Saturday, September 9, 2017

George Price: The Original Amateur Hour

By 1968, Ted Mack had been a television host for 21 years, a run simply unheard of at the time. His television show, "The Original Amateur Hour," then the world's longest-running TV show, brought a wide variety of amateur acts into America's living rooms, including the occasional mishap from "jugglers who can't, and talking dogs who don't." TV Guide covered it with an article called "Ted Mack Reminisces" in which Mr. Mack recounted a few of the more memorable things that had transpired over the decades of putting on the live show. The article is by Lucianne Goldberg, today a stalwart of conservative media, but back in '68 she was crafting such sensitive prose as "One little fatty began to lose a stocking but, being a trouper, kept on tapping."

TV Guide had a veritable arsenal of illustrative talent at its disposal, but it must have seemed natural that such a story about wayward amateur acts should be quirkily illustrated by George Price, a cartoonist who chronicled all manner of oddballs and misfits for decades in the New Yorker and other publications. The original illustration, hidden away for a half-century, has just been offered for sale on eBay. Take your Geritol and take a look.

The original art is huge compared with the size of the published illustration.

George Price
"Ted Mack Reminisces"
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 44

George Price
Original illustration for "Ted Mack Reminisces"
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 44

George Price
Original illustration for "Ted Mack Reminisces"
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 44

TV Guide, May 4, 1968
"Mission Impossible"


TV Guide, May 4, 1968
"Mission Impossible"

Detail

"Ted Mack Reminisces" by Lucianne Goldberg
Illustration by George Price

TV Guide, May 4, 1968, pages 44-45

"Ted Mack Reminisces" by Lucianne Goldberg
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 45

"Ted Mack Reminisces" by Lucianne Goldberg
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 45

"'We also have the slight distinction of having turned down Elvis Presley.'"
"Ted Mack Reminisces" by Lucianne Goldberg
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 46


"One little fatty began to lose a stocking but, being a trouper, kept on tapping."
"Ted Mack Reminisces" by Lucianne Goldberg
TV Guide, May 4, 1968, page 48


George Price
eBay Listing as of September 4, 2017

George Price
eBay Item Description


Note:  Attempted Bloggery is eager to publish scans or photographs of original cartoon art by George Price and other New Yorker artists, the well-known and the obscure. Scans of illustrations from TV Guide and other publications are also eagerly sought. As if you didn't know...

If you don't remember who she is, you might want to read author and literary agent Lucianne Goldberg's Wikipedia page and her news forum website.

Get your copy of The American Bystander #5 and see this blog's first classified ad.


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