MADness #5: Traff-eccch!

Each Monday I’m doing an installment of a complete, chronological look at every job I did for MAD over my 20 year run for the magazine, complete with whatever stories, anecdotes, or milestones, might apply along with the full article.

This Monday MADness installment is a look at my fifth appearance in MAD, which was also my first ever movie parody in the magazine. This was a spoof of the film “Traffic”, entitled “Traff-eccch!” written by longtime MAD writer Arnie Kogen for MAD #405, May 2001. This was also the first color movie parody to appear in MAD since the comic book days.

I know I just posted this feature a few weeks ago, but again, I am a completist so this is the next of my chronologically ordered MAD jobs.

I remember being quite excited about doing a movie parody right on the heels of the TV parody I had done in my previous assignment, but then being a little disappointed in the non-traditional layout of the two page splash (see top of this post). The splash contains individual panels atop maps of the US and Mexico. My idea of a MAD parody opening is a two page splash with the entire cast interacting amid an elaborate scene. At this stage of my MAD career, art director Sam Viviano was sending me pretty specific rough layouts he had penciled, showing basic composition and placement in the splash pages, so this solution was what they wanted.

When you look at the panels both in the splash and in these story pages, you’ll see some have a very blue tint to them, some very yellow, and some normal. If you’ve ever seen “Traffic”, you’ll understand the color palette I used here. In the film, all the scenes taking place in Mexico had a washed out, yellow cast, and the ones taking place in DC had a blue tint to them. The San Diego scenes were normal color. Sam was the one who pointed this out to me, and I followed through with my color. This also opened my eyes to paying attention to the color palettes in other films and shows I would spoof later.

“Traffic” went on to win several Oscars and other awards. It was one of only three movies I did the art on that was nominated for a “Best Picture” Oscar, but while a number of movies I did won other Oscar categories, I am o’fer on Best Picture winners.

This was the first piece I ever did written by Arnie Kogen, who had been writing regularly for MAD since 1959, or since I was negative seven years old. In fact, this was the first piece I did that WASN’T written by Desmond Devlin. I guess all his complaining about my lousy art ruining his perfectly good scripts finally hit home with editorial.

“Traff-eccch” also has the distinction of being the first thing I ever did for MAD that was included in a book or reprint collection. This spoof appeared in the 2003 paperback book “MAD About the Oscars”, as part of several color sections of the book. I also believe I was paid a small amount of money for that reprinting, although I cannot remember how much it was. Because everything the “Usual Gang” did for the magazine was “work for hire,” MAD was under no obligation to pay me anything to reprint the work, but they did anyway. That was something they used to do out of courtesy to the creators, despite being under no contractual obligation to do so. I also remember that was the first and last time I ever got any reprint payments. Ah, how times change.

Next week we take a look at my sixth appearance… or was it my first??? Toon in next Monday to find out.