Weather Mad

by E.C. Publications and MAD Magazine

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446359270
• ISBN13: 9780446359276
• Release Date: December 1990
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The drips at MAD, in all humidity, offer a shower of laughs

"It's raining, it's pouring... Read this, you'll be snoring..." Does anybody try to see a paperback reprint as hard as the usual gang of idiots as "MAD" magazine do on these back covers? Anyhow, "The Weather MAD" was first published in 1990, so I missed pretty much everything that is collected within these pages when it first came out. The exception is the first piece, "Raiders of the Lost Art," courtesy of artist Jack Davis and writers Dick De Bartolo & Frank Jacobs, which explores Hollywood jumping on the cliffhanger bandwagon because of the success of a certain Stephen Spielberg movie starring Harrison Ford regarding a character now renamed "Inbanana Jones." For those who are aficionados of these "MAD" parodies, the final selection in the book is Mort Drucker and Lou Silverstone's send up of "magnumb, p.u." which takes on hit television shows that feature a private detective who wears wild Hawaiian shirts, tight designer jeans, drives a Ferrari, and operates out of the estate of a wealthy writer (that should narrow it down a bit, huh?). Davis and Silverstone work together to do "Stuff We Don't Get to See on the Tube," which takes some potent jabs at familiar television shows and personalities that would still be true today since to the best of my knowledge "National Geographic" has still not done a special that shows topless white ladies. In terms of familiar favorites, you will find a couple of installments of Spy vs. Spy, Dave Berg providing a look at "The Lighter Side of..." assorted topics this time around, and Sergio Aragones teaming up with John Ficarra for some "MAD" suggestions for things to "Give Thanks" for on Thanksgiving. The best example of comic anarchy in this collection is Paul Coker and Barry Liebmann's "Isn't It Suspicious..." This is a look at the hypocrisy of a world where doctors are allowed to park illegally on emergency house calls (even though doctors no longer make emergency house calls). Right behind that is "A MAD Look at Discrimination," in which George Woodbridge and Larry Siegel look at the history of discrimination in this country, ending with the principle of "reverse-reverse discrimination" in the quest for equal rights. This is followed by Coker and Jacobs presenting "Still More American Jokes They're Telling Poland," which falls a bit flat because the answers to the joke questions are all true but not necessarily funny because they are sadly true, not funny true. But Coker and De Barolo's "MAD Guide to Understanding Statistics" is legitimately funny because it is true. Some pieces, such as "More Subdivisions for Public Places" and Al Jaffee's "Video Games Based on Real Life" are really dated at this point. Besides, it was too soon for me to look at one of Paul Peter Porges bits about uses for live lobsters. Consequently, "The Weather MAD" is a solid paperback offering, but not a collection of verifiable "MAD" classics (like they would ever put together one of those on purpose).