MADness #19- Scrubs!

We continue our relentless chronological crawl through my MAD work with a look at my 19th job for the magazine, a TV parody of the show “Scrubs”, written by MAD Senior Editor Charlie Kadau, and appearing in MAD #426, Feb 2003.

This was the only piece I ever worked on with Charlie, who wrote a number of TV parodies among his many other writing credits for the magazine, on top of being an editor for a measly 35 years or so. There are a number of doctor cameos in the splash but also two “insider” ones. The guy with the curly red hair putting on the rubber glove by Dr. Kevorkian is Greg Leitman, who was an associate editor at the time and was show star Zach Braff’s roommate in college. The dazed looking guy with the severed arm holding a dumbell in the lower right was my trainer at the time Rich Dolan.

Sharp eyed people might notice that my signature is in a “box” sort of shape. I did that for a few years early on, but eventually abandoned the box element. I don’t remember what possessed me to to that, but it eventually got unwieldy and I gave it up.

Then vice-president Dick Cheney‘s appearing as a patient is vintage Charlie writing. Cheney had suffered four heart attacks prior to being elected vice-president, so his penchant for them and for hospital stays was often a source of material for comedians. Charlie took the opportunity to make Cheney an emergency patient in the parody, and that opened the door for some political jokes and gags.

Panel two of the above page is another example of MAD’s prophetic powers… Cheney had a heart transplant in 2012.

I briefly met Zach Braff near Union Square in New York. We were there on a trip that was a graduation present for Number One Son Thomas, and had just seen Braff’s “Bullets over Broadway” show the night before. As we were walking along Braff and a friend walked by us. We told him we saw his show last night and enjoyed it. He curtly thanked us but refused to stop for a picture or to do any further talking when I started to say I did the MAD magazine parody of his TV show years earlier and knew his former roommate Greg. I get it… if you are a celebrity for some reason people seem to think they know you and can engage you in conversation anytime. I think as a defense mechanism you have to be able to shut that down or you’d never be able to spend any time talking with your actual friends. I have had some celebrities do a better job of that than he did, though.

Actually that’s something I learned a long time ago, never expect a famous person to care a bit that you drew them in MAD or anywhere else for that matter. Just assume they couldn’t care less. That way you are never disappointed, and when someone actually does think it’s great you are genuinely delighted.

Toon in next week for a return to the world of “sports” (sort of), and one of the first signs I saw of the slow compromising of MAD with the first “product placement” I was asked to do (but not the last).