Never Darken My Door Again

The world of the magazine cartoonist includes more than its share of clichés – the missionary in the cannibal's pot, the young man proposing in the parlor on one knee, the secretary taking dictation on the boss' lap, the castaway on an island no bigger than a pitcher's mound – these have been asked to produce not one, but many hundreds of smiles from readers through the years. The late Sam Cobean of The New Yorker particularly enjoyed reworking such tired situations and finding in them still another chuckle no one else guessed was there. Many of Cobean's funniest cartoons were actually spoofs of the clichés themselves. His most famous involved characters mentally undressing one another, but he also had some fun with the unfeeling father who turns a disgraced daughter away from his door on a stormy night. He even drew up a series of panels depicting daughter, suitably disgraced in the spring, waiting patiently through the summer and fall for just the right cold winter's night before bundling up junior for the doorstep scene. Playboy cartoonist Phil Interlandi picks up matters where Cobean left them, drawing still more humorous situations from the same old doorstep, dad and daughter, and even getting mom and the chauffeur into the act for good measure.

"Where to next, mother?"