Joe McGuire has worn many hats in his days of living here in Central Illinois and most of them have been media related. He’s been an art director for Brown’s Sporting Goods, he’s done promotional artwork for WEEK TV, he was also involved in many successful advertising campaigns and events for that same station and he was also responsible for both WEEK TV and the PJ Star’s original presence on this new thing called, “the internet” back in the ‘90’s. However, all that experience fades for a lot of people when they realize or remember that Joe McGuire was once known as (drumroll please)...Bosun Joe on The Captain Jinks Show!
Joe McGuire—The Bosun Joe Years!
Joe McGuire loved to draw his whole life and that resulted in him being an art major at Illinois State University. After he graduated he got a job with Brown’s Sporting Goods and eventually worked his way up to being the Advertising and Art Director as the store grew to 20 retail outlets throughout the Midwest. Joe produced artwork and award-winning radio and TV commercials for the sporting goods chain of stores and it blossomed into a lucrative and creative job for him.
Before he had worked at Brown’s, he interned at WEEK-TV during his senior year at ISU and got to know and work with veteran newsmen, Tom Connor and Ton McIntyre. While working at Brown’s, Joe continued to do freelance work for WEEK-TV in his spare time. In the late ‘70’s WEEK-TV decided to revive a popular kid’s TV show from the ‘60’s called, The Captain Jinks Show. Joe had an idea to be a character on the show and have an art segment for the kids and the character Bosun Joe was born!
Bosun Joe became a popular star of the Captain Jinks Show and his “drawing game,” was a precursor for the game, Pictionary which later became a popular game show in the late ‘90’s.
Here’s Joe as Bosun Joe on the set of the Captain Jinks Show on WEEK-TV.
This is just a small sampling of the art that Joe created for the Captain Jinks Show through the years. The second drawing is of his wife Kathy, who he met while attending ISU. You’ll see her again, reluctantly posing for the MBIP Camera if you keep on scrolling down!
Promotional Art And Advertising Campaigns for WEEK-TV
In addition to his starring role as Bosun Joe on the Captain Jinks Show, Joe also did promotional art for WEEK including these promo boards for Star Trek, Valley Of The Dolls and The Andy Griffith Show. By the late ‘80’s, Brown’s Sporting Goods was sold and Joe moved back to WEEK full time working with the GM at the time, Dennis Upah developing new business through specialty ad campaigns including The Kids Nowadays Festival which drew over 20,000 people to the Civic Center. Another event Joe worked on was the Mature Lifestyle Expo with Jay Goldberg and Joy Miller.
Joe The Internet Guy!
Not too many media people took notice when the internet first came along in the early ‘90’s, but Joe McGuire did! He saw the potential for an online presence via a website and was responsible for the first WEEK-TV website going up on the internet. His work with that website led to the PJ Star calling Joe and he went to work for them building and maintaining their website for over 13 years (the above art isn’t Joe’s design for the PJ Star, but they owe him a tip of the hat for getting the ball rolling!) Then in 2010, he went back to WEEK and created CINewsNow.com for the station which by that time had acquired other stations and advertisers. Joe says his son Steven came up with that new website name and registered the domain name.
Joe The Art Guy: Today!
With the help of his wife Kathy, Joe phased out the media end of his life and is now concentrating on his own art on a full time basis. He invited me over to see his studio in his house in Germantown Hills and I went along with MBIP Pal and driver for the day, Adam Duvall!
Adam!
This is the house in Germantown Hills where Joe’s art studio is located and there’s Joe with his wife lovely wife Kathy, who he met way back as an art student at ISU!
Joe’s art studio is in the basement and it’s located in the corner of this room over here. You can see his art table and tools of the art trade sitting nearby.
There’s Joe’s latest painting in the works: The Peoria skyline. Below that is a cover he illustrated for the Art & Society Magazine. It was his take on the Norman Rockwell triple self portrait cover for the Saturday Evening Post. Below that is a print from an original oil painting Joe did of an afternoon scene from Grandview Drive. He has a limited number of these prints and he gave me one, which I really want to thank him for! If you’d like to see more of Joe’s paintings or are interested in purchasing a limited edition print, just click here: Joe’s Gallery.
One art form Joe has gotten into in the last few years is caricatures. Joe offered to draw a caricature of Adam and myself and so we sat down and let the master go to work! Here I am posing for Joe the Art Guy!
Now it’s Adam’s turn and it was amazing at how quickly he turned this drawing around!
Before we knew it, we were holding the finished product! Pretty amazing work! Joe is available for caricature work at birthday parties, corporate events, class reunions, wedding receptions, private parties and more, you can read more about his caricature and personal portrait work right here: Joe The Art Guy Caricatures/Personal Portraits. And there’s even more information, artwork, Captain Jinks stories and artwork all at Joe the Art Guy’s website! Thanks to Joe for a fun afternoon and for sharing his interesting history of his art here in Central Illinois! And thanks to Adam for driving me and hanging out with Joe and I for the afternoon! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Posts: Peoria TV Rerun: The Captain Jinks Show, Peoria, I Hardly Knew Ye and #CaptainsKids.