Page 82 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2020)

and all his Industrial Light and Magic MAD’s first editor, Harvey Kurtzman, was
(ILM) colleagues sort of imbibed the MAD
sensibility (while growing up); and MAD,
in turn, is parodying something created
by people who imbibed that sensibility.
So they’ve got this great feedback
loop going.”
Bresman sees this “feedback loop”
flowing through many of the MAD Star
Wars parodies that have been published
during the past four decades. The parody
of Return of the Jedi, “Star Bores: Rehash
of the Jeti,” (MAD #242, October 1983),
is a prime example. Written by Dick
DeBartolo and illustrated by Mort Drucker,
the piece opens with a group shot of the
Star Wars cast of characters, in which
Lando Calrissian is surrounded by Ewoks,
as well as the dwarves from
Disney’s Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves, and much-loved Muppets
Kermit the Frog and
Fozzie Bear.
The drawings of the Muppets
in general, and Fozzie in particular,
were a reference to Yoda being
played by Frank Oz, who also played
Fozzie Bear. “MAD draws in all the
aspects of pop culture that are
floating around out there when
creating the parodies,” Bresman
explains, “which is kind of
what George was doing when
constructing the Star Wars movies.
He was drawing on Flash Gordon,
he was drawing on Frank Oz and
the Muppets, and he was drawing on
the fairytale tradition. So [MAD and
George Lucas] were sort of eating
the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti
from opposite ends,
and coming closer together in this
great pop-cultural kiss.”
Part of that “great pop-cultural
kiss” is the fact that, beginning with
that January 1978 parody of A New
Hope (“Star Roars,” written by Larry
Siegel and Dick DeBartolo, and
illustrated by Harry North), MAD artists
started putting some very specific details
into the asteroid fields they were depicting.
They had no way of knowing it, but the ILM
artists were putting similar details into the
special effects sequences of the actual Star
Wars films.
“If you look at Mort Drucker’s asteroid
fields [in his parodies of The Empire Strikes
Back and Return of the Jedi], you’ll find shoes
and belt-buckles and baseballs and stuff
like that,” says Bresman. “Drucker didn’t
realize it, but if you look at the DVD
commentary on all those movies, ILM was
doing the same stuff. They have potatoes
and shoes and all kinds of random debris
in there.”
Bresman attributes this to Star Wars
and MAD being similarly layered with details.
82 INSIDER
THE FURSHLUGINNER
known for drawing detailed thumbnail
sketches for all of the MAD stories he wrote
or edited, often going so far as drawing
tissue paper overlays for his artists to follow.
The artists he worked with, such as Will
Elder, sometimes compared Kurtzman
to a film director in that he would fully
pre-visualize and “direct” every panel and
every scene of the stories he was writing
and editing.
Kurtzman left MAD in 1955, when the
magazine was three years old, and the
acerbic humor publication has changed and
evolved quite a bit since then. However, one
thing that has remained constant is its use
of tiny background details and its obsession
with accuracy. A MAD parody must resemble
the original work it is parodying in every
possible way. So it is not surprising
that Bresman sees parallels between
George Lucas and Harvey Kurtzman.
“Lucasfilm has this very hand-crafted
ethic to it, in the same way that MAD
does,” Bresman states. “George would
hire these world-class draftspeople and
these world-class designers, and he’d
pre-visualize every scene. It’s kind of like
the film version of the way Kurtzman
worked with Elder and the others.” It’s
fitting that one of Kurtzman’s best-known
MAD stories was a parody of the newspaper
strip Flash Gordon (“Flesh Garden,” written
by Kurtzman and illustrated by Wally Wood,
from MAD #11, May 1954). Flash Gordon was,
of course, one of Lucas’ biggest inspirations
when creating Star Wars.
AWAKENS
But George Lucas isn’t the only Star Wars
filmmaker who’s a MAD fan. J.J. Abrams
is a devotee of the magazine as well. In fact,
Abrams has visited the MAD offices in New
York City, and he wrote the foreword to the
2007 book Spy Vs. Spy 2: The Joke and Dagger
Files, by David Shayne (a collection of MAD’s
“Spy Vs. Spy” comic strips, which chronicle
the pantomimed, slapstick escapades of two
secret agents). Since Abrams created the
secret agent-themed television series Alias,
he was a natural choice to pen the foreword
to the book.
Speaking of Abrams, MAD’s parody
of The Force Awakens, entitled “Star Bores:
The Snores Awaken,” appeared in MAD
#539 (June 2016). Written by David
Richards and illustrated by Tom Richmond,
it begins with J.J. Abrams and frequent
collaborator Greg Grunberg (Snap Wexley
in The Force Awakens) discussing some
critics’ complaints about the film.
After numerous well-placed satirical
swipes, it ends with Rey encountering
a mysterious, hooded man in Jedi robes,
who removes his hood to reveal...
George Lucas! It’s a nice twist ending
that comments on the Star Wars franchise
itself, which was initially created by the
“Jedi Master” Lucas, but which is now in
the hands of a new generation of heroes.
“The Snores Awaken” certainly won’t
be the last of MAD’s Star Wars parodies
(there’s another one in the next issue),
and MAD won’t stop spoofing the saga
any time soon. “It’s a really rich universe,”
says Bresman. “So there’s any number
of angles you can mine it for. I think that’s
why Star Wars is unique, and why it feeds
into MAD so well. Not just from a story
perspective, but also visually. There’s so
much for MAD to work with!”
It’s safe to say that the Farce will be
with us, always… a
Arie Kaplan is an author and comedy writer
who has written more than two dozen articles
for MAD magazine (three of which were
Star Wars parodies). He has written two
LEGO Star Wars books for Scholastic: Face
Off (published September 2016) and The
Official Stormtrooper Training Manual
(coming January 2017). Visit his website
at ariekaplan.com and follow him on
Twitter @ariekaplan.
MORE TO SAY
MAD About Star Wars, edited by Jonathan
Bresmen is available now.
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