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Michael Bartley Peters (born October 9,
1943), better known as Mike Peters,
is an American cartoonist, who draws editorial cartoons and the comic strip Mother
Goose and Grimm.
He
was born in St. Louis,
Missouri,
where his mother, Charlotte Peters, was a local television personality with one
of the earliest TV talk shows, interviewing film stars and politicians as early
as 1949. Accompanying his mother to the studio, he would meet such celebrities
as Bob Hope and Martin and Lewis. The show influenced
Peters' own life:
My
mom did more than a talk show. If you go to YouTube and put in Charlotte
Peters, you can see an hour of her show. She sang, she danced, she entertained
250 audience members every day. It was a variety show, but also a talk show...
My sister and I were like celebrities in town because of our mom. And during
freshman year of high school, I would have girls who I didn’t even know call me
and ask me to come with them to their junior or senior prom. If you’re a
freshman or a sophomore, you never go to the prom, but these girls who were
juniors and seniors would invite me to their prom. And of course, I would say yes.
And I would go and rent a tuxedo, and I would go to their house and meet the
mother and father of these girls. Then they would take me in their car, and
while they were driving us to the prom, the mother would say, “Mike, did you
know that Gloria plays the violin?” And I would say, “Really?” and she would
say, “Yes, would you like to hear her play some time?” And I’d say, “Sure,” and
she would pull a violin out from under the seat of the car and hand it to
Gloria and Gloria would then proceed to play the violin for me all the way to
the prom. And it happened again with a girl who played oboe. The mother pulled
out the oboe and that girl, too, would play music for me all the way to the
prom. And I was getting used to it. I would just sit there and enjoy the
music... Not until I was 30-years-old did I realize that they were auditioning
for my mom’s show. And I thought any girl, while being driven to the prom,
would play music for you. And so when I invited the first girl to come to the
prom with me, and she didn’t play a musical instrument, I thought I was being
dissed. I thought, "What is this? Aren’t you supposed to be playing music
for me?"
Growing
up in St. Louis, Peters attended Christian
Brothers College High School and Washington
University,
where he studied fine art, became a Sigma Chi member and graduated in 1965. He drew
cartoons for the college paper, Student Life, from 1962 to 1965.
Peters recalled, "I knew when I was five years old that I wanted to be a
cartoonist. As I grew older, I thought it was the only thing I could do.
Editorial cartoonist
On
his return from his army service, his mentor Bill Mauldin helped him get a job as editorial
cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio As a
joke, he once stood on the building ledge outside the Daily News building
for 30 minutes wearing a Superman costume so that he could make an
entrance to a meeting through the window in the manner of actor George Reeves entering Perry White's office on The
Adventures of Superman.
When
his animated editorial cartoons, Peters Postscripts, began on NBC
Nightly News in 1981, it was the first time animated editorial
cartoons appeared regularly on a prime-time network news program. Peters also
hosted the 14-part interview series, The World of Cartooning with Mike
Peters, for PBS. In regard to politics, Peters' editorial stances are
generally left
of center.
Comic strip
In
1984, he launched Mother Goose and Grimm, distributed by King
Features Syndicate. The strip is published in 500 newspapers, and according
to King Features, it has a daily readership of 100 million. Peters' editorial cartoons and his comic
strip are both distributed through King Features' DailyINK email
service.
Personal life
He
met his wife Marian while attending Washington University, and they moved to
Chicago where he worked for a year on the art staff of the Chicago Daily
News.
Drafted into the Army, he spent two years of service as an artist for the
Seventh Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa. Mike and Marian Peters
have three daughters and five grandchildren.
Exhibitions
Beginning
February 24, 2012, his strips and editorial cartoons were exhibited by the Key
West Art and Historical Society at the Custom House in Key West, Florida. “This exhibit is a
self-portrait of the artist,” said Claudia Pennington, the Society's executive
director. “It looks into the genius of Mike Peters through his early work to
the present day.”
Awards
In
1981, Peters won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial
cartooning.
He has received recognition for Mother Goose and Grimm with
the National
Cartoonists Society's 1991 Reuben Award and a nomination for their Newspaper
Comic Strip Award in 2000.
Comments
I met
Mike Peters at CBC the summer of 1957. I told my mom I just met a protégée.
Mike and I were 14 and drew cartoons that were better than professional. My
friends who went to grade school with Mike said that he could do that earlier
than 1st grade.
I
immediately had a lot of respect for Mike’s genius and we became fast friends. Mike
was a riot to be with. His sense of humor was way beyond his years. He
stuttered and admitted he was not a gifted student, but his mind was as quick
as I had ever seen. His mind went 10 times faster than his mouth. He had an
urgency to share what he saw.
Later in
his career when Mike began to give 50 talks a year the stuttering disappeared.
The paragraph he wrote in the article above shows the man. Mike is both
brilliant and down to earth. He is a story teller. He sees the humor in
himself.
I would bike
or take a bus to Mike’s house in Webster Groves as it was not far from
Maplewood where I lived. I got to know his mom and dad and sister. Mike and I
would hang out and talk and laugh and go visit other friends. Mike was
interested in everything, had very high energy and was naturally manic.
I was in
regular attendance at parties at Mike’s house.
I suspect it was Mike who suggested to Brother Jude at CBC that I join
him in the Speech Club where we both became unbeatable Humorous Interpretation
gold medal winners. That immediately put me into going on stage in plays and
musicals. That also led to me being picked to do lots of things at CBC.
After we
graduated from CBC in 1961, Mike went to Washington U with several of my
friends from grade school and I went to St. Louis U. Mike brought Marian to the
Livingroom where I was playing music in 1962 to introduce me to her. She was
perfect for Mike. She was a very pretty intellectual who saw Mike’s genius. I
knew she was “the one”.
In 1964,
Mike was my “best man” at my wedding. As I reflect on this now, I am convinced
that Mike is the best man on the planet.
My wife Marlene got to know Mike and Marian first hand as we spent more
time with them. In 1965, I remained in
St. Louis and started my career and Mike went to the Army and worked for “Stars
and Stripes” in Okinawa. They returned to Chicago and we didn’t see them for a while.
We
did get to see Mike and Marian when they visited St. Louis. One time Mike
called us to meet them at a hotel downtown. We went and saw lots of old friends
and his sister Pat. It was a great party.
We
did get to visit them in Dayton Ohio. We packed up our kids and took a road
trip to see Mike and Marian in Dayton Ohio. We spend several days with them
catching up on sharing what we had been doing. They asked Marlene and I to be
godparents for their kids and we gladly accepted
In
the late 1970s Mike and Marian paid us a surprise visited to our home in Salina
Kansas. They were on their way to visit the property they bought in Colorado. We
were out, but our babysitter let them in to wait for us. They asked her how we
were. She said: “Here in Salina we have the folks who live on “the hill” and
those who don’t live on “the hill” and then there’s the Leahys. She meant we
were somehow different.
In
the 1980s we attended their oldest daughter Marsi’s wedding in Florida and
spent more time catching up
In
the 1990s, Marlene and I visited Mike and Marion at their home in Siesta Key
near Sarasota and really got to know their younger daughters. We got caught up
and had a great visit.
In 2011,
Mike called me and said I had to attend the High School 50th reunion
at the new CBC campus in St. Louis. I had never attended any of my class reunions
for lack of time. We went and saw everybody and spent a lot of time with Mike
and Marian.
In 2012,
Mike gave the Commencement Address to the graduates at Washington U. He told
them to do what they loved. This is hilarious. Mike is a world-class stand-up
comic. He kept the audience in stitches but delivered the most important advice
these graduates could hear. Mike knows that teaching requires that you also
entertain. Please watch the video below:
In 2014,
I called Mike to invite them to our 50th Wedding Anniversary party
in St. Louis. Marian was busy with the
girls, but Mike came and was a hit with everybody. We got to have a private
visit the next morning that lasted 2 hours. We talked about wisdom and how we
valued it and gratefulness we both felt.
Mike was
a journalist and I was a private sector manufacturing guy, but we never clashed
over politics. I was equally unhappy with both parties and Mike always saw the
humor in their foibles and he satirized them daily. Mike got up each morning
and read several newspapers. He said he had to “get mad every day”. He picked
his topic and delivered a hilarious editorial cartoon that hit the mark. Mike
picked on everybody equally and like me he saw the humor in everything. We are
both big fans of Mark Twain.
Mike and
I are the kind of friends who last forever. I applauded his career and marveled
at his genius. I had told him to keep drawing editorial cartoons as much as he
could after he launched his comic strip and reminded him that he had to keep
drawing and never quit.
Mike’s
cartoons have been consistently hilarious, as he says: “I go for the belly laugh”.
My favorite is a cartoon of Grimmy the dog standing excitedly in a forest full
of trees. The caption was “So many trees, so little time”. That is vintage
Peters.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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