The End of the MAD Movie/TV Parody?
MAD #10 just dropped this week, and it features a TV parody (kind of) in “The Manmaid’s Tale” and a montage of film parodies of horror movie sequels in “Xander and Kam’s Night of the Living Sequels”.
Sadly, these might be the last new film or TV show parodies ever printed in MAD Magazine.
Over its 67 year run, MAD has been known for several ongoing features that have become an integral part of the magazine: The Fold-In, Spy vs.. Spy, Sergio Aragonés‘ “marginals”, Alfred E. Neuman on the cover, and their spoofs of popular (and sometimes not so popular) films and TV shows. Of that list, the longest running feature and the one that has graced by far the most full pages of the magazine, has been the movie and TV show parodies.
The first parodies of TV shows and films appeared back in the Harvey Kurtzman days of MAD, starting with “The Lone Stranger!” (i.e. “The Lone Ranger” TV Show) in MAD #3 (Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis art) and “Ping Pong” (i.e. “King Kong” the film) in MAD #6 (Kurtzman, Will Elder art). One could argue that MAD‘s often copied movie and TV parody format didn’t really come into its own until Mort Drucker came on the scene in 1957 (his first official movie/TV satire was “The Night Perry Masonmint Lost a Case” in MAD #48, July 1959). His unique talent with caricature, comic book storytelling, and cinematic layouts were perfectly suited to the genre, which he basically defined and which would be contributed to and lent their own spins on by the likes of Angelo Torres, Harry North, Sam Viviano, Ray Alma, Hermann Mejia and, I’m proud to say, myself.
The movie/TV parodies in MAD have had a lot of cultural impact. Directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and recently Quentin Tarantino have gone on record as saying having their films spoofed in MAD was a highlight for them. Stars like Howard Stern, Jerry Seinfeld, and Michael J. Fox have said in interviews that having appeared in MAD in spoofs of their shows was when they knew they’d “made it”, or was also a career highlight. I can personally attest that creators like Chuck Lorre, Matthew Weiner (Mad Men), and J.J. Abrams love when their shows and films are parodied in MAD and often buy the original art.
By my count there have been 481 movie parodies and 386 TV parodies in MAD (your mileage my vary depending on what you consider a parody and what you do not). Averaging probably 6 pages each, that represents 5,202 pages in MAD‘s run. If MAD averaged 48 pages over 560 issues, that would mean movie and TV parodies represented just over 19.3% of the total of all MAD material over 67 years. No wonder they are one of the most important parts of MAD‘s identity. I have personally done 46 movie and 43 TV spoofs for a total of 522 pages in my 19 plus years with MAD.
The brass at DC aren’t being very clear about WHAT type of new content we will see in the presumably mostly reprint issues of MAD going forward, but one thing that has been specified is that the movie and TV parodies won’t be part of it. Too wordy, maybe? No “I.P.” potential? Who knows. No one is explaining. All I know is at this point we won’t see any new parodies of movies and TV shows in MAD, although I’m sure you’ll see plenty of reprinted ones.
Actually a number of the parodies I’ve worked on over the last several issues have not really been parodies in the traditional sense of the term. Some have been odd mashups like “Xander & Kam’s Sneaky Previews” or “Silly Wonky and the Town of Flavor”, or have scripts that don’t really parody the show/film itself but serve some other narrative like “Merry Poopins Goes to the White House” or the recent “The Manmaid’s Tale”. In my opinion the last true movie parody that appeared in MAD was “Awkward, Man!” (i.e. “Aquaman”) written by Desmond Devlin and drawn by me in MAD #7, and the last true TV parody was “The Monotonous Mrs. Mazel” (i.e. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) written by Charlie Kadau and drawn by Sam Viviano in MAD #9. Those may be the end of a very unique and long running genre.
The movie and TV parodies, what the MAD staff calls “continuities”, were very difficult to write, edit, layout, and illustrate. They needed some unique skill sets and a certain “voice’, even if they did follow a pretty standard template. They were very time consuming to produce, that’s for certain. It is a real shame to see that kind of craft and tradition come to an end, especially at a time when it seems there are more TV shows and films than ever, and “binge watching” has become part of the pop culture landscape.
Well, you never know. I’m not quite ready to say you’ll never see another new film or TV parody in MAD. Perhaps MAD will expand its non-reprint content and include the continuities again someday. Maybe the film and TV parody of MAD tradition will live on in some other form. Maybe a couple of the Usual Gang of Idiots will start a Patreon or similar to produce them for direct subscribers! Hmmmm….
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It’s a tragedy! MAD satires were (and are) always my favourite feature in the Magazine. I’d subscribe to a MAD-style satire Patreon in a heartbeat, and I’m most certainly not the only one!
I largely consider/blame Mad’s movie parodies for my passion for satire. The first one I ever saw was the parody of The Lion King when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and quickly tore through the 60s, 70s, and 80s issues of the magazine shortly after that.
Tom, it was an honor to capture your parody process for the documentary. It’s bittersweet to me that we’ll finally be showing it just as Mad is cutting off their regular circulation of content.
Mort Druckers “Crocodile Dummee” was my first introduction to the parody and I was hooked from there on. The movie and tv satires where the main reason I loved Mad and I do hope they find a way to continue. Luckily, I still have hundreds of old dog-eared issues to revisit.
MAD’s TV and movie parodies are too many to pick a favorite. Mort Drucker’s “60s are probably the silliest(Batsman TV show parody). Writer? Funny how we remember the artists and not the writers. There won’t be any literal TV/movie parody but, maybe, something similar in an end of the year issue.
I agree the writers do not get the proper attention compared to the artists. I’ve been lucky to work with fantastic ones like Dick Debartolo, Desmond Devlin, Arnie Kogen and several others over the years. It all starts with them. Also the editors are really unsung heroes when it comes to these parodies. The are very complex to put together.
Let this MAD thing play out for awhile and see what happens. Ever thought of getting some of your artist and writer buddies from MAD and put a kickstarter project together of TV/movie parodies?
I already back The Nib and a few web cartoonists via Patreon. I would likely back a new digital or print magazine with humorous, educational, and biographical cartoons. I thought the short lived Bongo comics Sergio Aragones’ Funnies was wonderful. I could see this brought back and expanded to include other artists not only producing humorous work, but telling autobiographical stories, explaining serious topics and even teaching cartooning.
Here’s a very nerdy question; Did the decision to name the protagonist Awkwardman have anything to do with DC’s actual Awkwardman character? That Awkwardman was created in the ’60s as a member of the done for laughs Inferior 5. Like the rest of the I5, Awkwardman was a second generation superhero. His parents were Mr. Might, a Superman spoof, and, key to why I’m wondering if there’s a connection, The Mermaid, as close as the I5 got to an Aquaman spoof (probably more from Superman’s one-time mermaid girlfriend Lori Lemaris though).
I doubt there was any connection. Actually the character wasn’t really named “Awkwardman” in the spoof. The title was actually “Awkward, Man!”
MAD Issue No.199 gave me my first taste of movie and TV parodies with “The Spy Who Glubbed Me” and “What’s Happened”. I was only eight and my sister was the one who would buy MAD from time to time before I took over that habit two years later.
Tom, you are right, these hilarious send ups were MAD’s identity and, I believe, the main bait that lured unsuspecting new readers. How can you resist “Jaw’d” or “Dullus” when you see the characters on the cover?
As for writers not always being remembered, I definitely had a favorite. It was Lou Silverstone, hands down. The plots he could create for TV show parodies, particularly detective shows, were simply amazing. “The Crockford Files,” “Queezy” and “Har to Har” are classics. Arnie Kogen is another top notch writer, and I only discovered recently that he was a producer on the 1980s show Newhart, a TV show parodied in MAD No. 245 that Kogen himself wrote.
I’ll miss these satires, but I will hold onto the hope that they could make a return some time in the future.
I do wonder if another publisher will take a change on the Mad style .
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but the recent mashups, especially Xander and Kam, have breathed new life into the concept of the parody. It didn’t hinge so much on the reader’s knowledge of a single movie or TV show, but could spoof said movie/show as well as some overarching theme or trend. I agree that ultra-popular movies and shows should get the solo treatment, but there aren’t singularly ubiquitous TV shows or movies every 2 months. Anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that it takes a lot of time and manpower to produce, but I think there is IP potential in segments like Xander and Kam.