Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle, and this is the CagleCast, where we're all
about political cartoons, and today we have my, favorite cartoonist guest,
Rick McKee, and Rick McKee is just the most brilliant and prolific Christmas
cartoon, Editorial cartoonist that exists.
I've got to say, Rick, you just, you impress me with your Christmas cartoons.
They're funny as all can be.
I can't do a podcast with all your Christmas cartoons
because it would run too long.
Rick McKee: Well, I appreciate that.
Daryl Cagle: All right.
This is one of your latest ones.
You've got, in Whoville, they say that Cindy Lou, Who's brain shrank
three sizes that day as she looks at.
Sexy Luigi Grinch.
Oh, look at those abs!
Those eyebrows are dreamy!
Rick McKee: Yeah, that's just disgusting, the reaction this guy has gotten, I mean.
Daryl Cagle: You know, it's interesting we haven't gotten very
many editorial cartoons about him.
maybe it's an uncomfortable topic to try to draw a cartoon about.
Rick McKee: Yeah, maybe so.
I, I, I can't figure that out.
I don't know.
Maybe, maybe it Cartoonists agree with the reaction.
I don't know.
Daryl Cagle: it is fascinating to talk to my son and Younger people about Luigi
because they are so Sympathetic to him.
Rick McKee: I know.
Yeah
Daryl Cagle: And the conversation always gets back to Hitler like on
the web, you know What if you could go back in time and kill Hitler wouldn't
that be the right thing to do and he just killed a Hitler Um, yeah,
Rick McKee: I don't I don't think that compares at all.
Daryl Cagle: Well, that's what I hear when I talk to the young people
Yeah, I'm talking very generational.
Rick McKee: Yes, it is.
I don't know if you're watching Saturday Night Live this weekend and in the past
couple weekends, they've had, you know, on the weekend update, they've had
jokes and the crowd when they show the guy's picture, the crowd just goes wild.
It's like, Really?
Anyway, I don't get it.
Daryl Cagle: That's pretty crazy.
I would do a Luigi show if I had enough cartoons.
There's only like half a dozen.
Rick McKee: Would we, would we have this kind of reaction and sympathy if he, if
he wasn't like a good looking guy, you know, if he was, somebody said, if he
looked like Jonah Hill, you know, would they, would they be as crazy about him?
I don't know.
Um, Poor Jonah Hill.
Daryl Cagle: Yeah!
It's mostly just air!
Santa says sorry, kid.
Shrinkflation.
You
Rick McKee: know what I love about, Christmas cartoons and holiday cartoons
and Halloween's another good example is there's just so many, options for,
you know, imagery, and there's so many, uh, metaphors out there, and,
Christmas, you have Santa Claus, and you have the Grinch, and you have
stockings, and you have, you know, chimneys, and it's just, it's endless.
So that's, I, maybe that's why I do so many of them.
Daryl Cagle: I love your Christmas cartoons.
Angel says, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.
The shepherd says, I need to upload this to TikTok before they ban it.
Rick McKee: Yeah, this one, this one's hot off the drawing table.
Daryl Cagle: This is your latest cartoon?
Yeah,
Rick McKee: just uploaded this one.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, so are you going to grieve the passing of TikTok?
Rick McKee: I am.
I love tick tock.
I, you know, and the Chinese want my information.
If they want to know what I'm up to, they're welcome to it.
I don't care.
But, um, Tik Tok is, addictive.
I get on there and there's a lot of funny stuff on Tik Toc.
So I kind of have a feeling somebody is going to pull something out at the
last minute to say that, I don't know if it's the Supreme Court, I don't
know if it's going to be Trump, but.
It's going to be wildly unpopular if they ban that thing.
Daryl Cagle: Last minute sale to an American holding company.
Yep.
Daryl Cagle: It's not such a bad little tree, really.
Maybe it just needs a little love, says Linus van Pelt.
Charlie Brown tree.
This is a cartoon classic.
The cartoonists all do Charlie Brown trees.
Yeah.
I've done a couple.
Rick McKee: I've never done one.
And I was watching, I was actually watching the Charlie Brown
Christmas special the other night.
And I thought.
I need to do something on that.
Daryl Cagle: Well, editors love this.
This is the number one cartoon right now.
Rick McKee: Okay, great.
Daryl Cagle: Congratulations.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
You'll shoot your eye out, kid.
Trump, A Christmas story.
And this is wonderful.
Rick McKee: Yeah, I've done, I've actually done this one a
couple of times, different ways.
And, um, This one actually I did back in 2018 when he tried to shut the government
down at Christmas time and then just this past week I thought, you know, I
can pull that one out and run it again.
He's sort of repeating himself.
And of course they, I guess they saved it at the last minute.
I don't know that this latest bill was that different from
the one that they killed.
He and his co president, Elon Musk.
But, um, I think, I think they saw,
Daryl Cagle: Well, this is wonderful.
And the bunny pajamas, uh, identifies it as, the movie reference.
If you, you didn't know already and that's, wonderful.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that's fun.
There was a lot of fun.
And I, and I, when I do something like this, I try to make it as accurate as
possible and I went to see, I looked up the kid's pajamas, exactly the kind of
pajamas he was wearing, you know, so.
Daryl Cagle: That's great.
And here's another one.
Red Ryder BB oh, the poor Democrats.
He actually
Rick McKee: did shoot his eye out.
Daryl Cagle: And you got blood, you know, editors don't like blood.
Uh, try to keep it tasteful.
There's a little tasteful blood puddle there.
That is tasteful blood.
You'll shoot your eye out, kid!
Wow, I didn't realize I'd done three.
Well, I put them together just to embarrass you.
Okay.
All right.
Ten drummers drumming, eight pipers piping, five lords a leaping.
It's this inflation.
That's very funny.
Rick McKee: Oh, well, thanks.
That was, probably last year, actually.
Daryl Cagle: I think that was a number one cartoon, too.
You know, when you draw Christmas, you're the most popular thing.
Yeah, it's the thing going.
That's what's going.
Oh, that's an old one, yeah.
Oh, that's a lovely contrast cartoon, though.
That's, a evergreen.
Rick McKee: Yeah.
I wonder how many editors dip that far back.
I mean, that's 2011 right there.
Daryl Cagle: You know, I think they don't dip that far back.
I think they just, most of them just skim the front page.
Yeah.
Um, that's why we repost the oldies that we think they should notice.
And very often, if you'd have put this up as an oldie, it probably,
uh, would have been number one, too.
Rick McKee: Yeah, I don't, you know what?
I don't know that I should do that, but um, maybe I should.
I don't, this is a fun little thing that I do, and I don't know how many times
it's gonna pop up, but I don't know if you noticed the little elf there, he's
got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
Oh, some
Daryl Cagle: newspapers have policies of, no smoking.
Rick McKee: Really?
I just thought, these elves, they're like, they look like little kids,
but they're like hundreds of years old, so some of them probably smoke.
So, um, I just started as a little inside joke.
I was just putting a little cigarette in the elves mouth.
So we'll stay for any more pop up.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you've got Santa drinking a cocktail.
Rick McKee: Well, that's
Daryl Cagle: true.
To be or not to be a good boy.
That was the question.
I had an AI write my letter to Santa in the style of Shakespeare.
Rick McKee: That's a
Daryl Cagle: charming oldie.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that's an oldie.
That's a, at least a year old, I think.
And back when AI was taking off.
Daryl Cagle: it's not just the Christmas metaphors being so available.
It, your Christmas cartoons are just extra charming.
Oh, well, I appreciate that.
I
Rick McKee: I do try to throw extra love on all of them.
Daryl Cagle: You do!
They're all love charged!
Okay.
'Twas the night before Christmas, some assembly required for peace on Earth.
Oh, it's complicated.
Rick McKee: Well, that's another oldie, isn't it?
Daryl Cagle: Yeah, well, that one never goes out of style.
Rick McKee: That's true.
Unfortunately,
these are just lovely cartoons.
Here's another smoking elf.
We'll work for food.
We'll work for milk and cookies.
I'm making myself laugh.
Oh yeah.
That was so, uh, obviously.
Unemployment was so high, it was, a topic there.
Daryl Cagle: Peace on earth.
The gift box is empty.
Oh
Rick McKee: yeah.
That one didn't have any love in it.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, no love.
Oh, here's the kid with Santa and the grocery list.
That's a sad one too.
Rick McKee: Yeah.
You know, So to me, uh, when it comes to Christmas cartoons, the
kid on Santa's lap is sort of the cliche that, Everybody does.
And I've done my share for sure.
And, and you might show a string of them here now, but I do try
to avoid those as much as I can.
It's sort of like Obit cartoons.
I will no longer draw somebody at the pearly gates.
I just won't do it.
So, I don't know.
I used to do these a lot, though.
Daryl Cagle: your background on this one is interesting,
because it's a somber background.
A lively, but somber.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that was back when I was cross hatching way too much.
This was probably back in the days when I had a newspaper job and my newspaper
ran the cartoons in black and white.
So, I generally tried to put a lot of pen work in there.
And then we switched to color and, uh, and I would, I would still
colorize them, but, um, for the web.
And then, and then, you know, I sort of let the color do more of the, the
dark tones and I lightened up, you know, it's just, it's a lot to do a
full color illustration every day.
Well, I think, I
Daryl Cagle: think the background on this one sets the mood.
Rick McKee: Yeah, yeah, I really liked it.
I like, but I just don't cross hatch like that, like I used to as much.
Daryl Cagle: So here you have the postal service bringing letters to
Santa, but they're too late because he's already going down the chimney.
Sorry, it's late.
We're cutting back.
that's great.
Rick McKee: That's another oldie.
And my elf isn't smoking, so I don't know.
Maybe, maybe he already threw it down.
Daryl Cagle: Well, the post office is much worse now.
Rick McKee: Oh yeah.
Well, and this was 2011, so it's gotten even worse than that.
Yeah.
I don't know if you have this problem, but um, This is as an aside, uh, anytime
I send anything that looks like a birthday card or a gift card or something
like that, there's a very good chance it won't make it to where it's going.
It'll get intercepted in the post office and they'll open it up to
see if there's a gift card in there.
And so I, I don't even do that anymore.
Daryl Cagle: I get like a monthly scorecard on the post
office because I write all these checks to all these cartoonists.
And, sometimes.
They're all late.
I mail them at the same time.
Sometimes they're all late.
The cartoonists are complaining, where's my check?
And then sometimes they're regionally late.
So I might get like just the South is getting their checks late or,
uh, different identifiable batches of cartoonists are complaining
about their like late checks.
Rick McKee: So, uh, I know, I know Atlanta has issues and I know my
mail has to go through Atlanta.
So when I know they're having issues at the Atlanta Post.
Postal hub, whatever you call it.
Daryl Cagle: Contemporary Christmas Inn.
Sorry, no room.
That's a lovely evergreen.
And that's 12 years old.
Rick McKee: Yeah, yeah, you could use that anytime.
I had a lot of fun drawing that one.
I'm sort of surprised nobody else had done it.
Or, I haven't seen it.
Or anything similar to that.
Yeah,
Daryl Cagle: that's great.
Thanks.
Daryl Cagle: Huge September sale was only a matter of time.
Pumpkin spice scented Christmas trees.
This was your number one cartoon of the whole year.
I think last year or a year before.
Rick McKee: Yeah.
I just kind of got to be another thing.
And, um, Definitely nothing serious or political about it, but I know
people talk about pumpkin spice.
They complain about pumpkin spice Editors love pumpkin spice and you
know, I don't think everything has to be so dead serious So every year I try
to do something pumpkin spice related.
Daryl Cagle: the other cartoonists have also noticed your uh many pumpkin spice
cartoons and how well they perform and I noticed that Encouraged other
cartoonists to do pumpkin spice cartoons.
Rick McKee: I've seen that, yeah.
I've noticed that.
Daryl Cagle: You have great influence.
Rick McKee: They want in on the action.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, they do.
Uh, so here's, the Grinch and he's got his red Starbucks cup.
The red Starbucks cup hasn't stopped Christmas from coming.
Somehow or other, it came just the same.
Rick McKee: Do you remember that?
Do you remember the stupid, everybody was Acting like the red starbucks
cup was satanic or something.
I don't remember so dumb as one of those Whipped up non issue things,
you know, and um people were complaining about it on social media
Daryl Cagle: You know, I just barely kind of think so, but
I can't remember why on earth.
Rick McKee: I don't yeah, I don't remember why I don't remember what the
complaint was, but it was just this huge uproar about the Red Starbucks cafe.
It was so dumb, such a non issue.
Daryl Cagle: So here is Santa, he's got his Powerball ticket, and
the winning Powerball numbers are, and the elves say, this economy
must be worse than we thought.
Rick McKee: Yeah, it was, I'm sure one of those many gigantic Powerball, Jackpots,
Daryl Cagle: at a gigantic Powerball jackpot thing where everybody was
talking about the deficit with George W.
Bush.
I drew a George W.
Bush buying a Powerball ticket to solve the deficit, right?
And he's standing in the long line.
And, just about.
20 other cartoonists drew the same cartoon.
And I put them all up in a collection on MSNBC at that time.
And I got so much mail and the mail was, these cartoons are all so funny.
I just love these cartoons.
Oh, so funny.
Every one of them.
them.
Nobody, nobody commented about them being the same.
You know, the cartoonists are obsessed with it.
Other people are drawing my idea.
We're all drawing the same thing.
Yahtzees.
But people don't even notice that when you line them up.
One, two, three, four, five.
Rick McKee: They still don't notice.
Daryl Cagle: They love it.
Rick McKee: I know.
It's crazy.
So here is Santa with his sleigh full of coal and Santa says, We're just
gonna have to make two trips this year cause not enough room for the toys.
With a big sexual harassers list.
You did a whole lot of sexual harassment Christmas cartoons.
Yeah, that was that was back was 2017.
That was back when that was a big thing, you know, um, I guess that was
whole Me Too thing and and everybody every time he turned around somebody
else was sexually harassing somebody.
I did a Thanksgiving sexual harassment tune too that was,
uh, one of my personal favorites.
Just everybody sitting around the table praying and grandpa's saying
he's just thankful that he hadn't been accused of sexual harassment yet.
And everybody's kind of looking at him like
Have you been a good boy this year?
There it is.
had to do it.
And he's got a cigarette.
I don't know if you can see it, but oh, the elf does have a cigarette.
Yeah.
Daryl Cagle: And here the elves are talking to a A great big
elf and one says, I think a lot of these are seasonal workers.
And the other one says, what makes you say that?
Rick McKee: And he's got a cigarette.
Daryl Cagle: Oh yeah.
He's the one with a cigarette.
So here are the news and an exclusive.
We have an eyewitness to yet another case of sexual misconduct.
Cause the little girl says, I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus.
Rick McKee: Yeah, there's another sexual harassment one.
And you know, the, uh, the news guy is always funny to draw.
Yeah.
Daryl Cagle: And sexual harassment is a evergreen topic.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that's true.
Daryl Cagle: Although it does have, times where it's more
fashionable than other times.
So, uh, here's one is really old.
Oh, a seriously old one.
And the guy with all the presents says, Hey, move it lady.
You see, I'm trying to get in the Christmas spirit
here, , and she's, oh geez.
Merry with baby Jesus.
And that's so sweet.
Rick McKee: I think this one is from,
I think this one is from 19 like 99 or 98 and I drew this completely black
and white cartoon and it was like years later that I thought I should
pull that one out and put color on it.
I think I drew this before I was even with your syndicate.
And so years later, I thought I'm going to colorize that and send that to Daryl.
Daryl Cagle: So you've got so many evergreens.
You could do a Christmas book.
You could do Christmas calendars.
It's
Rick McKee: true.
Yeah, really.
Daryl Cagle: But, you should, you've got, uh, you've got a
treasure of Christmas treasure.
Rick McKee: Yeah.
I should, I should maybe do that.
Not a bad idea.
So here you've got the Uncle Sam kid and he just got cold in his
stocking and Santa says stop arguing
I'd forgotten i'd done that one.
Wow.
Look at that.
I don't even I couldn't even tell you what that's about I guess every I guess
just the tone in america at the time.
Everybody was at each other's throats
Daryl Cagle: At the time.
I mean, that's a long time.
That's true.
That's right.
We can rerun that again.
It doesn't matter when you drew that.
That's true.
So here's Santa, and Santa says, Trump kept his promise.
He single handedly brought back my coal industry.
Rick McKee: That one was a lot of fun to draw.
You know, I love it when you, when I just put in the black sky, you know,
and uh, contrasting that with the white.
And of course, got my little, uh, miner elf with his, with his cigarette, so.
Daryl Cagle: Miners aren't supposed to smoke.
Rick McKee: Miners?
Not miners.
That's a,
that's a galaxy quest.
Daryl Cagle: A galaxy quest.
All right.
So Santa's reading his, Twitter and Trump says, Santa Claus is a loser.
He's a Head of a toy company feeling so badly.
He has to give his toys away.
Sad.
And the Trump who's not smoking says, I warned you not to put
Trump on the naughty list.
Rick McKee: That one was hugely popular at the time.
Cause this was, this was back in 2016 when Trump was tweeting and he was, he was,
you know, uh, going after Jeff sessions and he was berating all these people
publicly, that, you know, that he had hired and it was just, you It was crazy.
It was insanity.
so I did that one and that one, that one blew up on social media.
So that was fun.
Daryl Cagle: Much like the federal government, my wife has
a plan to spend us out of debt.
That's great.
Too many presents.
Rick McKee: Yeah, I won't say who, but this is based on people I know.
Daryl Cagle: Well, that's, that's wonderful.
Oh, I'm getting into your serious ones.
The best gifts come in small packages.
Rick McKee: So, you know, again, for the, especially for my paper, when I, when I
had a job, We're trying to do something sort of more just sort of I guess some
people call these christmas cards or whatever But just sort of more of a
straightforward cartoon less political for christmas day, so this is probably
what you're going to get into here is Just what we would have published on
Christmas Day in the Augusta Chronicle.
Daryl Cagle: Now that you're not working for a newspaper and you have your complete
freedom, are your cartoons any different?
Rick McKee: I would say, uh, yeah, I would say, I'm drawing cartoons now
that I would never have been able to get in the Augusta Chronicle.
they were, Pretty, heavy Trump supporters there.
And, um, yeah, I was, I was able to draw cartoons critical of Trump, but, I think,
you know, now that time has passed I don't know that, I don't know that I could
still get those cartoons in the paper.
Um, so sort of, some of that is sort of speculation.
but you know, I've sort of moderate, my, my, uh, paper was very conservative
I don't, I don't think my views have moderated any, but I think that theirs
have moderated further to the right.
So, I think I would have more trouble,
Daryl Cagle: Well, we have, tracked over the years, that, conservative
papers have changed the cartoons that they're running, and they have changed
to be much the same cartoons that liberal papers are running, which is
cartoons with no opinion right or left.
Rick McKee: Right.
Daryl Cagle: And, it's interesting to see that confluence, because there
used to be a big difference between right and left cartoons, and now
it's just the right and the left are not getting used, and it's only the
Rick McKee: Gee, the weather's bad outside today kind of
cartoons, or it's pumpkin spice.
Daryl Cagle: Pumpkin spice.
All of these cartoons would be popular.
Yeah.
So the angels are saying glory to God in the highest and on earth a ceasefire,
which is about as much as we can hope for.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that was, I love that voice, that angel really.
Daryl Cagle: Well you know what angels sound like.
Rick McKee: Yeah, it's true.
This one, uh, this one ran, last year after the whole situation.
in Israel and Gaza and all that and everything was just, of
course, Ukraine was blowing up, sort of captures all of that.
And like, you know, again, every, every year, I guess, is like that.
Yes,
this is absolutely an evergreen.
Yeah,
last year was particularly bad at this time of year, I thought.
Daryl Cagle: it's pretty darn bad now.
Rick McKee: Yeah.
No, you're right.
Maybe we're just,
you know,
maybe I've just gotten used to it, which is a sad commentary.
Daryl Cagle: That's true.
Here's your hope of the manger.
Rick McKee: Another oldie, yeah.
Daryl Cagle: it's a greeting card.
It's for your calendar.
Rick McKee: Yeah, it's a greeting card.
That's what it, that's what it is.
Greeting card.
Daryl Cagle: I always
thought that if Hallmark was an editorial cartoonist, Hallmark would be
the most popular editorial cartoonist.
Rick McKee: It's true.
It's very true.
Daryl Cagle: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
Merry Christmas to us.
Rick McKee: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward.
Christmas Day cartoon.
And it became a challenge every year.
What am I going to do this year?
How am I going to draw this Christmas Day Cartoon differently,
Daryl Cagle: I think you could do all Christmas cartoons
Become a Christmas cartoonist
Rick McKee: I don't think I want to do that.
Daryl Cagle: Christmas
all year round.
So the angel comes down to the shepherds again.
This angel says, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
which is Christ the Lord.
Perhaps that voice wasn't appropriate.
Rick McKee: No, that was, that was great.
Yeah, not fake news.
This was, uh, again, this was during the Trump era when everything he was saying,
he was claiming everything was fake news.
So I thought,
you
know, I can work a little editorializing in there.
Daryl Cagle: Well, that's great.
And that's actually your last one.
Okay.
Well, that was fun.
I think this was, this is a great podcast.
Rick McKee: Well, I enjoyed it.
I appreciate you doing it.
Daryl Cagle: I'll probably have to call it another Trump Christmas
to get people to watch it.
But, uh, Well, you know what, You're not at all Trump limited.
You're, you're just, uh, you're, you're the king of cartoon Christmas.
Rick McKee: Well, like you say, editors like it, so try
to give them what they want.
Daryl Cagle: Okay,
Rick McKee: any last Christmas words?
Um, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Happy Holidays and Happy Kwanzaa and
Diwali and Winter Solstice and Festivus.
Daryl Cagle: Okay.
Well, thank you for joining us for our, our great Caglecast with Rick.
And, remember that Caglecast is available wherever you get your podcasts, but, you
want to be sure to watch the video and you can get that on YouTube or Cagle.Com
or Caglecast.Com or Rumble or Spotify.
And, uh, be sure to subscribe, get our newsletter so that
you never miss a Caglecast.
And, thank you so much for coming.
And Rick, thank you again.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me, Daryl.
I'm a big fan, Rick.
Well, I'm a big fan of yours as well.
Oh, you're a sweetheart.
Uh, that's the end.
Thank you.
Bye.