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Tom's Mad Blog

Happy July 4th!

July 3rd, 2023 | Posted in General

May your 4th of July be filled with family, friends, fireworks, and plenty of propane! READ MORE

Sketch o’the Week: The Odd Couple!

June 28th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

As promised (or threatened depending on your perspective) we are moving on to caricature sketches of classic 1970’s sitcom stars, starting with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman of “The Odd Couple”. I meant to mention with last week’s “Gilligan’s Island” sketch the timeless question that fans of that show have been asking themselves for decades… “Mary Ann or Ginger?” Well the Odd Couple has a similar conundrum… “Tony Randall/Jack Klugman or Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau?” Okay… not exactly the same connotations but the point is those are two distinct camps when it comes to fans of Felix and Oscar. Randall and Klugman played the duo in the long running TV series,… READ MORE

MADness #81: Shark Tank!

June 26th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine

Welcome to Monday, and another edition of the least inventive ongoing blog series ever, a chronological crawl through my work at MAD Magazine! Speaking of inventions, this week we look at another another uninventive TV show about inventors and investors, “Shark Tank”. It’s uninventive because it’s based on the Canadian show “Dragon’s Den” which is in turn a rip off the the Japanese show “Money Tigers”. This spoof was written by MAD‘s MADdest writer Dick DeBartolo and first appeared in MAD #529, Oct 2014. In a rare turn of events, I have a saved scan of the finished inks on this splash, before coloring… For… READ MORE

Sketch o’the week- Gilligan’s Island!

June 21st, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is this is the final sketch of my “TV shows Tom watched after school as a kid” series, which everyone must be bored out of their minds with by now. I have plum run out of shows I actually watched after school. I saved “Gilligan’s Island” for last for two reasons. First, it was the quintessential after school show for me. It seemed to be in endless syndication and was on every day on what appeared to be all channels, so I saw every episode multiple times over the years. Second, there are… READ MORE

MADness #80- True Detective!

June 19th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine

Welcome to another miserable Monday, and our continuing slog through the slimy, putrid, vermin-invested swamp that is my work for MAD Magazine. This week we return to the world of TV satires with this look back at MAD‘s spoof of the first season of “True Detective”… you know, back when the show was good and didn’t have completely indecipherable storylines, huge plot holes, and Vince Vaughn? This parody was written by the great Arnie Kogen, and first appeared in MAD #528, August 2014. This splash features a few cameos by MAD staffers. The photographer on the left is MAD associate art director Ryan Flanders, and… READ MORE

Sketch o’the Week: Get Smart!

June 14th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

Would you believe I almost forgot about “Get Smart” as one of the shows I loved to watch as a kid. Missed it by THIS MUCH! This was another show that for some reason never got syndicated on my local channels much, but when it did I never turned the dial. Show creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry are/were both comedic geniuses and this is one of the best TV comedies ever in my opinion. Here’s my caricature of stars Don Adams and Barbara Feldon as agents 86 and 99… sorry about that, Chief. READ MORE

MADness #79- The Hobbit 2!

June 12th, 2023 | Posted in MAD Magazine

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”– Bilbo Baggins. Truer words were never spoken, especially regarding this seemingly never ending slog through my work for MAD Magazine! Here’s we are… another Monday and another look back at a middling art job on another middle earth film parody. This time it’s “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #527, June 2014. I often use this splash page as an example of how… READ MORE

Sketch o’the Week: Green Acres!

June 7th, 2023 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

Fresh Air! Times Square! Goofy caricature! We continue our sketch series of classic sitcoms with Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert from the 60’s series “Green Acres”. Much like the “fantastical gimmick” trend in sitcoms in the 60’s, there was a mini “rural” trend featuring three shows that all existed in the same world: “The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres”. You should probably include “The Andy Griffith Show” with that group as the original rural show, but there was never any crossover there. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were actually created based on the success of The Beverly Hillbillies. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were set in the… READ MORE