The Tarantino Story, Part 2

In our previous episode I told the story about how I got hired to do illustrations of a fake TV Guide and MAD cover to be used as props for Quentin Tarantino’s new movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. The adventure continues…

Having ended up delivering the images that were going to appear in the film digitally because of a sudden change of shooting dates, I now had plenty of time to do the actual painted versions. These originals were part of the arrangement, and would be owned by Quentin. As it happens, I was going to be in Los Angeles about a month later (mid September 2018) for meetings related to the NCSFest cartooning festival I was helping organize. I asked Chris if I could hand deliver the art to Quentin while I was in town. Turns out I could, as they were shooting in the Hollywood Hills at that time and Quentin wanted to meet me. Chris arranged it all, and on Friday night September 14th I landed on the set of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”.

The scenes they were shooting that night were exterior shots of some of the vehicles going up and down the streets of the Hollywood Hills circa 1969. The set was crazy full of people and equipment… I saw two versions of Rick’s yellow Cadillac and Cliff’s Karmann Ghia sitting around. I did not see any of the film’s stars… they were either still setting up the shots or they were not needed for what they were filming that night. I don’t have any pictures because they confiscate your phone when you enter the active set area for obvious reasons.

Chris introduced me to Quentin, who really loved the art I brought for him. We had a nice conversation. He very exuberantly talked about MAD, and how much he loved it growing up. He told me about his favorite panel ever in a MAD movie parody. It was from the parody of “Rosemary’s Baby” in MAD #124. It’s the hallucination scene where Mia Farrow is being raped by the demon, and all these naked people are standing around watching. In the film this is a very horrific, brutal, terrifying scene. In the MAD panel drawn by Mort Drucker, one of the onlookers is Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts.

No context or explanation. Just Lucy standing there looking on. Quentin thought that was classic MAD. Coincidentally the director of the film being spoofed in this panel, Roman Polanski, is a character in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. Quentin especially loved the work of Jack Davis, both in MAD and the covers he did for TV Guide. I told him some Jack stories. He talked a lot about how the movie parodies in MAD were always his favorite things, and that when “Pulp Fiction” got spoofed in the magazine that was a big deal for him (Arnie Kogen did the writing and Sam Viviano did the art for that one BTW, in MAD #335, May 1995.)

At some point Quentin said “wouldn’t it be cool if MAD did a parody of the TV show from the movie, just like it would have been with the cover you did?”. I said “Yeah, that would be cool! You should pitch that to the MAD folks”. So that’s how this all ended up with me also doing a parody of the fictional “Bounty Law” TV show from the movie in MAD #9, complete with the cover I did for the film and the whole retro look of (some of) the issue. That was all Quentin’s idea. He even came up with the parody title… “Lousy Law”.

Like I said, I didn’t get any pictures on the set but I did bring prints of both the MAD and TV Guide Covers with me, and Quentin was gracious enough to sign them. The MAD one is at the top of this post. Here’s the TV Guide one:

If you are wondering if I have these hanging up in the studio, that would be a big hell yes.

Back at MAD the staff worked out all the details for the parody, including using the cover I did for Quentin as the actual cover of MAD #9. We were all on the same page making this a “throwback” issue from the early 60’s. I would do the art for the parody in black and white, and we’d use the old fashioned font, etc. MAD art director Suzy Hutchinson and the art team at MAD went above and beyond to recreate the early 60’s look of the magazine. I can’t share any of that art here yet so I will hold off on the story of the parody and that process for when I can… probably next week after the issue comes out. So I guess there will be a part 3 to this story.

Quentin was pretty excited about it. In case you missed it, he showed off the MAD connection and parody on Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week:

So that’s how all this came about. I’ve got to thank Quentin Tarantino for all of it, and prop master Chris Call for finding me online and picking me to do the art. It was a fun ride, and a real thrill to see my art filling the silver screen in a Tarantino film. I also get to cross off “getting a credit in a major motion picture” off my bucket list thanks to my name appearing in the “special thanks to” section of the credit scroll. If you are interested, that appears at the tail end of the credit bonus scene in the movie.

Like I said, next week when I am allowed to I’ll post sneak peeks of the art from the parody, and tell that story which includes a visit to Tarantno’s production studio to see footage of the TV show within the movie.