This Chas Addams cartoon, from the same book as yesterday's, is timeless and easier to grasp. It only takes a short bit of searching the art to say, "Oh! I get it."

Charles Addams: Addams and Evil

What is this cartoon about?

A few days ago I was searching for something to look at from my bookshelf. I chose the collection of Chas. Addams' cartoons in Addams and Evil, first copyrighted in 1947. My 14th printing edition includes reprints of cartoons from 1940-47. Once again, I found an Addams' cartoon that left me wondering what the gag was.

An aspect of a cartoon that differs from an illustration, or even fine art, is that the meaning, or "gag," in a cartoon, is meant to be understood. The joke doesn't need to be blatantly obvious, a little mystery is fun, but the humor shouldn't be so perplexing that you need a PHD to research it. I am sure cartoon editors from the golden age of magazine cartoons were aware that people thumbing through a magazine just wanted a quick jolt of humor, to think, "I get it," and then to move on. This single panel cartoon by Addams had me stopped and stumped.

A disheveled man is collapsed on the doorstep of a tailor shop. A bottle labeled "Lord Calvert" is on the sidewalk near the passed out man's hand. Is Addams making fun of tailors, drunks, or Canadians? All I could think is that the joke must have something to do with the bottle, so I looked up a brand of whiskey I have heard of "Lord Calvert."

Pop culture is ephemeral. Images from the moment do not always speak loudly to the future. I found old advertisements for Lord Calvert Canadian Whiskey with the slogan reading, "For men of distinction." This must have been a popular ad campaign during the 1940's, one that most people then would have recognized. The gag must be based on comparing the image of the older, successful and sophisticated man in the ads to the everyman, drunk-of-distinction on the street.

AHH! With knowledge comes understanding and with understanding comes peace grasshopper. (How long will that pop-reference be grasped?) I can sleep tonight.


7/21/2015: I ran across this version of the cartoon. The drunk looks like a caricature of the man himself.

Chas. Addams Cartoons

In the 2006 biography, A Cartoonist's Life: Chas Addams, by Linda E. Davis, I was surprised to learn that Addams didn't write a lot of the gags for his New Yorker cartoons.
"Most of the magazine's cartoon gags…were cooked up by various writers and artists, who flooded the magazine with as many as two thousand sketches and written ideas a week." (chapter 5, pg. 49)

One theme you saw Charles Addams use often in his cartoons was "getting rid of the wife." He either was given these ideas because of his reputation and history of having trouble with many of the women in his life (including a manipulative lawyer ex-wife and dating Garbo, Joan Fontaine and even Jacqueline Kennedy). Another way he had of finding gags was to personally go through the "slush pile" of rejected ideas at the New Yorker. I think these gags may have worked as fantasies to help him release frustrations over some of his relationships.

To show that Addams wasn't a complete misogynist, he did occasionally give women and wives equal time in the "offing the spouse" fantasies. It may be a matter of, "I'll get him before he gets me."

The example of a man at an arcade shooting gallery is from the 1950 collection, Chas Addams': Monster Rally. Golden Age Comic Book Stories has some more scans from the book. I scanned the last two cartoons, the husband training an attack dog and a woman making up a lunch box, from my copy of an 11th printing of the book.