… 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.
