MAD Parodies^115Parody is a form of derision that ridicules a
work or its style by adapting and
deliberately distorting its features.
“Certainly parodies have been committed
since the dawn of man’s existence (7:38
a.m., daylight savings time),” Richard R.
Lingeman explained in the New York Times.
“According to one scholar... the earliest
identifiable parody was by a Sumerian
named Aktuk, who parodied the famed
Epic of Gilgamesh.” Visual parody has roots
in antiquity as well, notably in Greek
pottery by anonymous artisans. It was also
common in major artworks during the
Italian Renaissance. Pellegrino Tibaldi’s
frescoes on the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna,
for example, are playfully mocking of
Michelangelo’s style. Today, Tibaldi’s
frescoes are intact and highly respected not
as jibes at the Renaissance master, but as artworks on their own terms.
Countless other commentators and jesters have, however, not been as revered
for their parodies. History tells of many who suffered dearly for satirizing a
monarch, dictator, or prelate. Lingeman reports that the rebellious Aktuk
“was sentenced to twenty years as a galley slave—a cruel punishment at the
time since there was very little water in that part of the world.”
The job title “Lawsuits,” listed in MADmagazine’s masthead, is
no joke. In the late 1950 s and early 1960 s, when MADwas publishing
acerbic parodies of American consumer culture, many corporations and
products were pilloried in mock ads that were not merely harmless or silly
jests, but focused attention on such hot issues as rising medical costs,
alcohol and tobacco dependency, homelessness, and environmental crime.
Parodies of popular advertisements so realistic as to fool the casual reader
might have been secretly enjoyed by Madison Avenue’s bad boys, but many
of their high-billing clients did not find anything funny about parodies that
overshadowed their original ads. “Madison Avenue was savvy enough to
know it would result in bad publicity,” reported Maria Reidelbach, author