… purveyors of riffs on the arts. The principal riffee: panel 1 of the Peanuts cartoon of 8/29/93 (yes, 1993):
(#1) Hat tip to Jeff Bowles on Facebook on 6/28, where readers noted that though panel 1 was on one theme and panels 2-10 on another, they were both about art
Panel 1 is the big riff, cartoonist Charles Schulz’s reworking of that parody magnet, Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, featuring Snoopy’s best buddy, the little yellow bird Woodstock, as the late-night diners, the nighthawks.
And then from the title of the painting, my little riff, an association from Nighthawks to Nightbirds, bringing in the title of a Patti LaBelle song (and the album it comes from).
Finally, the main part of #1 is a story of artistic creation — with Snoopy as the artist, Woodstock as the subject, and Woodstock’s chick as the audience for Snoopy’s portrait.
Nighthawks as a parody magnet. Attracting parodies in the fashion of Wood’s American Gothic, Munch’s The Scream, the Mona Lisa, and of course The Last Supper. The original:
(#2)
Postings on this blog about parodies of it:
— from 9/9/12, in “Nighthawks”, a collection of parodies
— from 12/26/13, in “Santa art”, an Ed Wheeler parody
— from 5/30/15, in “Earworms, snowmen, and parodies”, a Bob Eckstein parody
— from 12/29/18, in “Nighthawks in search of an artist”, a Bill Whitehead parody
— from 1/2/19, in “Nighthawks on New Year’s”, an Owen Smith parody
— from 4/17/19, in “The last Peepshow”, with Peeps parody dioramas of The Scream, Nighthawks
— from 7/3/20, in “Nighthawks in a time of coronavirus”, still more parodies
Nightbirds is an album by the all-female singing group Labelle [headed by Patti LaBelle], released in 1974 on the Epic label. The album features the group’s biggest hit, the number-one song “Lady Marmalade”
You can listen to the track here.
The beginning of the song:
Nightbird fly by the light of the moon,
Makes no difference if it’s only a dream.
Released, relive, just for the day,
It’s the nightbird’s way.
June 30, 2021 at 4:55 pm |
I feel like I am missing some thing about the original cartoon. Can you explain what is going on in panels five through 10 and why this is funny or poignant?
June 30, 2021 at 5:13 pm |
Compare panels 5 and 10. Snoopy does a first portrait of the chick, which lacks a mouth/beak, and the chick is saddened by it. Woodstock takes it back to Snoopy, explaining in his chicken-scratch tweets what is wrong with it. Snoopy repairs the portrait by adding a smile, and then the chick is happy too. So, sweet and poignant, and a tribute to Snoopy and Woodstock’s friendship.
Or so I read it.
June 30, 2021 at 7:45 pm |
Thanks, Arnold. Now that I look more closely, I see that Woodstock himself is also smiling in panel 10, though not in the other panels.
July 1, 2021 at 1:35 am |
Ah, yes. The Schulzian lesson might be that you can get pleasure by giving pleasure.
July 1, 2021 at 12:40 pm |
Glad you explained it. I noticed the difference in the portrait but didn’t understand what it was supposed to tell me. (I wasn’t even sure if the portrait was of Woodstock or of his chick)
July 1, 2021 at 1:32 pm |
On reflection and re-examination, I think your alternative idea is probably right: the portrait is of *Woodstock* for his chick.