MADness #20: New NASCAR Rules!

We continue our inane and pointless wandering through my appearances in MAD Magazine with my 20th contribution, a return to the world of sports with “MAD‘S Proposed Rule Changes for the Upcoming NASCAR Season”, written by my CLAPTRAP cohort Desmond Devlin and appearing in MAD #427, March 2003. This piece was unique in that I was told to draw a caricature of someone in it that was part of an advertising/promotional campaign.

Back in 2002 DC/Warner Bros/MAD started a promotional campaign with the South Beach Beverage Co. aka “SoBe”. SoBe was producing a new chocolate flavored energy drink called “Love Bus Brew”, and for some reason MAD was partnering with them to promote it. I have no idea what a “Love Bus” or a chocolate flavored drink had to do with MAD Magazine, but they had several tie-ins worked up. Some of bottle caps of the drink had “What, Me Worry?” printed on the underside, and if you sent three of these in you got a free “MAD/SoBe” T-shirt. There was also some kind of MAD subscription discount you could get via the bottle caps, but I can’t remember how that worked. Sergio did a two page spread ad that appeared as the center spread in MAD #418 and #419, and SoBe used Sergio’s art and MAD themed imagery for print ads and as part of posters, stickers and fake tattoos that were given away on a “Love Bus” tour they did the summer of 2002.

Another part of the promotion was a sweepstakes where the grand prize winner would get drawn into MAD magazine. The winner was selected from a random drawing, gathered from online and mail-in sweepstakes entries. The contest had actually taken place back in the spring of 2002, and I was provided with photos of the winner and asked to draw him into this piece. That’s him on the bottom left corner with the SoBe drink.

I can only imagine his disappointment that Mort didn’t draw him. This was not the only time I was asked to draw someone into the magazine for promotional purposes, but it was the first time and I think the only time it involved an advertising angle.

Interestingly enough, this wasn’t my first brush with the MAD/SoBe promotion. Back in the summer of 2002, I was hired to fly out to Cleveland and appear at the SoBe sponsored booth at the “X-Games”, where I drew live caricatures all weekend as was billed as a “MAD Artist”.

Toon in next week, when we take a look at my 21st appearance in MAD, a two pager lampooning the 2003 Best Picture nominees for the Oscars!