Happy Birthday Amy Sedaris

If you've never given Strangers With Candy a chance, you're really cheating yourself. I never watched it when it originally aired, because I remember the commercials being more than enough for me to take. Several years later after borrowing all the DVDs from a friend, I finally realized how much I had deprived myself of a really good thing.

The premise of the show was about a 46 year old ex-junkie and ex-convict who wanted to start her life over, and starts by going back to high school. One of the funniest things was that no matter how often other students would pick on her and ridicule her, nobody ever acknowledges her age. And Stephen Colbert was one of the head writers and a regular character on the show, so that's always a plus.

Happy Birthday Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig

I found this website listing all of the deceased pro-wrestlers (the majority of them coming from the heyday of WWF, before it was renamed the WWE). I was aware of some of these deaths (Andre The Giant, British Bulldog, Owen Hart, Miss Elizabeth, Big Bossman; to name a few), but couldn't believe the number of other familiar names that came up on the list, and how young most of them were. The cause of death for almost all of them was either a heart attack or drug overdose. In Mr. Perfect's case, he died from "acute cocaine intoxication".

When flipping channels last night and seeing a commercial for Wrestlemania 25, I was also very surprised to see that The Undertaker and Sean Michaels are still around.

Happy Birthday Quentin Tarantino

Another guy who has so much going on with his features that he's actually pretty tough to draw. This is kind of a lazy one, as it is literally a floating head.

Happy Birthday Leonard Nimoy

WHAT! Captain Kirk and Spock share a birthday in the same week?! And they're both 78! Whoa.

Happy Birthday Jack Ruby

Alleged mobster who shot down Lee Harvey Oswald would have been 99 today.

Happy Birthday Peyton Manning

Super Bowl Champ, 3 time MVP and endorsement whore Peyton Manning turns 33 today. I think I kind of missed this one. Or maybe I'm way happier with the way his brother Eli turned out in my first week of famous birthdays (even though I wasn't at the time). To me Peyton is all neck, nose and cranium. A cranium that is filled with more thoughts about what he will sell next or how many commercials he can star in next season instead of focusing on football.

In case you need some entertainment or a quick football fix, here is a great highlight reel of the Packers VS Colts from last season. Why? Because it's awesome. So hard to believe this is from the same season where Manning was named MVP and the Colts earned a wildcard in the playoffs, while the Packers finished with a very ugly 6-10.

Happy Birthday Ric Ocasek

Former frontman of The Cars turns 60 today. Another one of those guys who has so much to work with that I pretty much choke with all the decision making. It's also hard for me to tell if I got him because I'm not used to seeing him without his sunglasses, and I don't even know why I chose to leave them out. It's like seeing Space Mountain with the lights on.

If I were a little younger and didn't know any better, I might think ("You Might Think"?) The Cars would be a corny and lazy name for a band to give themselves. But little would I know, their music defines "cool" so much that it doesn't matter.

Happy Birthday William Shatner

On my first trip to New York in Spring of 2000, I was in the Rockefeller building to attend a taping of Late Night with Conan O' Brien (just 2 days before Andy Richter left the show). In the main lobby guarding the entrance to 6 elevators was an NBC employee who I kept thinking looked a lot like William Shatner. Moments later, the actual William Shatner walked through with a handful of bodyguards surrounding him. He vanished into an elevator in a matter of seconds, but he was there long enough for me to make no mistake about who he was. Pretty funny.

Happy Birthday Gary Oldman

This marks the 6th consecutive day that I have drawn someone in their 50s. Gary Oldman has more than his share of odd and terrifying characters on his resume, which makes it all the more bizarre that he pulled off such a moral, proper and respectable character as James Gordon (pictured here) in the last 2 Batman films.

Happy Birthday Spike Lee

I hate to admit, but Inside Man was the first and only Spike Lee film I've seen. And a damn fine film it is.

Happy Birthday Bruce Willis (3-19-09)

Co-founder of the crumbling Planet Hollywood turned 54 yesterday. There is something quite satisfying about drawing Bruce Willis pointing a gun while listening to the new Mastodon album.

But goddamn it I slave over drawing hands too much. I probably spend more time on that than I do trying to get a likeness, and it doesn't even look that good in the end. Looking at it now, I realize they should have been drawn larger based on the perspective I'm working with.

Happy Birthday Brad Dourif

The man who gave Chucky a voice, who brought us Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings and played one of Frank Booth's henchmen in Blue Velvet turns 59 today.

Happy Birthday Kurt Russell

Happy Birthday Jerry Lewis

The overweight version of him kind of looks like a cross of William Shatner and Larry Flynt.

Happy Birthday Fabio (3-15-08)

Officially the gayest drawing I've ever done.

Happy Birthday Michael Caine

Happy Birthday William H. Macy

Here is someone I thought would be so easy he was hard (I can hear Michael Scott saying "That's what she said" right about now).

It could probably be better, but not by enough.

Happy Birthday Liza Minnelli

Judy Garland's daughter turns 63 today.

Happy Birthday Sam Donaldson

Happy Birthday Chuck Norris and أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن

Would you believe that Chuck Norris is 69 and Osama bin Laden is only 52?!

Between all the websites, books and t-shirts out there, I still don't understand why the Chuck Norris jokes are so funny to so many people. I have a hunch that Conan O' Brien's Walker Texas Ranger lever is to blame (which was very funny by the way). Here's a sample:

Happy Birthday Emmanuel Lewis

Happy Birthday Micky Dolenz (3-08-09)

After finishing this and sitting back a little, I realize that I made him look way too much like Jack Nicholson, but look him up.

Happy Birthday Michael Eisner (3-7-09)

I wasn't trying to be an overachiever by drawing 2 in one day. For whatever reason I was convinced that his birthday was on 3-08, until I looked it up later on to double check his age.

That's supposed to be Walt Disney on the toilet paper. I don't think I'm capable of getting a likeness in such tiny dimensions. It's stupid juvenile humor anyway.

Happy Birthday Tammy Faye (3-07-09)

I remember seeing her 2 years ago on Larry King the day before she died from cancer, weighing only 65 pounds (and that was including the makeup). She said she was unable to eat solid food. Yet she still somehow managed to put on ALL of that makeup!

I was first exposed to the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker story when I was in 1st grade. It was in my first copy of MAD Magazine, and I of course didn't understand the context of the joke until several years later.

It was a drawing (by Mort Drucker, I believe) of Jim Bakker in a hotel room in his underwear, grabbing for Jessica Hahn's ass as she was running from him, topless and covering herself. She says, "Jim Bakker, if we do this, I'll never be able to look your wife in the face again!" Bakker replies, "With the way she wears makeup, it's hard for anyone to look her in the face!"

Happy Birthday Ed McMahon (3-06-09)

As I drew this I was reminded of The Onion's hilarious "American Voices", in which 3 opinions were given in regards to the news that McMahon was in danger of losing his $6.25 million home last year.
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/ed_mcmahon_may_lose_house

First non-birthday post of the year.

Looks like I am going to have 2 birthdays to catch up on by the time I get to today's tomorrow, but in the mean time, I bring you the Michael Phelps blacklight poster! Click on it to better see its balls-out awesome-ness.

Happy Birthday Dean Stockwell

Here he is from one of the dozens of unsettling scenes in Blue Velvet, in which he lip syncs Roy Orbison, using a work light as a microphone. I remember seeing an interview with Dean Stockwell where he said that when he read the script for this film he loved everything about it, except for the part David Lynch was asking him to play.

Happy Birthday Jason Newsted

The former Metallica bassist turns 46 today. I always thought he was the only member cool enough to be wearing shirts of his own band (and I'm pretty sure the only one who did).

Happy Birthday Bobby Driscoll

Because I am still somewhat of a young punk, this name did not ring a bell at first. Once I looked up reference photos, I immediately recognized him as the kid who in the opening sequence of Song of the South is on a carriage ride to a plantation, hears frogs, and with a demonic grin creepily mimmicks them with a "Ribbit! Ribbit!"

I was interested in knowing a little more about Driscoll, so I did a little research, thanks to imdb.com, one of the best sites in the WORLD. And what a sad story it is...

He was the first actor to sign a long-term deal with Disney's animation department. He was the voice of Peter Pan, and the first boy to ever play that character. At the age of 12 he won an Academy Award for "outstanding juvenile actor" in 1949. Disney ended up terminating his contract 3 years early, largely speculated by the fact that he had become a severely acne-ridden teenager.

He eventually became a drug addict, and even after rehab in 1962, his determination to make a comeback was ingnored. At the age of 31 his body was found by 2 kids playing in an abandoned building in Greenwich Village. He was believed to be a homeless person, and was buried as "John Doe" until his true identity was discovered a year later.

"I have found that memories are not very useful. I was carried on a silver platter and then dumped into the garbage can."

Happy Birthday Lou Reed

Today Lou Reed turns 65. I often state that I need to paint more, so here is probably my only attempt for the week. I am too impatient, and I get really bored and sick of it if I haven't made significant progress within 2 hours. I could have kept going, but I decided there's always next time, so I quit.

This guy almost has more to work with than Iggy Pop or Keith Richards, yet I somehow managed to keep it relatively bland while I really should have and could have gone to town. Time to start waking up.

On a side note, this officially completes birthdays in the 60s, meaning I have now drawn every number, ages 60-69 (some of those more than once). Interesting stuff.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Doctor Suess is 105!

Happy March 1st, and Happy 40th Javier Bardem