Cappy Dick's Coloring Contest

"Hey, Kids! Try for these WONDERFUL PRIZES!"

Sunday mornings as a kid, I remember waking to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying in a pan, the soft murmur of indistinct conversation between Mom and Dad, and the rustling sound of the enormous Sunday newspaper. No matter how early I would wake, somehow my older brother managed to commandeer the Sunday Comic section, which we referred to as “The Funny Paper.” For all my waiting, it seemed that he held onto that colorful collection of kiddie-goodness way longer than necessary.

When I finally got my eager little hands on The Funny Paper — usually after Church, after lunch, and then only during whatever seasonal sport was being broadcast — as I flipped through the pages, my eyes were filled with the magical CMYK color combinations of the latest installments of comic strips like “Peanuts,” “Priscilla’s Pop,” “Wizard of Id,” “Tumbleweed,”and “Nancy and Sluggo.”

But the real attraction for this budding young artist was "Cappy Dick," the popular children’s activity (nationally syndicated 1939-1987). Every week, the Captain had a drawing for kids to color with the chance to win prizes like an entire set of World Book Encyclopedias. Oh! How I would have loved to win that prize! The well-used set of encyclopedias our family had was still useful...to a point. Even though the facts were accurate, it was a bit outdated. The entry for the Moon ended with “Someday we may put a man on the Moon.”

While the lure of a fresh-off-the-press set of encyclopedias was attractive to me, the prize I really had my eye on was the authentic electric metal detector. I could just imagine the hours of fun I would have finding lost and buried treasure, thereby becoming independently wealthy before the age of 12. It wasn’t until later did I realize that in addition to coins, metal detectors also unearthed an over-abundance of rusty nails and soda cans pop-tabs.

In addition to these wonderful grand prize offerings to a weekly winner, Cappy Dick also selected 10 runners-up to receive a consolation prize. While I never won any of the top prizes, I did win several consolation prizes. To me, that was just as cool, because my name would appear in the newspaper along with the other nine winners. A win is a win! 

Scrapbooking before scrapbooking was considered "cool."

The artistic process was simple. Cappy Dick’s drawing would be cut out of the newspaper, then pasted in the middle of a blank sheet of paper. After completing the drawing around it, I would color it with colored-pencil — still one of my favorite art mediums today. I wish there were color copiers or digital scanners back then. It would have been nice to have copies of my drawings. I often wondered what the other kids’ art looked like, but the newspaper didn’t publish the drawings. Nonetheless, I can still see the details of my drawings in my mind’s eye.

My first win came when I was 10 years old. I recall coloring a turkey for the contest. The prize was a set of four wooden tops of varying sizes. They were painted red with a little bit of decorative carving on them. I didn’t have endless hours of adventure with them, like I would have had with the metal detector, but it was an honor to be selected as a winner nonetheless.

I vaguely remember another Cappy Dick win. I didn’t see the announcement in the newspaper. I cannot recall the drawing, and because I don’t have the newspaper clipping, I have nothing from which to reference and jog my memory. Nonetheless, I remember the feeling of happy surprise, when one day another set of tops arrived unannounced in the mail. This time they were made of a dark gray plastic. They looked like upside down mushrooms. They weren’t very fun to look at.

It was a "major award"!

Then there was a cowboy scene. It was one of those art projects you put intense hours of labor into, but it just didn’t come out right. My cowboy looked odd. Honestly, I felt it was the worst drawing I’d ever done. But it was good enough for a “W” and the prize of a leather craft kit to make a key fob arrived one day in the morning mail. It was about this time that I began to be my own worst critic. I also began to suspect that maybe the 10 winners were not chosen by talent, but rather by random drawing. Since I could never be sure about that, I adopted the "You never know what the judges will like" paradigm.

My final Cappy Dick contest involved a drawing of a desert island. Pasted in the middle of the paper, I drew the windshield and dashboard of a speedboat around it. I thought it was pretty clever at the time, considering I’d never been on a speedboat. The consolation prize was a Pirate coin: a real live doubloon with the word “COPY” discreetly stamped on the bottom of it. I can still recall the excitement “shiver in me timbers” the first time I held the coin in the palm of my hand. Today, it remains one of my prized possessions from childhood as a symbol of recognition for my artistic talent and competitive spirit.

Sadly not long after that, Cappy Dick’s feature was dropped from The Funny Papers. It has since been replaced with the likes of the educational “Beakman and Jax,” and some doodle activities without contests or prizes.

In the years that followed, I’ve earned many honors, awards and ribbons for my creativity, art and design. Each one is an accomplishment to be proud of, but I will always treasure my early Cappy Dick contest experiences.

Inspired by The Sunday Funny Pages.