Gallagher/Super Dave Land Yacht
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Updated: June 25, 1999
In 1987 George Barris had a job for me. I was his Artist at the time. He left a message on my answering machine and said I would like this one! It turned out to be a Kustom car for the comedian Gallagher. In fact I got to meet him that same day. Gallagher told me about his vision and I made it happen, on paper anyway. You can see the drawing of the car below. The dolphin design on the flying bridge is one of my cartoon designs. This was one fun project. Another idea that was mine was the watermelon dock bumpers. I knew from his past shows that his trademark bit was the smashing of watermelons. I think my bumpers idea works on more than two levels. :)
In this drawing you can see my intent was to show that Gallagher was actually driving the car from the flying bridge. George decided to cover up all of the linkage with a leather like cover below. I told him I thought it defeated the hard work they went to working out the remote controls to the roof. Another idea I had was to put a rubber dog bone on the fishing line behind the car. You never know when you want to troll for mutts! But, George is a genius, and you can see that his execution of the final vehicle is more than I had been able to put on paper.
The car never made it to Gallagher's television special. George and Gallagher had a falling out somehow. So... Gallagher went to someone else and had ANOTHER IDENTICAL CAR BUILT! It copied our design pretty closely, but was not painted as well as ours was. From what I remember, the one on the television special was all white with very little adornment. I had heard the Gallagher had fallen while "Skiing" behind "his" Land yacht for the Television special and either sprained or broke his arm.
I believe the car finally made it to a television show. I was watching TV late one night when I saw our Land Yacht, or one suspiciously like ours, drive off an Ocean front Pier! The Super Dave Osborne, Super Stunt Show had Super Dave drive this car off of a pier and down 40 feet in to the Pacific Ocean! KER-SPLASH! I am sure it must have gone to the junk yard after that one! Too bad. I would have liked driving that thing around. I wonder if it could have been made street legal? You don't think it was Gallaghers land yacht do you? Nah! It had to be ours. :)
This photo should prove once and for all that the car was driven from the roof flying bridge. The design of the linkage was really very nice. Once again, this should prove that George and his crew are the best.
In this photo you can see my buddy, Warren Winslow, standing in front of Batman's 1960 era Bat Bike with the Gallagher Land Yacht in the background. Hey, look at the land yacht. The covers are removed from the front windshield so you can see that the driver really controls things from the flying bridge! Hmmmmm..... It kinda looks like my drawing now. Even the watermelon bumpers show up.