In the new episode of I Couldn't Throw It Out, you can hear how our pal Tom Gammill played a key role when I nearly wrecked the 1982 opening party for the movie Tootsie.
However.... this isn't Tom's greatest claim to fame. Aside from his years as a writer for many funny TV shows (SNL, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Curb Your Enthusiasm), I've got another reason to honor him: He's a walking talking advertisement for why I can't throw things out.
Since the 1970s, I've been lucky enough to receive samples of Tom's drawings -- which are instantly recognizable both for the lines on the page and the lines that the characters are saying or thinking.
And of course, I saved them.
The picture above is a perfect example of Tom's knack for retaining tiny details about other people's lives.
I once told Tom that, as a kid, I used to play a song on the violin called The Happy Farmer (which also plays when Toto escapes from Miss Gulch's basket in The Wizard of Oz). He remembered that tiny fact and translated it into that painting of The Happy Farmer.
That's just one example. Here are other samples of Tom Gammill drawings from my 45-year stash:
In one of my boxes, I found this 1970s picture of me (back when I had hair on my head) -- where Tom summed up my love of gardening...
Many years ago, after I sent Tom some CDs, I got this thank you note. (By the way, Tom's wife gives him nice gifts. He just goes for extra laughs by reviving 1950s wife jokes.)
We all get lots of holiday cards. But how often do you get ones where the art was made specially for you? Only if you know Tom Gammill.
I think this one might refer to my 1980s apartment on the ground floor in Brooklyn where sometimes people would come up to the bars on the windows and scare me.
Sometimes Tom's drawings remind me of details from my life that I barely remember myself. When I had a job as a gardener during college, I worked with a guy who constantly used an unusual expression -- with a heavy Boston accent: "Break ya arm!" I think he'd say it, sort of kiddingly, every time you did something that annoyed him. Which was often. Somehow Tom remembered this and it became a holiday card:
Tom really laughed at one of my early childhood stories: My siblings and I pooled all our pennies for a gift for our mom. Then my sister went to a gift shop in downtown Marblehead Massachusetts and bought... a chowder bowl. When my mom opened it she paused -- then starting beaming and said, "Oh! A chowder bowl! Just want I wanted!" (By the way, I inherited that chowder bowl and still have it for a future episode.). So I gave Tom a chowder bowl of his own as a joke, and I got this card:
I love Tom's drawings so much that I even saved the napkin from his wedding....
It seems that one of us was on the radio at one point, and Tom's family listened:
Two years ago, I received ultimate Gammill treasure: an advent calendar made by Tom with each day revealing a tiny memory from my life...
Such as... The Dead Milkmen concert that Cindy and I attended in the '80s, the poster of Picasso's Three Musicians that my parents gave me when I was 8, the Valentine song I sang when I was 6, the MAD comedy LP that made us laugh because it was so bad, and... the only joke I could remember that ended with the line "Boy, was I thirsty!" It was all there. It's on my wall now. Just so I can remember everything Tom remembers.
These treasures -- and other Gammill keepsakes in my stash -- are WAY too precious to toss. If any of you want to see these next to your name in my will, speak up! In that case, I'll tell Tom a story about YOU. And maybe he'll put you in the funny papers too!
Tom's comic strip The Doozies, from 2008 - 2022 is online. Check it out.
And remember... You can hear more from Tom -- including the tale of how John Belushi became his "buddy" -- on the new episode of I Couldn't Throw It Out.
