The Return of a MAD Look at Old Movies
I started off my review of The MAD Book of Mysteries by saying that since I’m a fan of both MAD Magazine and classic detective fiction it was a book that couldn’t miss.
Well, because I really like both MAD and old movies, when I was a kid this was another favourite pocketbook of mine, even though I know I didn’t pick up on many of the references. At least the more specific ones. I always wondered, for example, who Rhonda Fleming was, and even today I’m a bit surprised that she was a household name in 1970. But the send-ups aren’t of particular movies so much as genres. There’s a circus movie, a submarine movie, a pirate movie, a mad scientist movie, a historical biopic, etc.
There are strings of gags that I’ve remembered for fifty years now. Here is a police captain and his deputy busting into Dr. Fear’s Frankenstein-style laboratory.
Deputy (seeing the corpse on a tabe): This man has no pulse, Captain!
Captain (grabbing hold of Dr. Fear): Aha! And if my powers of detection serve me correctly, I believe this man is the thief! All right, swine, what did you do with that man’s pulse?
Deputy: You don’t understand, Captain! This man is dead!
Captain: Dead? Then he doesn’t need his pulse! We came all the way out here for nothing!
And here’s a bit from the WW2 submarine story:
Lieutenant: Sir, this may sound like a scatter-brained idea, but why not stuff our clothes and some junk and a little oil into one of the torpedo tubes and shoot it to the surface? When they see the oil slick and stuff, they’ll think they got us!
Captain: Not bad, lieutenant, but I’ve got one even better. Why not wait till they hit us, then hold on to everything so that nothing floats to the surface, and drive them crazy wondering!
Credit Dick De Bartolo for the writing there, and Jack Davis for the art. This was a book of new material (that is, not stuff taken from the magazine) and as the title indicates was a sequel to A MAD Look at Old Movies. Unfortunately I never read that one or had a copy and they’re quite expensive now on the second-hand market (where I’m sure they’re not in the best of shape given how well-read they likely were). This makes me wonder why someone doesn’t republish these old MAD books and magazines in some new editions. I’m sure there’d be a market. Just look at how popular the EC Archives titles are. Get on it!
Alex Good 
Good Morning Keith, 🤣😉 that one looks and sounds fun, love the corny jokes!
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My secret identity is out!
Yeah, it’s a gag, or several gags a page here and a lot of fun. Especially if you know the old movies they’re riffing on.
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I actually recognized the submarine movie reference. Go me!!!
It is a mystery why this stuff hasn’t been reprinted. There’s still enough nostalgia factor for it to sell like gangbusters.
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Must be something going on with copyright I figure. There’s still so much affection for the brand.
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Copyright issues would certainly explain it. Which is crazy, because CR was meant to make things MORE accessible, not less…
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I don’t know what or even if there was a connection, but I used to watch a show called Mad TV back in my college days, and I remember they did an Exorcist send-up in which the possessed little girl really stuck it to the priest. She says, viciously, “Your mother sews socks that smell!”
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I think I might have seen a few episodes of that. A lot of the sketch comedy at the time blurs together in my head. They had the rights to the name MAD but aside from that I don’t think there was much connection.
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