The 1963 "MAD" Magazine Spoof of "The Birds"

"MAD" Magazine still exists in some form here in 2023, I would suppose...I don't know where.

But back in the 50's, 60s, and 70's -- rather like Playboy -- it was really a cultural influence, widely read and referenced.

The "50's" version relied, actually, on some pretty gross art work to spoof movies of the decade like "On the Waterfront" and "Vera Cruz" or TV shows like "Dragnet." This was because MAD grew out of the "EC Horror Comics" which were uncensored at first, super-gruesome and eventually banned by the US Congress.

But even the 50's MAD magazine -- with its gross-out horror roots -- was a little rough. So the 60's version brought in some new artists and new writers and "set the tone" for the most successful years of the magazine.

A centerpiece of the 60's/70's Mad magazine was one to two spoofs each issue of (a) a hit movie and/or (b) a hit TV show. So from TV "The Man From UNCLE" and "Batman" got their spoofs("The Man from AUNTIE and Bats-Man" and many, many MANY movies got spoofs.

I tend to remember better the movie spoofs from the late 60's and early 70s -- "True Grit" became True Fat(with John Wayne telling Glen Campbell, "Sorry son, you don't have True Fat...True Chubby doesn't cut it.") "The Poseidon Adventure" became "The Poop-Side Down Adventure."

These movie spoofs were nicely drawn by cartoonist Mort Drucker -- often working from production stills obtained from the studios that were then "overdone' for comedy purposes.

But this: to a generation of pre-teen boys who couldn't SEE the new R rated movies at the theaters, MAD magazine spoofs of these movies allowed the boys to "vicariously experience" drawings of the pretty ladies and sexual exploits IN these movies(if censored for comic book sensibility.) A spoof of Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice comes to mind...

These movie spoofs often appeared in "collection books" years after they were first published.

And that's how I saw the 1963 Mad Magazine spoof of The Birds...in a collection published I'd say around 1970.

It was called "For the Birds," and while I don't remember a lot of it, I remember these gags:

ONE: A billboard was re-printed on the page with Hitchocck pointing in the air and saying "The Birds Is Coming!" and someone at MAD scrawled on the billboard, "and good grammar in advertising has went."

TWO: In the corner of the frame, every few frames, while Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor and Jessica Tandy said their spoof lines...Drucker drew in little tiny gags: birds lining up at the "Bird War" recruiting office...birds being run through drill camp by a bird drill instructor...birds watching as their captain drew up a battle plan on a chalkboard, etc...even as the humans noticed none of this.

THREE: About once a page, somebody would say: "Wait...look over there...see that short fat man...I think this is his famous cameo in this movie...is it? is it? is IT?...and then instead of Hitchcock it was...Jackie Gleason. Or Russian leader Nikita Krushchev. When it finally WAS Alfred Hitchcock...he was dead on the ground, triumphant birds all over him.

FOUR: I don't remember much of the spoof dialogue, but I DO remember Tippi Hedren in her motorboat, saying out loud:

"Well here I am, alone on a bay in a motorboat. The suspense is building. Am I about to get killed like Janet Leigh was in Psycho?" (cartoon drawing of seagull bouncing off her forehead) OOPS, nope all that's gonna happen is a get a little bitty peck on my forehead by this bird here. And my blood looks like grape jelly."

And so forth and so on.

Truth be told, Hitchcock didn't put out many movies during MAD's run(and before his death in 1980 that COULD be spoofed. He did a lot of dramas.

From memories and looking some things up, I found only these Hitchcock references in MAD magazine:

ONE: Instead of a "regular" spoof of North by Northwest, MAD did a "think piece" on Hitchcock sending Jimmy Stewart on an adventure that ends up on Mount Rushmore. En route, Jimmy MEETS Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint on the train from that movie. But not much happens. It was a very half-hearted spoof.

TWO: Psycho never got a Mort Drucker spoof, but actual photos FROM Psycho(of Anthony Perkins, usually) were inserted into the "Berg's Eye View" cartoons to show people being terrified BY Psycho at the movie theater. (These "Berg's Eye View" cartoons...drawn by Dave B erg...helped create a vision of Psycho in my young mind as this very scary, forbidden movie to see.)

THREE: In 1983, three years after Hitchcock's death, Psycho II DID get a MAD spoof. I don't think Mort Drucker was around anymore to draw the cartoons. All I remember is, an opening frame showing Norman Bates being released in a courtroom had...a little drawing of the court reporter in the corner of the frame: Martin Balsam as the murdered detective Arbogast, with a big knife his chest, oblivious as he types away.

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