MADness #86: Harry Potter 7!

Since witches and wizards are out tonight, it’s perfect timing to share this parody of the last of the Harry Potter movie spoofs to appear in MAD. This parody of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” appeared in MAD #507, February 2011, and was written by Desmond Devlin.

MAD did parodies of all eight Harry Potter films, including the final “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”. All were written by Desmond. Mort Drucker did the art on the first spoof “Harry Plodder and the Sorry-Ass Story” in black and white back in MAD #412, Dec. 2001. I did the art for the second spoof “Harry Plodder and the Lamest of Sequels” in MAD #424, Dec. 2002. Hermann Mejia did the art for the next two, “Harry Plodder and the Pre-Teen Nerds are Actin’ Bad” and “Harry Plodder Has Gotta Retire” in MAD 443, July 2004 and #460, Dec 2005 respectively.

I did the art for the spoof of the fifth movie “Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase” in MAD #480, Aug 2007, followed by Hermann’s doing “Harry Plodder is a Hot-Blooded Putz” in MAD #501, Oct 2009. This one was next. The final parody, “Harry Plodder is Definitely Halted- Adieu!” with art by Hermann, never appeared in MAD proper but appeared in the bookazine special “MAD Presents Harry Potter”, Sept 2011.

My wife The Lovely Anna rarely makes any requests for me with my work, but out of nowhere she asked me to draw her into this parody. We’ve been big “Harry Potter” fans in this house since the first book, and I drew all my kids and their cousins as Hogwarts students in the first Potter spoof I drew. The thing was Anna wanted not just a cameo, but to be drawn as “Mafalda Hopkirk”, the witch in the striped suit in the first panel of the above page. I told her maybe that was not such a great idea, since the part wasn’t exactly a tiny one… Mafalda is the witch Hermione Granger transforms into to disguise herself when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic. That’s not a major role but it is a kind of important one, and technically I would be drawing Anna as Hermione in the scene for that panel. Nevertheless, Anna wanted to be Mafalda, so I drew her rather than actress Sophie Thompson who actually played the role in the film. Turns out, Sophie Thompson is the younger sister of Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, who played Sybill Trelawney in several of the Potter films. No doubt the Thompson sisters were either very confused or think I am a terrible caricature artist… although most likely neither of them has ever seen this parody and couldn’t care less.

The first few spoofs of these movies Desmond was asked to write the parody BEFORE the films came out, so the issue they appeared in could coincide with the release of the movie. He worked from the book rather than the film, and in the first several spoofs there were scenes from the books that never made it into the films. By this time MAD had given that practice up, so we saw the film prior to the script and art for the later Potter movies. No mysterious scenes.

That’s it for another not-so-magical look back at my work for MAD magazine. Toon in next wee for a look at one of my favorite projects ever for MAD!