Robert Armstrong

Robert Armstrong (born 1950) is a cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and musician. He is known for his underground comix character Mickey Rat, for popularizing the term "couch potato," and for being a member of Robert Crumb's band the Cheap Suit Serenaders.

Biography Armstrong attended Pasadena High School, graduating in 1968, and Pasadena City College from 1969 to 1971. He did course work at the Chouinard Art Institute from 1967 to 1969.

Armstrong's paintings and illustrations have been exhibited in galleries since the late 1980s.

Mickey Rat and other comics work Mickey Rat (an obvious parody of Mickey Mouse)

Mickey Rat #1 came out in 1972, also scripted by Crill and illustrated by Amstrong, and published by the Los Angeles Comic Book Company. Issue #2 was partially written by Crill and Armstrong separately and was published by Kitchen Sink Press later in 1972.

Mickey Rat issues #3 and #4 were published in 1980 and 1982, respectively, by Last Gasp. (although Armstrong never illustrated any stories in Pekar's comic book series American Splendor).

Over his career, Armstrong has contributed stories (many involving Mickey Rat) to many anthologies, including Weirdo, Arcade, and Comix Book. Armstrong's work was included in Fantagraphics' 1991 collection Best Comics of the Decade, Vol. 1.

Armstrong's musical saw solo is featured in the opening and closing theme music for Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Commenting on the score, reviewer Steven McDonald has said, "The edgy nature of the film extends into the score, giving it a profoundly disturbing feel at times — even when it appears to be relatively normal. The music has a tendency to always be a little off-kilter, and from time to time it tilts completely over into a strange little world of its own ..."

Armstrong and fellow Cheap Suit Serenader Al Dodge scored the 1975 animated short Quasi at the Quackadero, by Sally Cruikshank. They used slide flute, xylophone, ukulele, duck calls, boat whistles, and bagpipes to create what Cruikshank called the "strange, gallopy feeling" of 1920s/1930s dance-band music, of which she is a devotee. Armstrong also recorded music for another Cruikshank film, Make Me Psychic (1976).

"Couch potato" The term "couch potato" was coined by a friend of Armstrong in the 1970s. Armstrong featured a group of couch potatoes in a series of comics featuring sedentary characters; and with Jack Mingo and Al Dodge created a satirical organization that purported to watch television as a form of meditation. With three books and endless promotion through the 1980s, the Couch Potatoes appeared in hundreds of newspapers, magazines and broadcasts, spreading its "turn on, tune in, veg out" message, garnering 7,000 members, and popularizing the term.