DAYTON — What do you get when you put four world-class editorial cartoonists in a room and turn them loose? If you guessed side-splitting hilarity, you get the kewpie doll.

It all happened Sunday night, Oct. 19, at the annual Bipartisan Bash, a fundraiser for the Dayton region of Kids Voting USA, as Dayton Daily News cartoonist Mike Peters was feted by colleagues Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer and Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal.

The event at Sinclair Community College was truly bipartisan — the 320 guests included such luminaries as Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, and his predecessor, Bob Taft of the GOP; U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, and longtime Democratic Congressman Tony Hall.

"It's wonderful to see so many dignitaries Mike has skewered over the years, willing to forgive and forget," quipped Brad Tillson, retired publisher of the Dayton Daily News, which co-sponsored the event.

For his part, Peters, a supporter of Kids Voting since its beginnings locally in 1992, called the evening "an absolute honor. You never expect anything like this, especially when you're doing something you love."

Peters' three colleagues told their favorite stories about him — many of them unprintable in a family newspaper. All of them highlighted Peters' zany sense of humor. Among the cleaner ones:

• Peters and Luckovich, donning sunglasses and placing phone cords in their ears, posed as security men at a White House correspondents' dinner, fooling Henry Kissinger, who asked them to escort him. They complied. Plus, the assembled journalists obeyed Peters when he commanded, "No more questions!"

• Peters pretended to be a guard outside the historic home of Vincent Van Gogh, ordering the current owner not to enter. He quickly became pals with the owner, who showed Peters and Bok around the place.

• At a golf event, Peters wore sunglasses and a t-shirt reading "Blind Golfer." "The rest of the afternoon, any time he even hit the ball (no matter how poorly) the crowd cheered for him," Borgman related.

During a "dueling cartoonists" segment on Sunday night, the four artists cranked out drawings of figures like George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the accompaniment of the song Dueling Banjos. The artwork was then sold to benefit Kids Voting.

In a rare serious moment, Borgman credited Peters, who began his career in 1969 at the Dayton Daily News, for inspiring him and a whole generation of cartoonists. "You made editorial cartooning really cool," he said. "You were like our Beatles — you blew the roof off the house."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.