Sunday Mailbag: Chicken Fat?

Q: Knowing that “Chicken Fat” will eventually be in a satire you do, which comes first in the drawing process, the main characters or the chicken fat stuff? How do you determine how much space is needed for the chicken fat?

A: For those who don’t know what the “Chicken Fat” our questioner is referring to is, here’s a definition:

“Chicken Fat” is a term coined by Will Elder, one of MAD‘s original “Usual Gang of Idiots”, for the background gags and extra visual jokes stuffed into the panels of a MAD Magazine parody. It meant visual jokes and gags added for “extra flavor” to the piece, similar to chicken fat or stock being added to a recipe for more flavor and to make it more filling. Elder was arguably the best at it, and the practice added extra layers of humor to any MAD feature. It was very prevalent in the MAD comic book days, and Elder, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, John Severin and Harvey Kurtzman filled the backgrounds of MAD spoofs with goofy signs, visual gags, and all manner of extra jokes. “Chicken Fat” became a MAD staple even after the switch to a comic book format and after Elder and Kurtzman left the magazine. It was especially part of the movie and TV satires, and artists like Davis, Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano and others who did them and other work would add chicken fat to their pieces, which might include MAD icons like the zeppelin, Arthur the plant, “Max Korn”, etc.

To answer your question, the main characters and the primary purpose of the panel always comes first. As the artist, my first job is always to draw the panels to advance the story and to “sell the gag”, meaning to do a visual that works with the dialogue in the panel to help solidify or to enhance the jokes written in them. After that’s taken care of, I can think about adding chicken fat.

My idea of chicken fat is either some gag(s) related to the scene, the story, the characters/actors, the location of the action, or the genre of the film or TV show. I sometimes will do a gag that is a complete non sequitur, but that’s rare for me. Some examples might be referencing some other show or movie that the actor in a given panel might have done or be known for. Another might be some gag involving some other aspect of the show or movie we are spoofing. Some are standalone gags and some might be “running gags” that continue throughout the piece. Most of the gags I do tend to be true visual gags as opposed to signs or labels, but I have added my fair share of those types of gags as well. Cameos of other actors or fictional characters are something I will do a lot as chicken fat. For example if I do a parody of some medical drama I might add other famous TV/movie or real doctors in the backgrounds.

When I was doing parodies for MAD, I was told that the chicken fat was the providence of the artist. The writer wrote the story and balloon dialogue, and the artist did the visuals including background gags. The writers could suggest background visual gags in their scripts, but as the artist I was free to draw them, revise them, or ignore them and draw no gag, or make up my own gags. I was encouraged to add my own chicken fat to anything I did. Some writers suggested a lot of visual gags, some hardly any.

To answer your other question, the amount of space for background gags is not determined by how much space is needed FOR the gag, but rather how much space is left AFTER the primary art is done. Chicken fat really is something added to the recipe after the main ingredients are in place. I will occasionally design a panel to intentionally give myself some room for a gag I have in mind, but only if it does not compromise the art as it relates to the dialogue. If the scene allows for a lot of space, I will take that opportunity to add some chicken fat.

There is definitely a limit to how much chicken fat is appropriate to add. If you have a chicken fat gag in every panel, it becomes too much and starts taking away from the actual parody of the movie/TV show, which is the primary purpose of the feature. Back when MAD was a comic book, the zaniness of a lot of chicken fat worked with the cartoony-ness of the art. However with the more realistic art needed for movie/TV spoofs, chicken fat really needs to be paced out. There’s no real formula for how much is too much. It’s more of a “feel” sort of thing. Humor is very much a rhythmic art, and adding chicken fat gags where they seem to work best is like “punching up” a stand up routine or comedy script. Some panels in a parody are highlights or strong points in the script/story and need to be left alone, where others allow for some background gags.

Thanks to Andreas Ulanowsky from Sweden for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!