The Ink Stained Wretch #177 3/19/25

Beisbol, Craic, America's Least Wanted, and a Big Apple Workshop!

Here we go with another of the nebulous, nauseating, and downright nasty bunch of nonsense that are these newsletters! This week our caricature subject is berra, berra sketchy, we share some belated bad luck of the Irish, get busted thanks to America's Most Wanted, and a new workshop in The City that Never Sleeps... on with the 'Wretch!

Sketch o'the Week: Garrett Morris!

Click here if you are interested in this original sketch.

Last but not least of my sketches of famous characters played by the original cast of Saturday Night Live is the multitalented Garrett Morris as "Chico Escuela", a retired professional baseball player from the Dominican Republic turned sports newscaster. Morris first appeared as Chico in a 1978 ensemble sketch set at a Knight's of Columbus spaghetti dinner banquet, but the character then became a correspondent on Weekend Update, appearing a total of ten times from 1978-1980. He was also known for his tell all book Bad Stuff 'Bout the Mets. During the 1979 season they also did a couple of pieces about Chico's failed attempt at a comeback in baseball. Most of the humor revolving around the character was based on his speaking halting and heavily accented English and his oft repeated catchphrase "beisbol been berra berra good to me", and making fun of the Mets. During the height of his fame in baseball, Sammy Sosa repeated that catchphrase for laughs in interviews, but he didn’t have to fake the heavy South American accent. I guess steroids also boost your sense of humor.

Morris was originally hired as a writer during the forming of the show, but after his encouraging the inclusion of some black comedians in the cast, Lorne Michaels cast him as one of the "not ready for prime time players". Morris was reportedly unhappy about constantly being typecast as stereotypical characters on the show, and the Chico Escuela character is a prime example of that.

Morris is a highly talented performer beyond his role on SNL. The man was classically trained at Juilliard, and is a phenomenal singer. He's also been constantly working after leaving SNL, most recently starring in the TV sitcom "2 Broke Girls" from 2011-2017. At 88 he is the oldest surviving original SNL cast member.

I took the opportunity with this sketch to talk about my crosshatching technique in this week's Premium Subscriber video. If you are a premium subscriber, you'll find that at the bottom of this newsletter. If you are not a premium subscriber, what are you waiting for, a furshlugginer invitation??

Happy Belated St. Paddy’s Day!

Whoops I forgot to include this bit in the emailed version of the ‘Wretch, so here’s a bonus for those of you who read this on the Substack app or website… the evolution of Alfred E. Leprechaun!

I did the above piece for a MAD T-shirt back in 2012. Last year I resurrected the character for a cover of one of the Barnes & Noble MAD special editions:

Earlier this week my friend and fellow caricaturist James Hungaski emailed me this picture of he and "America's Most Wanted" star John Walsh, taken at Vero Beach where Jim is currently drawing caricatures at a fair. Why is this picture significant? Well, both he and Walsh appeared in MAD's spoof of "America's Most Wanted" in MAD #414, Feb, 2002… so this was a reunion of sorts!

I learned a lot working for MAD and art director Sam Viviano. One of the things he told me early on was not to make my secondary characters look too cartoony or out of place next to the ones that were likenesses of real people. I had a tendency to do that, using a kind of generic cartoon character with big, goofy eyes and cartoonish features for background people or “extras” that were not caricatures of anybody. Sam’s point was that it took you out of the story somewhat, and the two different looks didn’t seem like they belonged in the same world.

One solution for that was to actually draw caricatures of someone for those “extras”, or at least use some pictures for the basics. I used a couple of catalogues of model/actor headshots I got from a friend to get ideas for extra characters… stuff like their basic features, hairstyle, etc. I didn’t try for an exact likeness with those pictures but I used their basic features to give those characters a more individual look, which made them look like they fit in with the actual caricature likenesses.

Another thing I’d do if I needed a recurring character in a parody is take some pictures of people I knew and draw them into the spoof. This parody was the first time I did that, and James was my guinea pig. That's him as the character “David Shame” in the bottom left panel and throughout the rest of the spoof. James worked with me doing caricatures at my Minnesota theme park operations at the time, and he let me take some pics of him at various angles for reference. His reward was being shot and killed at near the end of page 5.

After the issue with the parody came out Walsh found out about it and, being a longtime MAD fan, was thrilled to be in the magazine. He wrote me a nice note about it, and appeared in a later issue in a "Celebrity Snap":

So when James sent me that picture, I laughed out loud!

Gotham Workshop

I just added a new workshop to the 2025 lineup... New York City (well actually Long Island City, but close enough). Click here for the details and to join in!

Thank you for being a subscriber! As always, if you liked what you saw please share it with others. Remember I'm always looking for feedback, questions for the mailbag, and suggestions for future Sketch o'the Week subjects. Just reply to this email with any of the above! And always remember... it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide!