RIP Mort Drucker

Omnipresent for 40-50 years.

Mort Drucker, Master of the Mad Caricature, Is Dead at 91

No indication it was COVID-related.

 

He always just signed his stuff "Mort". He did Tim magazine covers. His art for the parody of All in the Family is legendary, ending with TV network executives and Hitler (!) pitching Archie on a sitcom, "My Three Storm Troopers".

Archie: Dolf, baby, where ya been all these years?

Hitler: I have been alive, und vell, und living in Argentina! You know, just like zee old joke!

 

MAD Magazine was really just a huge cultural, social and political influence from about 1965-75.

Funny thing was, in the 50s-early 60s it had been a very deservedly obscure gross-out horror mag, constantly on the verge of folding.

Then they shifted to topical social satire and became a cultural force. And now the magazine itself has folded, but really it lives on in pretty much every comic trying to do topical social commentary on teevee.

 

Imagine what Mad and National Lampoon would do with the current Administration. The mind reels.

 

MAD stumbled on into the Fatfuck Administration, but like millions of others, I wasn't really reading any more.

Of course, their classical "gang of idiots" artists and writers -- like Mort Drucker -- from their golden age was long gone.

The Onion, the late night talk shows, and 500 million internet message board posters carry on.

 

I ate up Mad Magazine in the late 80s/early 90s when I was in high school. Would love to reread those issues today - wonder how things have changed since then ... and Mort was a big reason why I loved it so. RIP

 

I don't remember the details, but I remember that MAD Magazine artists were given pre-screenings of major blockbuster movies several months ahead of time so they could have their sendup versions ready to go when the movies were still in the theaters.

 

I came of age reading the mid-1970's National Lampoon. The thought of what Doug Kenney, Chris Miller, P.J. O'Rourke, and Michael O'Donoghue in their prime would have done with Trump as subject matter makes me smile inside. The only writer I'd rather see writing about Trump is Molly Ivins.

 

Fun fact: Doug Kenney's sister was my baby-sitter.