Two Designers Walk Into A Bar

Episode 13: Best of Season 1 (Episodes 1 through 6)

Released April 14, 2021
© 2021 Two Designers Media, LLC

Two designers walk into a bar is a proud member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. For more information about our show, or to discover more podcasts you'll enjoy, visit evergreen podcasts.com. I just knocked the, the earpiece outta my ear while all I hear is blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. Always have, we always have to have a mishap.

When I'm recording , I'll say, oh. Oh, wait. You, you said mishap? Singular. Oh yeah. . I said a yes.

Welcome to two designers, walk into a bar, a place where pop culture creatives, discover design icons, and make us tick, and we share a few cocktails in the process. Yep.

Today we look back on our first season and visit some of our favorite memories and some of the funniest things that we've had conversations about. So grab a cold one, take a stroll down memory lane and join us here back at the bar.

So where do you think the best place to start is? Should we just, uh, start at the beginning? Yeah. So, uh, you know, some people have heard already. Uh, the inspiration, but to me, I think that's the cool part. Mor trucker brought us together, right? Absolutely. And it, he didn't even know it well. Well, you know, I mean, well, do you mean like brought us together to do the podcast or do you mean originally brought us together?

Because I did answer that personal ad that you posted that, that said, uh, you know, um, likes long Walks on the beach and Mark Drucker cartoon. So yeah, he brought us together in the original time too, as well as this podcast. Yep. And, and kids, this was before, uh, apps and online dating and all that. Todd, Todd and I met the old-fashioned way.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. But yeah, the thing that, uh, that we have is a, a love of great design, great stories, sometimes the absurd and, uh, mixing all that stuff together. Yeah, I guess you could always say that that in a nutshell is a great description for Mad Magazine, uh, which is where we both discovered Mort Drucker's illustration work.

What was interesting to you when we first.  we're talking that, um, couple months ago. Um mm-hmm. , I was cleaning my porch and you were, and you called me, which that was interesting to me. And then, then I had a conversation. So what was interesting about that to you? That that got us this far? If I remember correctly, one of the things that kicked the conversation off was you and I were talking about Mort Drucker having passed away.

Oh yeah. Uh, yeah. So the famous, of course, mad Magazine among many other. Jobs he had over his 90, what, 91 years or something like that. And what a giant influence he was. Yes. And we started talking about how great Mad Magazine was and mm-hmm. , uh, we pretended that there were studies that were done that said if you read Mad Magazine, you certainly had a higher than average IQ and things like that.

I think they actually published that study in MAD Magazine. Oh, well that's where I saw. So obviously Todd Mad Magazine, which we both love along with Airplane, which we also discuss in episode one, and which we also both love dearly. Those are two cornerstones of pop culture and I think the only thing that perhaps we love as much as Airplane and MAD Magazine.

Are all the different tangents that we like to go on when we're talking about things like airplane and MAD magazine. Oh my gosh, you're so right, Elliot. And you know, I love that the tangents that we're on it. We bring in sort of our personal adventures and how these things have affected us. The one that stands out to me is, uh, our episode.

On 1976 where we talk about the bicentennial as well as a KISS album cover, that's sort of the touchstone of what this podcast is about. It's highbrow and lowbrow mixed together. What I love is that we always bring it back to something that made an impression on us, and in this particular case, kiss was bigger than anything else in 1976, and that was a concert that I went to, which probably had some impact on me loving the Michael Direct.

As I was gonna ask you a question that I'm getting ready to answer, uh, that you would probably ask me first, which is, why was this so influential to you, Todd? Um, and that's because this, this particular album came out November 11th, 1976. Mm-hmm. . Um, so near the end, this was their, again, their second. In a year, which is crazy.

Mm-hmm. , um, it just so happened my very first concert was November 27th, 1976. Mm. So, yeah, so this was a big deal for me. It will always be sort of connected to that idea of. Being a teenager, going to a loud, um, concert at the Daton Arena in Raleigh. Oh yeah. Which is still there today. Which is still there.

Uh, yeah. National Registry of Historical Places. Um Yep, yep. Only held like 7,000 people or something like that. Folks out there need to look it up. Though it's a super cool building. It's beautiful. You know, and, and we could go off on a tangent about this, but the first time I drove to Raleigh, when you and I lived in the same city for a little while mm-hmm.

uh, that was one of the first things I saw. It kind of looks like a Pringle chip with sides on it. Right. And I remember with glass sides, and I remember looking at it and thinking, what is that? Mm-hmm.  like that just was super cool to me. But that's another story for another. Yeah, Todd. So Dorton Arena, an iconic building in Raleigh.

We both agree on that, right? You've had some, you've had some moments there. You've had some, some milestone moments there, I think over the years. There've been some roller derby moments there. Yeah. Some, uh, some hockey, some concerts, you know, pro wrestling, they have pro wrestling. Of course, of course. Pro wrestling.

Yeah, they did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, You know, so far beyond the pale for me to even bring that up is a potential question. And so Well, okay, so we're talking about an iconic place. Mm-hmm. , Dorton Arena. You have some great memories there. I would argue. We also, when I say pro wrestling, this makes me think of Andre the Giant, you know, an icon and pro wrestling, right?

Yeah. Okay. Which makes me naturally think. Who else? Shepherd. Shepherd. Ferry. Ferry, right? Yeah. Right. O Obey And, and all of that. And which naturally leads me to also think about how he started with Andre the Giant, but then also how he segued in a, creating an icon out of someone else.

So Shepherd Ferry was able to hone his chops over the years, of course, with his Andre the Giant. Mm-hmm.  needs a posse, right? Mm-hmm. , you know, starting from the crummy Xerox sticker all the way up to the obey movement and all these sorts of things. So, Really, if you think about it, he did a great job kind of laying the groundwork about building this persona around this public individual , you know, the first time around, of course, it was a pro wrestler.

Mm-hmm. , but that really made the segue, I think, into making this other person heroic that maybe wasn't like a, a quote unquote character, but needed in some way to sort of be a charact. Be larger than life to give people something to believe in. Well, and like the Lester Bill posters. Lester Bill was communicating a concept, right?

Yeah. Um, uh, shepherd Ferry was communicating, uh, a person with a concept. Uh, and you're exactly right. He had to turn a candidate into, uh, an icon. Yeah. And you know, that's something we went into in our episode about civic posters where you talked a little bit. The influence that Lester Bill had on you.

And we dug a little bit into Shepherd Ferry's work, and as most people know, he started as a street artist. And then did the Obama poster, which speaking of icons sort of took what he had learned about, um, putting these iconic images out on the street and turned it into, uh, some help for a presidential campaign, made Obama an icon and.

I thought that was really interesting that that was an artist, that type of artist that was chosen to represent a presidential candidate. And it's also that type of artist has some background in, uh, in, uh, sort of dust ups with the legal system. And, you know, Elliot, I love a good lawsuit and, uh, that story in our civic posters episode didn't disappoint.

No, it didn't.

It sounds to me like perhaps our friend Shepherd got into it a little bit of hot water. Well, the, the wonderful thing about Shepherd is he certainly has been arrested a number of times, 14 and counting. I think part of his activism. After the election, though, a couple things happened in January of 2009.

Uh, right in the early part of January, the Smithsonian, uh, institute got a copy of, uh, one of the originals. He, he basically did a painting of the poster. And didn't he, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's also collage in that, right? Aren't there collage elements? It's so, it's a little more detailed, ornate.

It is, yeah. And it's bigger and you know, it's, it was more of like a, a hand done work of art, but certainly looked like that. And then of course, Obama was inaugurated on the 20th of January, and then shortly after that, the Associated Press realized that one of their images that they own was sort of the model for, for the drawing that, um, shepherd Fairy used.

It was revealed that one of their photos shot by a freelancer guy named Manny Garcia was used that Shepherd Fairy drew from, now we could disagree on this all day long, you know, no offense to Manny Garcia. He took a photograph of then Senator Obama, not even candidate Obama in 2006, sitting next to George Clooney at a DAR four conference.

Really? I was excited. I thought you were gonna say George. No, that would be better than, wouldn't it? Realistically, anyone who was standing or sitting in his place could have shot the same photo and, and again, no offense to him, it was perfectly nice photo that said, associated Press said, oh, ooh, this is famous and you owe us some money for using that.

So what had resulted in actually three lawsuits around that one poster? Hi podcast listeners. I'm Carol Costello, a former CNN Anchor and national correspondent. This January I'm launching a podcast about one of the first cases I ever covered as a journalist. It's one that stuck with me all of these years, the one that buried itself under my skin and stayed put.

It's a true crime series about an amazing woman named Phyllis Coddle, who defied torture and death. Fierce Rage to the quest to find her attacker. Carol Costello presents Blind Rage. It's a production of Evergreen podcast and signature title of the Killer Podcast Network. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

Discover more great true crime and paranormal programming@killerpodcast.com. You know, as you just heard there a little bit about Shepherd Ferry and, uh, some of his, uh, issues with the legal system. You know, we were talking about how great Lester Bill's posters were and really the challenge those things were facing when they went out to help spread the, the good word about power and technology, uh, in the plains of, uh, the US.

Which really brings us to a mascot that you really fell in love with in our advertising mascots episode. Right. Elliot . That's very true. Our buddy Ready Kilowatt. Yeah. I mean, you wanna talk about someone who's iconic Reddy's been around close to a hundred years, right? Around a hundred years. And uh, you know, it's one of these things where, Nothing lasts forever, of course.

But Redi had, uh, he had a hell of a run, you know, um, still around in uh, some very abbreviated ways, um, in some ways outside of the United States. But, uh, but I feel we need to really jump into a clip that starts with Reddy's story and how he came to be. Yeah.

So was ready kilowatt based on a person of some kind, or what was he based on? Okay. So, uh, we're gonna have the full backstory of this links to this on our website because it would be , it would take there, there is like an encyclopedic answer to this, but I'll try to have the fun sort of, again, it's two designers in a bar, right?

I'll give you the casual, uh, ham fisted answer that I'm so good at, uh, with pretty much everything I. He was created basically to sell electricity to farmers. So around a hundred years ago when the depression had hit, you know mm-hmm. , most of the United States outside of urban areas still didn't have electricity and mm-hmm.

electricity is sort of going back to my quiz with you about like what powers the. You don't see electricity electricity's kind of a thing. It's all around us, but, so, okay, so here in the, so was it like in more rural areas? Yeah. Like in the south where, where I grew up. In the south, yeah. I mean it was basically targeting farmers and folks like this.

Right? So it was like the magic air. It was the magic air that they were trying to market, wasn't it? Something like that. Yeah. I think, if you will, although I don't think, like ready kilowatt wasn't, you know, a magician and a top hat and a kpu, like just okay. Magically held a light bulb in his hand and it lit up.

he, he actually has lightning bolts for a body and he actually has little lightning bolt horns, and then he has his ears or, uh, sockets from an outlet. And then he has his light bulb nose, like we talked about, and he has. Woody Woodpecker ish, sort of like cartoon gloves and little elf kind of boots, right?

He was like a cartoon character. Uhhuh . But he put a friendly face on something that was both abstract and potentially super dangerous when you think about it. So anyway, Todd, that was a, of course, a very interesting story, the origin of our friend Ready Kilowatt. But not to be outdone. We also touched on another origin story of someone who.

Fairly ubiquitous and, and pretty popular, especially when people get hungry. Um, yes, Bob's big boy. Something close to both of our hearts and both of our stomachs. We go a little bit into the origin of Bob's big boy, the mascot, the model for that. A couple of different versions that progressed. Uh, some east coast, west coast fighting.

You remember that? And then probably the thing that I think surprised you, Elliot, was when we learned that son of graphic designer, Lucian Bernhardt. Manfred Bernhardt, was commissioned to revitalize big boy a little bit, and he had some very funny opinions about it. So let's jump into that clip and, and give it a quick listen.

In Burbank in 1955, you're gonna find this interesting Bob laid to rest the original. Benny Washam drawing and hired a guy named Manfred Bernhardt. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I need it. Men Sound familiar. It sounds incredibly familiar. Son of graphic designer, Lucian Bernhardt. Uh, one of my favorite designers.

And so obviously, what do you do if you're the son of a world famous designer? You design a new character for Big Boy, right? So this begs a. This guy's German. Yeah, he's creative. Yeah. So that's two marks in the wind column in terms of having an opinion. He had an opinion. He was not impressed with the original big boy mascot saying, and this is a quote, it was sloppy and had a moronic expression,  so, Todd, speaking of  Strange and Moronic expressions, , I think we would be remiss if we did not mention our street culture episode and your friend and mine.

Oh yeah. Rat, fake rat Fink. Yes. Who doesn't love rat Fink? What was cool about that is learning, uh, Some of all of the bits and pieces that Rat Fink appeared and all the merchandise, uh, that represented the speed and fun in the Sun Rebels without a cause in Southern California. Um, so let's hear a little bit about some of what Rat Fink was up to.

Some of my favorite Rat Fink illustrations are not only is he standing there with. Tail and his eyes and his overalls, you know, and all these sorts of things. But he also has like a couple flies buzzing around his head all the time. Right. , right, right, right, right. With his crooked teeth hang out. So you think like, did he roll in something?

Is it halitosis? ? You know, what's going on here? . It's just, I, I love it. It's like that's, that's, again, to me, that's like a mad magazine. You know, you could draw the character, but I think of all the illustrations I loved in Mad Magazine growing up and I would look and yeah, always the funniest things. You know, they always like insert a flyer to zipping around in there and just for that added, uh, touch.

So obviously everyone knows, uh, that Ed Big Daddy Roth was just an extension of Mad Magazine with flies buzzing around Rat Fink, just like you would see in Mad Magazine. That's what really appeals to all of our. Right. And that's, and that's part of the, uh, origin. And, you know, one thing I found interesting about that episode is I was talking about a Southern California phenomenon and you were a little, uh, further north up on the coast talking about an origin story.

Yep. A little farther up the coast. But I would argue just as much humor and that of course, The screaming hand, the Santa Cruz screaming hand. We both know it, we both love it. And it is also rooted in a little bit of humor. And, uh, you know, we, uh, touch on that in our street culture episode as well.

So in the mid eighties, one of the things that he started to put out was this blue, as you mentioned earlier, hand, a severed hand that was flying through space with a mouth, a screening mouth in the palm of the hand, right? Because a severed hand wasn't bad enough, wasn't painful enough, it had to scream, of course.

Well, wouldn't you scream if you were in pain? Well, I don't have a mouth on my hand either, but. If you keep this up, I'm gonna put your mouth on my hand. . You know, Elliot, uh, one of the things that sort of came through in our street culture episode was our love of, uh, the low brow. A lot of people would.

Probably not look at the screaming Hand or Rat fink and think, uh, that it was great iconic design and illustration, but it really is, it's stood the test of time and it certainly has, uh, transcended many generations. And you know, I think that showed that we have a love for sort of the unsung hero, because we went into that a little bit more in our episode about logos that were underappreciated.

Right now, Todd, sometimes I'm re reluctant to toot our own horn. Other times I have no problem with it. And so I feel it's a natural segue to say, you know, I think we're a couple of cool cats. Would you agree with that? I think we're very cool cats. Yeah. Yeah. So we talk about a few cool cats as part of our unsung logos episode and, uh, let's jump into a couple clips where we talk about two of these, uh, fun logo.

So the first one is Royal Cup, the Lion. That is the Royal Cup logo. And you and I both love this logo. Mm-hmm. , we've seen this logo in a lot of places. And after the clip, I want to add onto our story a little bit. We have a little bit of an epilogue about Royal Cup. Let's hear it.

I don't really remember where I first saw this logo. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . I, I don't remember if I was staying in a hotel. I see it on trucks all the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've definitely seen it on some trucks as well. So I started digging and I started to do a little research. We would cross paths every so often.

Right. And, uh, you and the king? Yeah, me and the, well, no, it wasn't Elvis. Focus on Focus on the lion. Oh, oh, okay. We're talking about lions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Todd, I know you love Elvis, but let's, let's focus on the task at. I do love, I do. I love Elvis, but I do love a coffee drinking lion too. . What? Tell me about this company.

Both. Both are high energy . Okay. So, um, and they both have beautiful meanses, beautiful heads of hair, right? They they do. They do. They do. So for folks who don't know, jumping back out of our clip, after we recorded this, we were still wondering who created this logo. We both love this logo. When you listen to the episode, you'll hear, uh, how much we both like this logo and how clever it is.

And lo and behold, we, uh, hit the innerwebs. , we, what was it, Todd, through Instagram, I think. Yep. Where we, we heard back mm-hmm.  from, uh, Royal Cup and they talked about the firm that designed their logo and it was so awesome to be able to connect those dots. So, um, super excited about that. But we could talk about Royal Cup the rest of the day and we have another fun logo.

Your. Black cat fireworks. So tell us about Black Cat. Yes, and unfortunately Black Cat Fireworks hasn't reached out to us in the same way that Royal Cup has, but we're still holding out hope  and our hands. True. Seeing that's true. Some of those free fireworks black's, right? That's true. We will plug you endlessly.

Um, and speaking of, we really get into what we love. The Black Cat logo, which doesn't really seem like it was probably, uh, fussed over that much, I might say Elliot, but it really has a, a specialness about it, and it has a, a freshness about it that we talk a little bit about. Now, take a listen.

And again, I'm not so clear on what black hats have to do with fireworks other than the screeching sound Maybe. But if you didn't know, you could think that this logo probably could pass for a rat killer too, . Um, it looks just like that. Well, the, I would argue a black cat is a rat killer. That's true. So this logo could be as great on fireworks and rat killer because it looks like when you look at it, it just, It just looks like excitement and a little bit of scariness.

Well, yeah. I would say probably gunpowder is black gun. Well, okay. Maybe that's where it comes from then, right? Yeah. So do you know, and gunpowder kind of has sort of this explosive nature, like, uh, like this angry cat does? Yeah. And to your point a second ago, a cat screech, you know, and a couple alley cats are getting.

Fight. They start cat walling and they sound like screeching fireworks. So I sounds, it's, sounds like fireworks. Yeah, I think it's really, uh, perfect. Do you happen to know who drew this logo? I do not. I couldn't find that. My guess is it probably has been around for a while, but if anyone out there knows, please do let us know because I would love to talk to this.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to jump back in and listen to all the episodes yet, we hope you enjoyed our, our episode flight of the first half of the season. I love it. So all your favorite brews from light to dark, if you will. Mm-hmm.  and, uh, come on back for the second flight some other time when, uh, we talk about the second half of our.

That's right. And, uh, don't forget that we'll be back soon with our second season as well. But for right now, hope you enjoyed this, uh, flight of our first half and look forward to the next flight. Would you, would you consider these like seasonal brews? Uh, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good way to, to, to put it.

Okay, so our bar now has some seasonal, like we're always, we're always trading up, we're always trying to do something better for you, the listener. It's always for the listener, always for you, the listener. That's, you know, we, we just give, we're givers. We're just hoping, um, two of our listeners are Royal Cup and Black Cat Fireworks , because we could really use some free coffee and free fireworks so we can get jacked up on coffee and shoot off fireworks here in the bar.

That would be, We've been kicked outta worse places. You've got that right. So folks, thanks for hanging out. Uh, we look forward to hosting you at our bar again very, very soon.

Hi. While we have your attention, if you wanna learn more about us and the podcast, there are a few ways to do it. Visit our website at two designers. Walk into a bar.com. All of that is spelled. No numbers. Kind of a long U R L. So do yourself a favor and bookmark it. Once you're there, you can find links to more information about the subjects in this episode, our episode archive, and information about both of us.

Wait, we do want people to visit, right? Well, oh, and look for us on social media. You can find those links on our website as well. And while we're at it, if you have a friend who you feel will dig on our rambling, tell him or her what we are up. While we can't guarantee that they will remain your friend, we can guarantee that they will listen to at least 30 seconds of whatever episode you send them the link to

That's being a little shameless. And speaking of being shameless, it wouldn't be a proper ask if we didn't mention that. If you like what you hear, you can also make a donation via our website. We have a Nigerian prince handling all transactions for us. In fact, he told us to mention that we have stickers to mail to anyone who donates $10 or more.

Are we done? We're done. We're done. Two designers walk into a bar is a proud member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. For more information about our show, or to discover more podcasts you'll enjoy, visit evergreen podcasts.com.