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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Mike Luckovich

Aired September 22, 2002 - 08:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: They are few and far between. There are just a few hundred full-time editorial cartoonists in the U.S., right? And one of the best works right here in Atlanta.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Really?

CALLAWAY: Yeah.

O'BRIEN: That would be you.

MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST: What do you mean you're trying to discourage your kid from being a cartoonist?

O'BRIEN: I tried to explain to him what your day was like, as you've often described it.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, in by the crack of noon. You know, sit around, drink a lot of coffee for a while...

LUCKOVICH: Exactly, exactly.

O'BRIEN: ... and then spend about a half-hour writing cartoons, then go home.

LUCKOVICH: Yeah, you know, most people crack under the pressure.

O'BRIEN: It's a living. It's a living.

LUCKOVICH: No, I love it.

CALLAWAY: Mike Luckovich is here with us.

O'BRIEN: Mike has put together some of his favorites, or just what was lying on the...

LUCKOVICH: Just lying here on the floor. I just picked some up and brought them over here.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get right to it, shall we?

LUCKOVICH: All right.

O'BRIEN: What do we have? LUCKOVICH: All right, I don't know. Let's take a look at the first cartoon. Oh, you know, this was on the congressional intelligence hearings this week. And we've learned that our intelligence agencies had -- had -- Osama bin Laden never actually called them and said there was going to be an attack, but they were getting some information in.

So I did this cartoon. You see a huge neon sign flashing, saying "congressional hearings: How U.S. intelligence missed 9/11 warnings." And a little U.S. intelligence guy is talking to members of Congress and he's saying, so, senators, what are we here to talk about?

CALLAWAY: So a little trouble reading the signs, is what you're saying.

LUCKOVICH: Exactly. Exactly.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the real guys were speaking behind the screens. And we know why.

LUCKOVICH: That's true, yeah.

O'BRIEN: Not to blow their cover.

LUCKOVICH: No, they are embarrassed.

O'BRIEN: They are embarrassed, yes.

All right, next cartoon, please.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, OK, now. Now, what was amazing is that Saddam readily accepted...

O'BRIEN: Come on in, he says.

LUCKOVICH: ... inspections. Yeah, come on in. So Bush is saying, you know, "axis of cooperation" doesn't sound as good. Now what I'm worried about, and I know that Bush doesn't want this to happen, if we keep warming up with, say, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, he's going to have to call them the axis of cuddles. And he doesn't want to have to do that. I know -- I know Bush.

O'BRIEN: That cuddly -- Kim Jung-Il. He is a cuddly guy.

LUCKOVICH: He is, he is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Next on our hit parade.

LUCKOVICH: Right. Now, this cartoon -- once they started discussing going to war -- you know, I was sort of for -- I was sort of for invading Iraq, but now I'm having second thoughts after their sales presentation. So Bush is a vacuum cleaner salesman. He has got a vacuum cleaner labeled "Iraq War." And of course, you see it's stuck to his ear and it kind of messed up. And a couple in the house is saying, "I was sold until he started his sales presentation."

CALLAWAY: You know, what would you have done if you hadn't had Bush's ears to make fun of?

LUCKOVICH: It would have been a sorry state.

CALLAWAY: Nice situation for you. You know, you're a lucky man.

LUCKOVICH: You know, people criticize me all the time. I mean, I can do a hard-hitting cartoon, but people will call up and say, hey, you made his ears too big. And they'll be upset about that.

CALLAWAY: They are insulted. They are very insulted by that.

O'BRIEN: OK, next on our hit parade.

LUCKOVICH: Well, you know, we haven't had -- at least a couple of weeks ago, there wasn't unity exactly as far as what to do about Iraq. So I drew Colin Powell there and Cheney there. They are making a peace sign, and Cheney -- or Powell is saying to Cheney, "how come your peace sign is always behind my head?"

O'BRIEN: You know, you have successfully gotten the crooked Cheney kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) smile.

LUCKOVICH: You know, I love that.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, you can't make that stuff up.

LUCKOVICH: No, it is just so perfect. I love drawing him.

CALLAWAY: And this is my favorite one.

LUCKOVICH: You know, I worry about going to war with Iraq so quickly, because we really -- I don't think -- we haven't even gotten Osama, have we? I don't think we have.

O'BRIEN: I don't believe we have.

LUCKOVICH: And so I did this cartoon. "Bush shifts focus to Saddam." Osama is reading that paper. And you see his cronies, his fellow thugs are hugging him and they're saying, hey, you'll always be evil-doer number one to us.

O'BRIEN: Ouch, well. In the cave. All right, shall we move on?

LUCKOVICH: All right. Now, this is -- in Buffalo, they had the arrest of the alleged al Qaeda cell. And so it just shows you that maybe it can happen anywhere, so I've got -- I've got Big Bird telling Kermit, "Kermit, there is an al Qaeda sleeper cell in our neighborhood" -- and you see them leading away -- Elmo's there and I think that's Burt...

O'BRIEN: Burt and Ernie.

LUCKOVICH: Burt and Ernie. Various -- Cookie Monster. All part of the al Qaeda cell.

O'BRIEN: I noticed you stuck -- is that a turban? LUCKOVICH: Yeah, there are a few turbans.

CALLAWAY: Is that the alleged al Qaeda member there?

LUCKOVICH: Yeah, they are all being led away in chains by the FBI.

CALLAWAY: There you go.

O'BRIEN: You didn't get into the Shoney (ph) situation, or did you?

LUCKOVICH: You know, I didn't do that. Although that is a topic.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: One more. Or maybe two more. All right.

LUCKOVICH: Now this is -- here we had -- we were doing so well. We had a surplus. We had gotten past the deficits. And now all of a sudden, poof, our surpluses are now gone.

O'BRIEN: What happened there anyway?

LUCKOVICH: I don't know.

O'BRIEN: It happened overnight. While we were sleeping -- so go ahead.

LUCKOVICH: So Bush is reading the paper, saying $5.6 trillion surplus disappears. You see David Copperfield, and an aide is saying, "David Copperfield wants pointers."

CALLAWAY: You made the president look like Yoda in this one.

LUCKOVICH: In some way, I guess. But you know, his ears aren't quite as huge as they have been. So...

O'BRIEN: Oh, really?

(CROSSTALK)

CALLAWAY: Equal opportunity. Now we've got Al Gore.

LUCKOVICH: Right. Now, Gore has said recently that if he does decide to run, he is not going to rely on consultants; he's just going to -- he's just going to fire from the hip. And so I've got him. He's wearing a "South Park" T-shirt. He's drinking a Colt 45. And he's saying, "bring in constituents. This time out, what you see is what you get. Keeping it real." And then he burps loudly. And a woman is telling her husband, "I miss the scripted Al Gore."

O'BRIEN: Let me just ask you, where is his hand, Mike?

(CROSSTALK) LUCKOVICH: It is, it's in his pants.

(CROSSTALK)

LUCKOVICH: He's just relaxed.

O'BRIEN: You know, I suspect if Al Gore had done that in the first place, it might be an entirely different scenario right now.

LUCKOVICH: What, put his hand in his pants?

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Yeah, that could be it?

CALLAWAY: Have you been drawing your entire life? I mean, how did you get into this? Were you like Miles' kid at home?

LUCKOVICH: Yes, I was, although my parents weren't dissuading me from the profession, as Miles is.

O'BRIEN: I'm telling him to sell vacuum cleaners, actually.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, you know, that would be more lucrative.

O'BRIEN: It's a career.

LUCKOVICH: No, but I have just always drawn. And I was the geek-like child in class that was always drawing cartoons instead of taking notes.

O'BRIEN: Usually of the teacher.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, the teacher...

O'BRIEN: I bet you got caught a few times.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, it was great. But see, I would move around a lot. So I would draw the teacher. I could draw caricatures even in elementary school. So I would pass them around to the kids in class...

CALLAWAY: And you're a hero, right?

LUCKOVICH: ... and then they'd love me. So it was a great way to...

O'BRIEN: Isn't this a great country?

LUCKOVICH: It is.

CALLAWAY: All you have to do is draw a cartoon, and you're loved.

LUCKOVICH: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: All right, Mike Luckovich, let's take make this a regular thing again.

LUCKOVICH: All right. I'll be here the next week and the week after.

O'BRIEN: All right. You'll be co-anchor.

LUCKOVICH: All right, this will be great.

CALLAWAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

LUCKOVICH: We will get that one in.

O'BRIEN: All right.

LUCKOVICH: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired September 22, 2002 - 08:49   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: They are few and far between. There are just a few hundred full-time editorial cartoonists in the U.S., right? And one of the best works right here in Atlanta.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Really?

CALLAWAY: Yeah.

O'BRIEN: That would be you.

MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST: What do you mean you're trying to discourage your kid from being a cartoonist?

O'BRIEN: I tried to explain to him what your day was like, as you've often described it.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, in by the crack of noon. You know, sit around, drink a lot of coffee for a while...

LUCKOVICH: Exactly, exactly.

O'BRIEN: ... and then spend about a half-hour writing cartoons, then go home.

LUCKOVICH: Yeah, you know, most people crack under the pressure.

O'BRIEN: It's a living. It's a living.

LUCKOVICH: No, I love it.

CALLAWAY: Mike Luckovich is here with us.

O'BRIEN: Mike has put together some of his favorites, or just what was lying on the...

LUCKOVICH: Just lying here on the floor. I just picked some up and brought them over here.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get right to it, shall we?

LUCKOVICH: All right.

O'BRIEN: What do we have? LUCKOVICH: All right, I don't know. Let's take a look at the first cartoon. Oh, you know, this was on the congressional intelligence hearings this week. And we've learned that our intelligence agencies had -- had -- Osama bin Laden never actually called them and said there was going to be an attack, but they were getting some information in.

So I did this cartoon. You see a huge neon sign flashing, saying "congressional hearings: How U.S. intelligence missed 9/11 warnings." And a little U.S. intelligence guy is talking to members of Congress and he's saying, so, senators, what are we here to talk about?

CALLAWAY: So a little trouble reading the signs, is what you're saying.

LUCKOVICH: Exactly. Exactly.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the real guys were speaking behind the screens. And we know why.

LUCKOVICH: That's true, yeah.

O'BRIEN: Not to blow their cover.

LUCKOVICH: No, they are embarrassed.

O'BRIEN: They are embarrassed, yes.

All right, next cartoon, please.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, OK, now. Now, what was amazing is that Saddam readily accepted...

O'BRIEN: Come on in, he says.

LUCKOVICH: ... inspections. Yeah, come on in. So Bush is saying, you know, "axis of cooperation" doesn't sound as good. Now what I'm worried about, and I know that Bush doesn't want this to happen, if we keep warming up with, say, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, he's going to have to call them the axis of cuddles. And he doesn't want to have to do that. I know -- I know Bush.

O'BRIEN: That cuddly -- Kim Jung-Il. He is a cuddly guy.

LUCKOVICH: He is, he is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Next on our hit parade.

LUCKOVICH: Right. Now, this cartoon -- once they started discussing going to war -- you know, I was sort of for -- I was sort of for invading Iraq, but now I'm having second thoughts after their sales presentation. So Bush is a vacuum cleaner salesman. He has got a vacuum cleaner labeled "Iraq War." And of course, you see it's stuck to his ear and it kind of messed up. And a couple in the house is saying, "I was sold until he started his sales presentation."

CALLAWAY: You know, what would you have done if you hadn't had Bush's ears to make fun of?

LUCKOVICH: It would have been a sorry state.

CALLAWAY: Nice situation for you. You know, you're a lucky man.

LUCKOVICH: You know, people criticize me all the time. I mean, I can do a hard-hitting cartoon, but people will call up and say, hey, you made his ears too big. And they'll be upset about that.

CALLAWAY: They are insulted. They are very insulted by that.

O'BRIEN: OK, next on our hit parade.

LUCKOVICH: Well, you know, we haven't had -- at least a couple of weeks ago, there wasn't unity exactly as far as what to do about Iraq. So I drew Colin Powell there and Cheney there. They are making a peace sign, and Cheney -- or Powell is saying to Cheney, "how come your peace sign is always behind my head?"

O'BRIEN: You know, you have successfully gotten the crooked Cheney kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) smile.

LUCKOVICH: You know, I love that.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, you can't make that stuff up.

LUCKOVICH: No, it is just so perfect. I love drawing him.

CALLAWAY: And this is my favorite one.

LUCKOVICH: You know, I worry about going to war with Iraq so quickly, because we really -- I don't think -- we haven't even gotten Osama, have we? I don't think we have.

O'BRIEN: I don't believe we have.

LUCKOVICH: And so I did this cartoon. "Bush shifts focus to Saddam." Osama is reading that paper. And you see his cronies, his fellow thugs are hugging him and they're saying, hey, you'll always be evil-doer number one to us.

O'BRIEN: Ouch, well. In the cave. All right, shall we move on?

LUCKOVICH: All right. Now, this is -- in Buffalo, they had the arrest of the alleged al Qaeda cell. And so it just shows you that maybe it can happen anywhere, so I've got -- I've got Big Bird telling Kermit, "Kermit, there is an al Qaeda sleeper cell in our neighborhood" -- and you see them leading away -- Elmo's there and I think that's Burt...

O'BRIEN: Burt and Ernie.

LUCKOVICH: Burt and Ernie. Various -- Cookie Monster. All part of the al Qaeda cell.

O'BRIEN: I noticed you stuck -- is that a turban? LUCKOVICH: Yeah, there are a few turbans.

CALLAWAY: Is that the alleged al Qaeda member there?

LUCKOVICH: Yeah, they are all being led away in chains by the FBI.

CALLAWAY: There you go.

O'BRIEN: You didn't get into the Shoney (ph) situation, or did you?

LUCKOVICH: You know, I didn't do that. Although that is a topic.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: One more. Or maybe two more. All right.

LUCKOVICH: Now this is -- here we had -- we were doing so well. We had a surplus. We had gotten past the deficits. And now all of a sudden, poof, our surpluses are now gone.

O'BRIEN: What happened there anyway?

LUCKOVICH: I don't know.

O'BRIEN: It happened overnight. While we were sleeping -- so go ahead.

LUCKOVICH: So Bush is reading the paper, saying $5.6 trillion surplus disappears. You see David Copperfield, and an aide is saying, "David Copperfield wants pointers."

CALLAWAY: You made the president look like Yoda in this one.

LUCKOVICH: In some way, I guess. But you know, his ears aren't quite as huge as they have been. So...

O'BRIEN: Oh, really?

(CROSSTALK)

CALLAWAY: Equal opportunity. Now we've got Al Gore.

LUCKOVICH: Right. Now, Gore has said recently that if he does decide to run, he is not going to rely on consultants; he's just going to -- he's just going to fire from the hip. And so I've got him. He's wearing a "South Park" T-shirt. He's drinking a Colt 45. And he's saying, "bring in constituents. This time out, what you see is what you get. Keeping it real." And then he burps loudly. And a woman is telling her husband, "I miss the scripted Al Gore."

O'BRIEN: Let me just ask you, where is his hand, Mike?

(CROSSTALK) LUCKOVICH: It is, it's in his pants.

(CROSSTALK)

LUCKOVICH: He's just relaxed.

O'BRIEN: You know, I suspect if Al Gore had done that in the first place, it might be an entirely different scenario right now.

LUCKOVICH: What, put his hand in his pants?

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Yeah, that could be it?

CALLAWAY: Have you been drawing your entire life? I mean, how did you get into this? Were you like Miles' kid at home?

LUCKOVICH: Yes, I was, although my parents weren't dissuading me from the profession, as Miles is.

O'BRIEN: I'm telling him to sell vacuum cleaners, actually.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, you know, that would be more lucrative.

O'BRIEN: It's a career.

LUCKOVICH: No, but I have just always drawn. And I was the geek-like child in class that was always drawing cartoons instead of taking notes.

O'BRIEN: Usually of the teacher.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, the teacher...

O'BRIEN: I bet you got caught a few times.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, it was great. But see, I would move around a lot. So I would draw the teacher. I could draw caricatures even in elementary school. So I would pass them around to the kids in class...

CALLAWAY: And you're a hero, right?

LUCKOVICH: ... and then they'd love me. So it was a great way to...

O'BRIEN: Isn't this a great country?

LUCKOVICH: It is.

CALLAWAY: All you have to do is draw a cartoon, and you're loved.

LUCKOVICH: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: All right, Mike Luckovich, let's take make this a regular thing again.

LUCKOVICH: All right. I'll be here the next week and the week after.

O'BRIEN: All right. You'll be co-anchor.

LUCKOVICH: All right, this will be great.

CALLAWAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

LUCKOVICH: We will get that one in.

O'BRIEN: All right.

LUCKOVICH: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com