MADness #84- The Wizard of O!

There’s no place like Monday! There’s no place like Monday! It’s time for another trip over the rainbow with another look back at my work for MAD. Today we drop in on one of the most unique pieces I ever did for the magazine. Is it a movie parody? Yes.. sort of. Is it a political piece? Yes, definitely. Does it contain a ridiculous number of caricatures of political reporters, commentators and satirists? That would be a big “you betcha”. We are not in Kansas anymore! Desmond Devlin wrote this six pager called “The Wizard of O” for MAD #505, Oct 2010.

This was a very interesting piece. “The Wizard of Oz” is the only film MAD ever parodied more than once, and this was the third time. All three were satires of social/political issues wrapped in a parody of the classic film. The first was “The Guru of Ours” by Frank Jacobs and Mort Drucker in MAD #128, July 1969, and took on the hippie counter culture and the establishment that movement railed against. The second was “The Wizard of Odds”, written once again by Frank Jacobs but this time with art by Sam Viviano in MAD #300, Jan 1991. That parody examined the greed of the times and the worship of money. Des’s script for our take on “The Wizard of Oz” was about the politics of the times, and the media’s coverage of it.

The “Punditland” panel was exhausting. A lot of those people are either long gone from the public eye now or are even more notorious than they were.

 It’s always challenging to try and incorporate both a caricature likeness and some other recognizable visual identity like the Tin Man, Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion into the same character. 

Incdientally all the original art for this piece was donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and is part of their permanent collection. It was part of the opening exhibition at the museum back in 2013, in a section dedicated to caricature.

That’s it for this week’s journey down the inky brink road that is my work for MAD. Next week we take a little break and take a peek behind the curtain of doing movie spoofs!