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Michael Jackson (1958-2009) - the “Comedy Gift” that kept on giving and giving and giving…
No doubt about it: Michael Jackson will be sorely missed — ESPECIALLY by those of us in the Comedy & Humor Business, including MAD Magazine. I can’t think of another public figure who provided such a strong & steady stream of “comic fodder” over such a long time — more than a quarter of a century! I’ll bet that if you did a text search of the entire contents of MAD since 1980, his name would be the most frequently mentioned, in articles about him but also liberally sprinkled all over other articles & satires as a comic reference. (”…as [blank] as Michael Jackson!” or “…makes Michael Jackson look like [blank]!”)
A few Michael Jackson notes:
- Of all the MJ gags/articles I wrote, my personal favorite was the Michael Jackson/Lisa-Marie Presley Pre-Nuptual Agreement (MAD #333. Jan/Feb 1995) — a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only recycle old unused MJ material, but also unused Elvis material, AND newly generated Elvis-&-Michael material! (Forget Lisa-Marie herself! She’s merely a plot device in this whole premise, as she was for the actual marriage!) About a week after the script was bought, I called one of the MAD Editors with an idea to use this piece as a publicity teaser. Have someone issue a fictitious (but real-looking) “Press Release” about the “discovery” of the Michael/Lisa-Marie Pre-Nup, listing some of the gags as if they were actual terms of a legal agreement…and then, in the 4th or 5th paragraph, casually drop in the attribution “MAD Magazine.” Just the sort of jokey celebrity crap/filler that local TV newscasts love. But when I explained the idea to my Editor, all I got was a long, discouraged sigh (the “DC COMICS sigh,” we’d call it) and a flat “they’d never go for it upstairs.” End of story. (Or: Beginning of Story, if the “story” is “How DC COMICS ground MAD down.”)
- My fellow MAD Writer Desmond Devlin told me this little Michael Jackson gem, from his days as a writer at MTV during the 90s (on “Rumor Control” and other game shows; and probably writing 90% of the “ad libs” for Bill Bellamy, Carson Daly, etc.): See, whatever legal/financial arrangements were made between MTV and MJ included the stipulation that the network would ALWAYS refer to Michael as “the King of Pop.” Always. Always. Always. And Jackson’s camp was deadly serious: Whenever some on-air personality would slip up and say “Michael Jackson” WITHOUT adding the mandatory phrase “King of Pop,” the network would actually get stern phone calls and letters from his lawyers and publicity people. Not just once or twice…but EVERY time it happened! (Because: hey, you don’t mess with a KING!)
- Once I heard that Michael Jackson had died, I thought I had finally scored my first actual “hit” from all the “Celebrity Death Odds“-pieces I wrote…but, alas, my Old-Timer’s Disease must be acting up again: it turns out I never did a Michael Jackson Death Odds! (I vaguely recall having written one years ago, but apparently it was never bought or run.) Which means I still have a perfect record: NONE of the nearly 100 celebrities I’ve hypothetically “killed off” over the past couple decades has actually died! What are the odds?! [This death-immunity only applies to the Celebrity Death Odds that I myself wrote, up to MAD #458 (Oct. 2005) -- and NOT the just-for-spite Celeb Death Odds that the MAD Editors have been churning out since their Nixonian reaction to my starting this blog a year ago. All of their Celebrities are going to die before next Christmas.]
Take the Presidential Supporter POST-Election PLEDGE
Every four years, we elect a President; and every four years, we turn into a nation of Sore Losers & Sore Winners for weeks or months after the election.
Since it’s almost that time, how about if we all take the pledge…c’mon, raise your right hand and repeat after me…
If my candidate LOSES:
- I PLEDGE not to spend all my waking hours for the next several weeks threatening to move to Canada, or a militia compound in Montana…however, in the event that I can’t resist such moaning & groaning, I PLEDGE to do all my irritated friends & co-workers a big favor and actually MOVE!
- I PLEDGE not to rant and rail against entire states as if they were living, sentient beings whose “RED-ness” or “BLUE-ness” makes it reasonable for me to hate them.
- I PLEDGE to only start screaming “Vote Fraud!” and “Stolen Election!” if there IS something to support such claims besides my candidate losing.
- I PLEDGE to look on the bright side: at least my candidate will be able to sit on the sidelines saying “I told you so!” as the other candidate “crashes and burns” while in office!
If my candidate WINS…
- I PLEDGE to celebrate in moderation — as if I am aware of the fact that it’s likely to be months or years before it can definitively be said whether I, or anyone I know, actually “won” anything or not!
- I PLEDGE not to be that surprised, shocked, and depressed when, in spite of all the soaring campaign rhetoric I bought into, my candidate turns out to be…just a politician!
- I PLEDGE to humbly remember that, in 4 years time, I will be defending all the mistakes and stupid statements my candidate will have inevitably made as the incumbent!
- I PLEDGE to keep in mind that, with the extremely dire economic situation my candidate will now be expected to actually FIX…it’s a toss-up whether history will remember him as “the second F.D.R.” or “the second Herbert Hoover!”
28 Great New BAND NAMES I thought up one day on the can (TAKE ONE for your own band!)
- “The Outsourcers”
- “Pig Lipstick”
- “Hank Paulson & The Bailouts”
- “Panic at the DNC over Palin”
- “The New O.J. Jury”
- “The Deciders”
- “Lindsay Lohan’s Lesbian Lover”
- “In the Tank for Obama”
- “McCain’s Apparent Memory Lapse”
- “Bill O’Reilly’s YouTube Tantrum”
- “Hijinx at the VMAs”
- “Tainted Chinese Milk”
- “Karl Rove & The Swift-Boaters”
- “The Unvetted”
- “Gaffes of Biden”
- “Larry King is Losing It”
- “Undercover in the Restroom with George Michael”
- “Nancy Pelosi’s Latest Excuse”
- “Death Train for L.A. Commuter”
- “The Global Warming-deniers”
- “New Roommate on ‘The Hills’”
- “My 19th iPOD”
- “John Edwards’ Baby-Mama”
- “Meltdown on ‘The View’”
- “Low Youth-Voter Turnout”
- “Two Girls; One Cup”
- “The Community Organizers”
- “Sheryl Crow’s One Sheet of Toilet Paper”
New “splinter” & crossover Voter Groups of the 2008 Presidential Campaign
Regardless of who you’re voting for, or against - or even if you’re truly undecided — you have to admit that this year’s Presidential Campaign is shaping up to be the most exciting and interesting in decades! Between the two tickets, virtually every single demographic, wedge issue, and “hot button” in American politics is represented in some way — leading to an explosion of all-new “splinter” political organizations and crossover voting groups…including these ones you may not have heard of yet:
- Moose Hunting Hockey Moms for McCain/Palin
- Multiracial Harvard Grads of Hawaii for Obama
- Hillary Supporters Begrudgingly for Obama
- Members of “Hillary Supporters Bedgrudgingly for Obama” Secretly Voting for Palin
- Members of “Old White Boy Network” Against BOTH Tickets
- Pregnant Teens for Bristol Palin’s Mom & the Old Guy
- “Hair Club for Men”-members for Biden
- Gangsta Rappers for Obama and the Honky
- Pro-Choice Libertarian Gun-Owning Working Mothers Confused as Hell about How to Vote
- Reporters in the Tank for Obama
- Octogenarians for That Young Whippersnapper McCain
- Republican Women with “Jungle Fever”
- Democratic Men who Wouldn’t Kick Sarah Palin Out of Bed for Eating Crackers
- “Community Organizers” for a Little Respect for Them, huh
- Hairdressers against Palin’s Hair
- Racists who REALLY Like Obama’s Energy Plan
- Entrenched Politicians Against “Change”
MORE evidence of The Curse on the movie, “Dark Knight”
First, it was the untimely demise of actor Heath Ledger. Then, Christian Bale arrested for…uh, nobody’s really sure what. And now…Morgan Freeman in a car accident.
But those aren’t even the half of all the untoward things that have happened to people associated with the movie:
- 3rd Asst. Best Boy Grip was once audited by the IRS!
- the very day of the film’s premiere, a standby Foley Artist (West Coast) got a hangnail!
- supporting actress Maggie Gyllenhaal stricken with an odd extra vowel in her last name!
- on 4 separate days, cast & crew members who had eaten from the craft services table became sick afterward!
- Gary Oldman was talked into appearing in the cheesy 1998 film-version of “Lost in Space“!
- during filming, Michael Caine fell victim to an unforeseen hangover!
- despite the film’s immense success, to this day - no one outside the Warner Bros. studio lot knows who the hell writer/director Christopher Nolan is!
- the CGI/Special Effects Supervisor who oversaw the helicopter-crash sequence hasn’t worked in Hollywood since (of course, he doesn’t deserve to! Did you see that awful sequence? It ruins the film!)
- the composer has been unable to get the Theme from “The Flintstones” out of his mind since scoring the film!
- MAD Magazine unable to get any advance access to “Dark Knight” film, screenplay, or photos for the purpose of doing their satire of it — despite the fact that DC Comics owns both Batman and MAD; and their offices are in the same building! (Oop, waitaminute: that happens with EVERY film based on DC characters; file this under “Being run by DC Comics-CURSE” instead of “Dark Knight-CURSE”. Sorry for any inconvenience.)
Iran’s campaign of “terror by Photoshop” continues!
YESTERDAY:
Photo from Iran State-controlled media showing obvious Photoshopping of an extra 4th missile and accompanying smoke-billow. (distributed by Agence France-Presse and published in newspapers all over the U.S., including New York Times, Los Angeles Times & Chicago Tribune.)
TODAY:
The Lonely Dead-End of the Internet
Congratulate me. I will go down in history as the person who finally located THE most indisputably pointless and trivial Thing on the Internet: it’s a lengthy Wikipedia article keeping meticulous track of every single woman who has ever stood next to one of those numbered-cases on the TV game show “DEAL or NO DEAL.” (I’m not making this up, as the saying goes when you’re not making something up; here’s the link, check it out yourself.)
Can you imagine a more useless “body of knowledge”? Even the people involved — the “Deal or No Deal”-models themselves, their agents, their families — couldn’t possibly care which of the numbered cases they’ve stood by, on what date, or whether they were the “regular case stander-byer” that week or a “substitute” (?!). Yet, here are people with access to modern computers who do care — in fact, according to the Revision History of this article, at least 10 people who have cared enough to actually edit or update previous versions of it. (Because, God forbid the world should have inaccurate information about who Marisa Petroro was substituting for when she stood next to Case #5 on the Oct. 10, 2007 episode! [If you're curious about the answer to that, it's in there!])
What sort of people care that much about…nothing? Well, thanks to President Bush’s expanded FISA legislation, I was able to intercept one of their emails, with just a simple call to the NSA, claiming that they’re an Al Qaeda sleeper cell:
TO: Stacey Gardner@Case#2.deal-or-no-deal.nbc.com
FROM: deal-nut1990@yahoo.com
Dear Stacey -
It’s me again! Things going smoothly here at the “Wikipedia ‘Deal or No Deal’ Models”-page Updater Collective. Don’t worry: last night’s episode is now fully cataloged. (Although I must say, the substitution of Laura for Jenelle at Case #19 threw us all for quite a loop! They do look so much alike, don’t they? Luckily, our recording secretary, Geoff, figured it out, or we’d be pulling another all-nighter re-playing the video over and over to make sure we get things right! Whew.)
Let me say that I think your performance last night standing next to Case #2 was truly inspired! Never before have I seen such a masterful look of “mock-surprise” when Howie and the contestant called on you! I actually believed, for a moment, that you really weren’t going to open the case! That, Stacey, is a testament to your supreme skills as an actress/model!
Say, how is Leyla doing? When we tuned in 2 weeks ago, only to find her missing…we were, quite naturally, concerned - since, as you know, the last time she had been been absent from an episode was 9/26/07! Tell her we say, “Get well soon! Case #13 won’t be the same without you, girl!”
BTW: We were all out in L.A. this past week, but owing to a bureacratic foul-up and a studio guard with an attitude, we were unable to make contact with you backstage at the taping, as we told you we would. (Once again, security never got our names for their list! For the third time.)