Rube Goldberg: "The Rube Under the Bed"

Above: Jennifer George stores granddad Rube Goldberg's drawings under her bed. Photo by Rob Bennett for The Wall Street Journal.


Ralph Gardner, writing for the Wall Street Journal, profiles Rube Goldberg's grandaughter, Jennifer George, who keeps about 60 of his originals tucked under her bed in her West Side apartment. She also

" ... runs a company along with her relatives to protect and merchandize his name, reported they've signed a film deal with the makers of "Elf" to develop a movie based on his characters and contraptions."

Ms. George describes the cartoonist back in the day:

"To give a hint of Mr. Goldberg's celebrity in his heyday—he began syndicating his work in 1915, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948, and was the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, whose Reuben Award was named for and designed by him—Ms. George said her father used to tell her stories of the Goldbergs' soirees at their brownstone off 75th Street and Riverside Drive. 'They had these wild parties during prohibition and they'd all get sauced,' Ms. George said. 'They'd line the walls with paper and all the artists would draw all over the walls, and they'd wheel in a piano and the Gershwin boys would play. My father remembers vividly after one of those parties they brought Charlie Chaplin up to say goodnight.'"

Below: The band OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass—Rube Goldberg machine version" video: