{"id":31486,"date":"2012-05-30T11:06:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T15:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=31486"},"modified":"2012-05-31T15:58:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T19:58:57","slug":"mad-man-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/30\/mad-man-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad<\/em> Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dick DeBartolo\u2019s first piece for <\/em> Mad was published in 1962, when he was still in high school, and his work has appeared in every single issue since June 1966. He has written for sections throughout the magazine, but his greatest claim is as a satirist of movies and TV shows\u2014that is, as a writer of the kind of elaborate pop-culture parodies that have, arguably, been the magazine\u2019s signature brand of humor ever since they began running them regularly, about a dozen issues into their existence.<\/p>\n

\nThe influence of these satires\u2014as written by DeBartolo as well as Harvey Kurtzman, Larry Siegel, Frank Jacobs, Arnie Kogen, Stan Hart, Lou Silverstone, Desmond Devlin, and others\u2014has ranged well beyond the realm of illustrated humor, or even comedy generally; it\u2019s entered the cultural water supply, enriching the work of filmmakers, politicians, authors, actors, and advertisers. Once you\u2019ve acknowledged this, you\u2019re only one short step away from acknowledging DeBartolo\u2019s particular influence on culture at large.<\/em> <\/p>\n

\nDeBartolo is most famous for Mad, but it isn\u2019t the only thing he\u2019s done. He saved<\/em> The Match Game from impending cancellation in the sixties by suggesting the playful style of questioning that made the show a hit; he\u2019s reviewed consumer gadgets\u2014currently for <\/em>ABC World News and<\/em> The Weekly Daily Giz Wiz podcast\u2014since the seventies; and in 1995, he penned a memoir, <\/em>Good Days and Mad: A Historical Hysterical Tour Behind the Scenes at MAD<\/em> Magazine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to be curious about the nature of pop culture without also being curious about how <\/em>Mad has gone about satirizing it. I recently asked DeBartolo to elaborate on his precise methodology.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nOne of my favorite pieces is your parody of 2001<\/em>, which you called 201 Minutes of a Space Idiocy<\/em>. Did you dislike the movie as much as your satire suggests?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nI thought it was okay. But for the satire to work, you have to take apart things you even think are good. When I worked on The Match Game<\/em>, Alan Alda was one of the guests on the show, and backstage he said, \u201cYou work for Mad<\/em>, right? You know, Mad <\/em>was really unfair in their takeoff on M*A*S*H<\/em>. They were putting down things that really didn\u2019t deserve to be put down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAnd I said, \u201cAlan, first of all, the fact that Mad<\/em> did it means you have a big hit, because satire is only funny if people know what the original is.\u201d I said, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing personal here. We have to invent flaws if there are no flaws we can find.\u201d And he said, \u201cYeah, yeah, okay. I\u2019m glad I mentioned it. Now I feel better.\u201d So, I like the look of Space Odyssey<\/em>, but I do think it was kind of ponderous here and there.<\/p>\n

\nI was recently telling artist Tom Richmond how funny I thought it was that in his Batman Begins<\/em> parody, in the very last panel\u2014and I don\u2019t know how much input he had into this, because it was written by Desmond Devlin\u2014the movie is chastised for capitalizing on people who buy up all the Batman merchandise. And Tom actually collects Batman merchandise. He just posted on his blog a picture of his Batman shrine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThe reality of the situation is that the only ones who really know what\u2019s going on everywhere are John Ficarra and Sam Viviano [Mad<\/em>\u2019s longtime editor and art director, respectively]. I never see other writers\u2019 work at all. And often, I don\u2019t see the finished work for my stuff until it\u2019s about to be printed. <\/p>\n

Part of that is because I don\u2019t go to the office anymore every day. I just go in to answer fan mail a couple times a week. If I happen to be there when the blue-line proofs come in, they\u2019ll ask me to review it, to see if the continuity matches the panels, and see if anything is out of skew. But these days, the first time I see the artwork for my article is after the magazine is printed.<\/p>\n

\nIn your memoir, you relate a story about telling Don Martin you want an illustration of fifty dancing girls, and he responds, \u201cHow \u2018bout three?\u201d And you said, \u201cWhy three?\u201d And he said, \u201cBecause I\u2019d have to draw fifty.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThat was a different situation, because I was writing a book for Don Martin, and we were on a Mad<\/em>-sponsored trip, which is the only time the writers and artists really meet. Otherwise, the Mad<\/em> staff lives all over the country.<\/p>\n

\nDo you typically make suggestions for the minute visual jokes that appear in the backgrounds? In your Fugitive<\/em> parody, there are multiple references in the background to previous movies that Harrison Ford had done\u2014mostly Star Wars<\/em>. Is that your handiwork, or is that the artist at work there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nA lot of the time it\u2019s the artist. When you write the movie takeoffs, you really write them panel by panel, and at the top of the panel you write, This scene takes place in the office, and we see so-and-so standing in the background. We see that-and-that. So sometimes, if I think of a joke, I\u2019ll put it in at that point.<\/p>\n

As you watch a movie, are you keeping count of the gags and writing ideas down?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nYeah, and after I see the movie, I write a whole outline of it, and then I go through it again and I mark up the panels\u2014the must-have panels. Those either carry the story, or the audience had a big reaction to that scene, which means you really have to include it because people are going to remember that particular scene. And then I’ll tell the editor, I can do a nice five pages on this because I have thirty good panels.<\/p>\n

\nAnd how long does it take to complete?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nI usually write them in about a week.<\/p>\n

\nDo you see a movie more than once?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nNot usually.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Really? That surprises me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nTo tell you the truth, I usually take a tape recorder to the movies\u2014an audio-tape recorder\u2014because sometimes, especially in a James Bond movie for instance, it\u2019s very hard to remember the sequence in which things happen. We also realize that sometimes other people can\u2019t remember that, either. So occasionally, for speed, we\u2019ll rearrange the movie or leave out a couple of key scenes and just cover it with dialogue.<\/p>\n

\nWhen do you decide is the proper time to do a TV show? It seems you\u2019d want to do it while the show is at the peak of its popularity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nExactly. We used to get the Nielsen ratings and see which shows were popular. But you certainly would not do them in the first ten weeks\u2014you wanted to make sure they were gonna stay popular. TV shows are not nearly as much fun as doing takeoffs on movies\u2014they\u2019re a lot more work. You have to watch at least five episodes to learn all the characters, what the characters do, and how they react to one another. And with a movie, you satirize the movie. With the TV show, you have to make up a whole new plot. So it takes two weeks, or two-and-a-half weeks to do a takeoff on a TV show.<\/p>\n

\nWith a movie you\u2019re parodying the plot, but with a TV show you can\u2019t parody only a single episode\u2014it would be too obscure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nRight, you have to invent a new plot that is very similar to something that\u2019s aired. When June Lockhart, from Lost In Space<\/em>, was on Match Game<\/em>, I said, \u201cYou know, Mad <\/em>just came out this week, and I just did a takeoff on your show Lost in Space<\/em>, and I knew you were gonna be on the show today. So I brought you a copy.\u201d And after lunch she said, \u201cDo you know one of the writers on the show? The plot you came up with is so close to something we\u2019re doing in three weeks.\u201d I was so flattered\u2014I knew I had captured the kind of thing they would do.<\/p>\n

According to at least one online Mad<\/em> resource, you\u2019re the author of the Family Feud<\/em> parody, and yet the piece has the byline \u201cDick Bic.\u201d Is that your pseudonym?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. Family Feud<\/em> was owned by Goodson-Toddman, and all through my career working for Mad<\/em>, I also had a second career writing for Mark Goodson-Bill Toddman\u2014working on The Match Game<\/em> and on To Tell the Truth<\/em>. And I worked on Family Feud<\/em>. So I made up a pen name, Bic<\/em> being a pen.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re famous for having the longest publication streak in Mad<\/em> history\u2014412 consecutive issues\u2014and before your streak started at no. 103, you\u2019d been close to establishing the streak for twenty issues. Did you decide at no. 103 that you were going to do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIt was very funny. It was a time when the magazine was going to press on a Monday. They called me in and said, \u201cSomebody else did a satire, and it really needs jokes. Is there any chance you could just go through this piece and add jokes?\u201d It was Friday, and the piece was due Monday. I said, \u201cWell, I have no big plans for the weekend. I\u2019ll do it.\u201d So I did, and they were happy with it, and Gaines said, \u201cThat was just great. We owe you a big one. What do you want? You need a favor?\u201d And I said, \u201cBill, I just want to be in every issue.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, just keep writing stuff. You\u2019ll be in every issue. We\u2019d be thrilled if you\u2019d write stuff.\u201d It just started a streak, and I kept it going, and I keep writing stuff, and here I am.<\/p>\n

\nYou talk about your streak in terms of momentum, as if it just happened, but obviously something has sustained you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s the Mad<\/em> fans. [Mad<\/em> founder] Bill [Gaines] and I became really fast friends. We had really bizarre adventures together. He knew I liked trains, he rented a train. And when Bill died, I thought, This might just be a good time to leave Mad<\/em>. But it was before the San Diego Comic Convention, and I was booked as a guest, so I went. And I was amazed by the number of people who came by and said, \u201cPlease don\u2019t let Mad<\/em> die.\u201d Not that I could do anything single-handedly about it, but I thought, My God, Mad<\/em> fans are really amazing. Let me just keep writing as long as I can. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s little in your memoir about your comedic influences. Who are some of them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nSid Caesar\u2019s movie parodies\u2014I absolutely loved them. I went to the Village\u2014oh, twenty years ago\u2014when he was appearing at some dinky club, and I gave the stage manager a card and asked could I please meet him and thank him. And I did get to meet him. He was my major influence, on wanting to write that kind of satire.<\/p>\n

\nThere\u2019s a point at which you just start thinking in terms of satire. Sometimes I go to the movies and I have to sit in the back of the theater, because everybody in the theater could be crying and I\u2019ll be breaking myself up, thinking, He really would be saying this<\/em>. So after a while, things just write themselves. If it\u2019s a bad movie, you can\u2019t wait to write it. And you\u2019ll not only make fun of the movie, you\u2019ll get paid for it. <\/p>\n

\n
\nLary Wallace is an eccentric-at-large<\/a> and a contributing editor of The Faster Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick DeBartolo\u2019s first piece for Mad was published in 1962, when he was still in high school, and his work has appeared in every single issue since June 1966. He has written for sections throughout the magazine, but his greatest claim is as a satirist of movies and TV shows\u2014that is, as a writer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[7506,412,7509,7473,7505,7503,411,7504,7508,7472,7480,7479,7507],"class_list":["post-31486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-arnie-kogen","tag-comedy","tag-desmond-devlin","tag-dick-debartolo","tag-frank-jacobs","tag-harvey-kurtzman","tag-humor","tag-larry-siegel","tag-lou-silverstone","tag-mad-magazine","tag-parody","tag-satire","tag-stan-hart"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMad Man by Lary Wallace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 30, 2012 \u2013 Dick DeBartolo\u2019s first piece for Mad was published in 1962, when he was still in high school, and 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