MADness #130- Svengoolie!

Here we go with another edition of Monday MADness, where we continue our shambling lurch down the Trail of Terrible that was my work for MAD Magazine. I timed this post for Halloween week for obvious reasons. This week we look back at “Sven Golly… It’s Svengoolie!”, written by Ian Boothby and first appearing in MAD #4, Dec 2018.

Pencil sketch

This is an interesting feature because it’s not technically a parody of the “Svengoolie” TV show. They use his actual name instead of a spoof version like “Svengoofy”, so it can’t be a parody. Instead it’s played like an actual episode of the show, the gag being that since the show is now on the “ME TV” network (which is a channel that is almost completely made up of reruns of classic TV shows), characters from reruns of other shows show up in the horror films being featured. Fans of Svengoolie will also recognize characters and elements from the show like the running “Berwyn” gag, Doug Graves, Kerwyn, Zallman T. Tombstone and others all as themselves. Unlike a parody that required permission from show star Rich Koz and the show creators.

Doing a feature like this, where the show itself is involved and not as a parody, is not unprecedented. MAD did a couple of features in the late 1950’s that were comic book versions of radio skits by the comedic duo “Bob & Ray” i.e.  Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. Those were actually written by Bob & Ray, and illustrated by Mort Drucker, being some of Mort’s earliest work for the magazine. There are probably some other examples, especially in the 50’s when MAD had guest writing contributions from some famous comedians/humorists like Andy Griffith, Wally Cox, Jean Shepherd and Danny Kaye. Anyway this was really a throwback to those kinds of features, only written by Ian.

This was one of my favorite things I did for the “new” MAD. For one thing I was an old fan of Svengoolie, having seen the show a lot during all those summers I spent drawing caricatures in the Chicago area. Second who wouldn’t have fun drawing the characters from both classic horror movies AND classic TV shows. Dracula and Batman? Karloff’s monster and M*A*S*H*? The creature from the Black Lagoon and Gilligan’s Island? Lots of fun.

Also I finally got to draw Buddy Epsen as Jed Clampett in MAD, after a visual gag I had added featuring him in the last “Hunger Games” parody was unceremoniously cut by short sighted editors I few years earlier.

I’ve gotten to meet Rich Koz, Jim Roche and many other people behind the Svengoolie show a few times. Some very funny folks! Last year they had me do a print/T-shirt design for their “Artist Series” merch:

That’s it for this Halloween edition of Monday MADness. Toon in next week as we switch gears to Christmas with another of Burbank’s innovative throwback ideas.