Like most people, when I first discovered Mad magazine, a whole world of humor opened up to me. From around the time I was eight until around the end of high school and occasionally thereafter I’d pick up Mad. My father also read the occasional issue as well, and once I noticed he was enjoying it I began to make a point of leaving the current issue in the living room for him.
My favorite artist of all the “usual gang of idiots” was Sergio Aragones, whose “A Mad Look at…” and marginals were always the first cartoons I read. Second was any parody drawn by Mort Drucker. I have several copies in different books of his version of “The Godfather” (“The Oddfather”, written by Larry Siegel) which I think I have in five different printed editions, including three small mad reprints, a hardcover and the recent book in the “Mad’s Greatest Artists”…series (about $18.00 on Amazon. Cheap!). “The Oddfather” still makes me laugh today, particularly this panel where Micheal (“Micrin”) visits his father in the hospital.
Love the expression on the Oddfather’s face and the dialogue (“Hey, my boy’s gonna be all right after all!”).
Grady Hendrix has written an interesting article on Mad’s movie parodies, which can be found here:
Randm Round Table 