To make a long story short, I'm an artist.

This is Rick Goldschmidt. He's telling me a story. A long one, but he's making it short.

It's about how, as an artist, a trained artist at that...

My degree's an illustration. He's developed an appreciation for certain artists and their

styles, especially when it comes to character design.

The names Jack Davis and Paul Coker Jr. may not ring a bell, but believe me when I say, you've seen their work.

There are two of the founding artists for Mad Magazine, starting back in the early 1950s.

Their work is also ubiquitous in comic books, advertisements,

book jackets, greeting cards, and posters from that era. Davis and Coker passed away in 2016 and

2022, respectively, but their work has left a lasting imprint on American culture and Christmas.

Because in addition to Mad Magazine and all the rest, Davis and Coker were the designers

behind those iconic animated Christmas specials from the 1960s and 70s.

You know the ones, the stop-motion animated specials like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

and Santa Claus is coming to town, and the traditional animated specials like Frosty the Snowman.

There were also some not-so- iconic ones, but we'll get to those later.

Those specials were all the product of Rankin-Bass animated entertainment,

founded by Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass.

But getting back to Rick Goldschmidt, as an admirer of Davis and Coker, he reached out to them.

I asked him, whatever happened to Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass, and they were still doing work for him.

This was several years ago, long after the heyday of those iconic specials.

But, like he said, Coker and Davis were still working with Rankin and Bass,

and that gave Rick an idea. So he asked for Arthur Rankin's phone number. They gave me the number

...