NCS Awards Gold Key to The Whole Gang
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In an very unusual move the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) has awarded its Hall of Fame Gold Key (scroll down) to a group rather than an individual. From the National Cartoonists Society announcement:
The National Cartoonists Society is honored to announce that The Berndt Toast Gang (aka the NCS Long Island Chapter) will be awarded the Gold Key. Awarded by unanimous vote of the NCS Board of Directors, The Gold Key honors the recipient as a member of the National Cartoonists Society Hall of Fame.
As the NCS explains picking out two cartoonists by name:
This year, the Board made the unique decision to award the Gold Key to not one individual, but to the chapter known as the Berndt Toast Gang in celebration of a remarkable milestone: 60 years of cartoonists gathering every month on Long Island — a tradition that predates the chapter itself. Those early gatherings inspired the late Bill Hoest, a beloved Long Island cartoonist and NCS President, to champion the idea of regional chapters within the Society. In a very real sense, what began as a group of cartoonists meeting regularly on Long Island gave rise to the entire NCS chapter system. The Berndt Toast Gang didn’t just build a community — they helped build ours.
Under the leadership of Chapter Chair Adrian Sinnott, the Berndt Toast Gang has continued to foster the sense of community, energy, and spirit that makes the chapter so special. While this award reflects the collective efforts of the entire chapter, Adrian’s leadership has played a vital role in its success. We are honored to invite Adrian to accept the award on behalf of the chapter and to pass it along to future chapter leadership.
More about the 1966 origins of The Gang and its members past and present from Adrian Sinnott’s page of The Long Island Chapter of The National Cartoonists Society:
This from Lee Ames (Walt Disney animator, author-illustrator of the “Draw 50” series, etc.):
When Creig Flessel, Bill Lignante, Frank Springer, Al Micale, and I got together to work for Hanna Barbera in the 1960s, we decided to have a lunch at Finnegan’s Bar the last Thursday of every month. During that period, Creig brought Walter Berndt to join us. We fell in love with the cigar-smoking old-timer (look who’s talking!), as he did with us. After a couple of years he passed away and left us grieving. Thereafter, whenever we convened on Thursdays, we’d raise a toast to Walter’s memory. On one such, my big mouth opened and uttered, “Fellas, it’s time for the Berndt toast!” I wasn’t trying to be cute at the time, but I’m not displeased that it stuck and we became the Berndt Toast Gang, one of the largest branches of the National Cartoonists Society.
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