- 2 hours ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The legendary Pierre Bellac, you know him as Peb, a longtime cartoonist for the Daily Racing Forum, and his son,
00:07Remy Bellac, who is the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
00:10A very good cartoonist in his own right, and he has been doing cartoons for the Thoroughbred Daily News, normally
00:16found every Friday in our publication.
00:19Here's what we're going to do.
00:20We're going to have a cartoon off.
00:22What is a cartoon off?
00:24We're going to match the legendary Peb with his son, Remy.
00:28We're going to give them a subject.
00:30They're each going to do a cartoon, and then we're going to have the listeners and viewers of the TDN
00:37Writers Room decide whose was better.
00:40Matter of fact, if you are picked, you'll get the original cartoon.
00:44When we're done with the interview, we'll give you all the details, how to enter the contest.
00:48But this is quite a delight to have both of the Bellac cartoonists here on the Thoroughbred Daily News podcast.
00:55And Peb, let's start with you.
00:57Going back to your history in this country, you came over here in 1954 at the bequest of John D.
01:05Shapiro to do cartoons for the Washington, D.C. International, which was a huge event back then.
01:10Can you tell us a little bit about that history and how you went from being in France to ultimately
01:15coming to Washington, D.C., to Laurel and then becoming an American cartoonist?
01:21Mr. Shapiro wanted me to come to visit.
01:26It was because of the Washington, D.C. International.
01:32That was the big race that was just starting the first year of that race, I think.
01:39So they invited me to come to America, but they were wondering how they could bring me here.
01:48What I found, I found that a friend of mine had a place in a cargo with four horses that
01:58was coming for the Washington, D.C. International.
02:02So they said, if you want, you can take advantage of that thing.
02:09So I went to look on this cargo and I, you know, I was on a bale of hay in
02:18a cargo with the four horses in a...
02:24And this is where I come to America.
02:27It was absolutely wonderful.
02:30You know, I end up in...
02:34I forget when we end up.
02:37Probably in Baltimore.
02:38Anyway, we came this way.
02:40As a young boy showing up, what did you think of America as a young boy just landing fresh off
02:47the boat, flying, coming over the horses?
02:51What did you think?
02:52On the plane?
02:54Yeah.
02:54Well, I was overwhelmed by everything, absolutely.
02:58And I was trying to struggle with my English.
03:06So that was something because I had a teacher of English.
03:13My mother took care of me when I was 11.
03:16She put me in the hand of a mademoiselle, it was a miss, Miss Courjon, Miss Courjon.
03:26I said, Miss Courjon, she's the one that taught me how to speak English.
03:32And when I...
03:33The first time I came back to Maison Lafitte, what do I see in the street?
03:39Mademoiselle Courjon.
03:41So I was so proud of my English.
03:44So I said to Mademoiselle Courjon, hey, how are you?
03:47How is everything?
03:49I wanted to show off.
03:50And she became red.
03:54She blushed and she...
03:56She couldn't speak, you know.
04:00And I was so sorry because I wanted to show off my English, you know, to her, Mademoiselle Courjon.
04:07I forgot.
04:10It was a lovely, lovely memory.
04:14Now, Remy, my question for you is not only are you very good at this as well, your style is
04:20very similar to your father's.
04:22In fact, if you put the two cartoons together, I don't think people could tell who was who, which is
04:26Remy and which is Peb.
04:28But did this all just come naturally or is this the result of your father sitting you down as a
04:32student teaching you how to do this?
04:35Well, I think, first of all, thank you.
04:38That's a great compliment, you know.
04:41And the answer to that question is my father always said, listen, you're going to develop a style over time.
04:47The drawings that he drew in the early 50s were completely different than the drawings he's done lately.
04:54And it's the same thing with artwork.
04:59There's not a thousand different ways to draw, you know, funny horses with big, bulgy eyes.
05:04So I have to start somewhere.
05:07And hopefully it kind of develops into its own style.
05:11I think it's also the type of humor you use.
05:14And so I've had a lot of influences of other cartoonists when I did political cartoons and things like that.
05:22It was a whole different realm.
05:24When it comes to equine related cartoons, though, it's it's hard to kind of get completely away from it.
05:32But hopefully I can kind of, you know, build a style, not just in the artwork, but in the humor.
05:38I think probably, well, listen, it's like having, you know, Rodney Dangerfield or Jerry Seinfeld as your as your father.
05:47It's hard to top that kind of humor.
05:50His cartoons are were funny in the 70s and are still funny today.
05:55Mine might be more topical to what's happening currently in racing.
05:59And so, you know, it's it's kind of really I do get some a little bit of influence from a
06:09guy named Gary Larson, who used to do The Far Side.
06:12I loved his work, too.
06:14So I try to try to kind of blend things a little bit.
06:17And then eventually I hope to have a completely unique style.
06:21Well, guys, I should have said this right from the start.
06:24It is an absolute pleasure to meet the pair of you on screen at the same time.
06:30Remy, I've been a fan of yours.
06:32Peb, when I first got off my plane from England, one of the first few things I saw in the
06:38Daily Racing form was a Peb cartoon.
06:40And I'm like, this is amazing.
06:42So I bow down to the pair of you.
06:46But Peb, how did this all start?
06:49How did you start cartooning?
06:51Well, I always, always try to copy from the newspapers when I was a kid, you know, I was copying
07:01cartoons.
07:02And that was my, you know, my ambition to draw.
07:08I make albums of caricatures of politicians.
07:14I get albums full of those things, you know.
07:19And I had a great passion for that.
07:24As a matter of fact, my father was a head lad in a stable where we had the little stable
07:36in the back.
07:37And my mother and my family was living above the horses in the kitchen.
07:44And, you know, we were living right above the row of horses.
07:50And so on summer, I would put my table outside and I would start drawing all kind of, I drew
08:05a series of sketches that, you know, I was like 12 or something like that.
08:11But I was drawing a race from start to finish with all the sequences.
08:20And I still had that for a long time, so there was the start, there was during the race, and
08:28there was the finish, and there was the coming back from, you know, the whole thing.
08:33So that took me the whole summer, sitting down outside and drawing those things.
08:43And so that, you know, that was my passion to do that.
08:48My father, in the meantime, he was working here in the same area, you know.
08:54And my father was, he was cute because he was trying to get us some food.
09:01And he, what he got, he got the traps for birds that he put in a, in a fumier, come
09:12on.
09:13Oh, in a manure pit, manure pit.
09:16Manure pit.
09:16So he had those, those traps in the manure things.
09:21And then, at the end of the day, there was about six or seven, eight birds that was caught in,
09:31in the manure.
09:33So he would gather that thing, those birds.
09:37And my mother upstairs, she had to plug, plug the birds.
09:43And she was roasting the birds for us to feed, because we, and they were delicious.
09:51You have no idea.
09:53Those were the best.
09:55To me, you give me a turkey, I don't give a damn about the turkey.
09:59But those birds, my goodness, they were so good, you could, you could eat everything.
10:04You know.
10:07So, that was my, the occupation, the occupation of my father to feed us and to, to make sure that
10:16we had, my father was a great guy, you know.
10:19He was, he was cutting trees in a park.
10:23Wow.
10:23Well, you could get caught and he would, and he put the, the piece of, he would put the piece
10:31of a tree under the, the leaves and, uh, bringing one piece every, every night on his bicycle.
10:39Oh, my gosh.
10:40It was something.
10:42We survived.
10:43And thanks.
10:44But my, the taste of those birds, you have no idea how delicious they were.
10:51Sounds, sounds delicious.
10:53Fab, when most people think of cartoonists, they think of political cartoonists.
10:57And I understand at one point in your career, you worked for Walter Annenberg, who owned both the Racing Forum
11:02and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
11:04And he wanted you to give up racing to become a political cartoonist full time.
11:08And you said no.
11:09Tell us about that story and why.
11:12I didn't say no.
11:13I said, I cannot leave the, the racing cartoon.
11:19I want to do both, you know.
11:21I think one of the things, too, is the paper soon got sold from Annenberg, I think, to Knight Ritter.
11:27And so, I think at that point, you had to make a decision to go for one or the other.
11:34And I want to point out that had my father decided to stay with the Philadelphia Inquirer with Knight Ritter,
11:42he'd probably have a wall full of Pulitzers at this point.
11:46A lot of other cartoonists have said so.
11:49And that might have been the loss of the political world, but our game, certainly, in horse racing.
11:58Absolutely.
11:59I'm glad you didn't leave.
12:01And you got, you got into the Hall of Fame last year.
12:04You were on the Joe Hirsch Honor Roll.
12:06And I know a lot of journalists out there and a lot of people that just type and write are
12:10just itching to get in there.
12:12But you were inducted last year.
12:14How was that?
12:15That's pretty amazing.
12:16Because I paid them under the table.
12:21You paid the right person.
12:25I gave them, you know, a few thousand dollars and, no, I don't know.
12:32I don't know how to answer that question.
12:35It's quite an honor, though.
12:37And I think it's another fun fact is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually started at the
12:44Morning Telegraph before Joe Hirsch, didn't you?
12:50Yeah.
12:52You know, you mentioned Joe Hirsch, and I kept, I don't know if you see a caricature that did of
13:01Joe Hirsch.
13:01No.
13:02He was really a caricature.
13:05He was really a caricature.
13:06I love the guy.
13:08He was so good, you know.
13:09But he was so, he was like a pope, you know, like a pope.
13:15I saw that he was like a pope, you know.
13:17He had a little bit, you know, he could be a pope, by the way, because he was hunched like
13:25that.
13:27Maybe the wrong religion, but nonetheless.
13:32And let me also jump in.
13:35I think it's important for a lot of viewers to know that one of the things that makes my father
13:41unique is the art of caricature, which now I want to make sure, you know, people know that there are
13:48those caricatures you might see at a party or at the shopping mall with the big head and the small
13:54body type of thing.
13:55But the art of caricature, the style my father adopted back in his youth, which you might see the famous
14:04cartoonist like Sem, S-E-M, who did a lot of sporting art kind of caricatures.
14:11That's pretty unique because it's not so the way to show you how good he is as a caricaturist is
14:21that there are some people that my dad will draw, like when he drew Broglio Baeza as a jockey.
14:26And if you look at the drawing and you cover up the face of the jockey, you still know who
14:33it is just by the posture.
14:35And I think it was one of the great things of growing up is that my my father would say,
14:40you know, we'd be at Belmont or at Aqueduct.
14:44And he would say to me, you know, there's a lot of very powerful people here, you know, you know,
14:50Whitney's and Vanderbilt's and a lot.
14:51But I'm I'm the most powerful person here. And I'd say, why?
14:54I said, because I can't make any one of these people stand up and run away.
14:58And I'd say, show me. And he would walk up with his pad and his pencil and he would fake
15:03drawing, you know, a wife of one of the people.
15:08And then she would get up and she would run away into the grandstand and not have a caricature yet.
15:14And he says, see.
15:17So, Pep, on that subject, who are some of the favorite horses or people who did you just love to
15:23draw over the years?
15:24I love to draw. You know, there is so many.
15:28I don't know if I can answer that, because to me, I think it was fantastic to to be given
15:36the gift of of caricaturing people.
15:40You know, I was and I never I never I always try not to be mean with my caricature, except
15:49for a few guys that I can stand.
15:55But usually try to get something out of the face that was funny, but also there was some kind of
16:08a gentleness about it.
16:11You know, I never wanted to be rude with people, except for a few women.
16:20Can we ask?
16:22I think I think I want to know who those women were.
16:27Exactly. Who was it?
16:30I know I don't want to say that.
16:32Good choice.
16:34Good choice.
16:36So I'll tell you what my favorite cartoon that my father has done is actually, if you can see right
16:42over my shoulder right there, he gave this to me a couple of years ago.
16:46And maybe I'll do a screenshot of it and send it to you guys.
16:50But it's a caricature of Muhammad Ali that my father did on the back of a of a menu at
16:56a sports banquet in New York in 1966 before he fought Sonny Liston.
17:02And it's signed by Ali, who notoriously would never, you know, sign anything.
17:09But he saw the drawing and he said, that's that's good.
17:11And and so that that's that's like my my prize possession right there.
17:17You have that. Yeah.
17:18Yeah. I stole it from you.
17:20You know, you didn't know.
17:21But oh, you gave it to me.
17:26Yeah. Bill, to your question, I think one of the important things to having worked in different facets of the
17:33industry over many years,
17:35it's so important that whether you're you're a trainer, a rider, a jockey or you work as a journalist or
17:45management,
17:46what you I always tell a lot of the students that I teach at our community college, our equine studies
17:52program,
17:53always have an outlet and also always keep a bit of a sense of humor,
18:00because oftentimes we get caught up in a lot of the the important issues of our sport and our industry.
18:09But if you can't once in a while kind of take a step back and have a chuckle now and
18:14then,
18:15well, you know, you you're not going to last for a very long time or if you do, you're not
18:21going to be very happy.
18:22So and I think that's a that's an important thing that my father has been bringing to the industry for
18:28for quite a long time.
18:29And then in whatever capacity now that now that I'm done shutting down racetracks,
18:36I'm like a cautionary tale that Bill and I go back to the Garden State days.
18:41You know, people at these conventions, they run away from me because I'm like chief dark cloud.
18:46It's like Garden State, Hollywood Parks, Long Acres.
18:50Yeah, so now I'm in I'm in a safe industry.
18:54I can't shut down any more racetracks, but it's important to the I'm glad I can, you know,
19:02bring a little bit of levity and sometimes an important point that people need to look at.
19:08All right. So let's explain how this block versus block cartoon off is going to work.
19:13So what we're going to do is we're going to do time lapse videos of the drawings that Remy and
19:18Peb did.
19:19We gave them a specific subject they both have to tackle, which is the 50th anniversary of Secretariat's Triple Crown
19:26win.
19:27Perhaps it's Preakness win. We'll see what they come up with, of course, with the anniversary of the Preakness coming
19:31up.
19:31So first, let's take a look at Remy's.
19:42And now let's take a look at Peb's.
19:56And to vote for your favorite and to be entered in a drawing to win that cartoon,
20:00go to Remy's Twitter feed, which is at Block Remy, B-E-L-L-O-C-Q-R-E-M
20:08-I.
20:09Once again, Remy's Twitter feed is Block Remy at B-E-L-L-O-C-Q-R-E-M-I.
20:16Follow him. You have to be a follower to win the drawing.
20:19Vote on the Twitter poll for the drawing you like best.
20:23The results will be announced on next week's show.
20:26And if your name is chosen, you will be given the original drawing won by the winner.
20:33So this has been a delightful conversation among everybody.
20:37Zoe, you got something you want to add to it?
20:39Can I answer?
20:42Of course you can.
20:43No, I don't think so.
20:44No.
20:45Friends and family in the TDN writers room are not eligible.
20:48Isn't that what they always say on these sort of things?
20:51So you're not eligible.
20:52Your family's not eligible.
20:54I'm not eligible.
20:54We're going to have Joe Phan win this.
20:57So maybe you can do a side deal with Peb and Remy for something like that.
21:01So anyways, Mr. and Mr. Block, it's been delightful.
21:06Thank you so much for being our guest.
21:07The Green Group Guest of the Week.
21:09But if Remy wins, I kill myself.
21:14Now, now, now.
21:15Don't do that.
21:18Okay, take it easy on the old man, will you, Remy?
21:21Once again, thanks so much for joining us.
21:23Let's get started.