MADness #125: This is Us!

It’s been a long time since I did one of these… I’ll bet you wish it was even longer! It’s time for another step on that dreary chronological drudge through my work for MAD Magazine. We are at the moment where MAD published its final issue produced by the New York Staff, MAD #550, April 2018.

Cover art by Mark Fredrickson

At the time this issue hit the newsstands, there had not been any official announcement that the next issue of MAD , the first produced by the new staff in Burbank headed up by new MAD editor Bill Morrison, would be a new #1 or continue the numbering and be #551. Of course it turned out to be a new #1, which was great news in that anyone could now afford to buy a mint copy of MAD #1! Those who lamented that there would be no issue #551, that might not be true. There may well be a MAD #551. We will just have to wait about 90 years to get it.

This issue was, in many ways, a real swan song to the NYC MAD staff. There were cameos by many of the staff in various features and art and writing from several longtime members of the Usual Gang of Idiots that we had not seen much of the last several years, as well as some new contributors that had just started to catch on with the staff. There is one particular article called “GOTCHA” featuring “mug shots” of common criminals but actually using caricatures of some of the Usual Gang as the culprits. Artists did their own caricatures, and some of us were asked to do drawings of the writers. I did myself and Desmond Devlin:

But the main piece I did for #550 was a parody of the TV show “This is Us”, written by Des. The splash is way up there at the top. Here’s the pencils and other story pages:

I absolutely hated this show. It’s full of really good actors but I thought the premise was really stupid and the show hinged on trying to tug on your emotions but in an obvious, manipulative way. According the show, the slightest thing that happens in your family as a kid has a profound impact on you as an adult. Few adults think having mommy put Care Bear band-aids on their boo-boos at age five was so important to them that they needed Care Bear band-aids on their grown up wounds. It’s a family tradition in the show to have hot dogs covered in Cheez-Whiz and cornflakes for Thanksgiving because once as kids they family were stranded in a storm on Thanksgiving and that’s all they had to eat in this motel they ended up at. Sheesh. Anyway I enjoyed pointing out the clumsy emotional manipulation in the show.

Toon in next week when we move on over to the west coast with my first pieces for the new Burbank-based MAD!