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Pop Culture Warned Us About Trump, Part 2: ‘MAD Magazine’!

Pop Culture Warned Us About Trump, Part 2: ‘MAD Magazine’!

Welcome to the second part of our ongoing series, examining all the ways that the artistic and entertainment communities have been trying to warn America that Donald Trump was up to no good.

Our latest: The career of Donald Trump, as chronicled by one of America’s greatest institutions of public commentary — MAD Magazine.

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Trump may be shortlisted for Time‘s Person of the Year, but he has a far more dubious honor coming to him. As seen on the latest cover for their year-end issue, MAD is highlighting “The 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things” of 2015 — and “Guess who’s #1?”

Predictably, over the past few months the magazine has also been getting a lot of mileage out of Trump’s antics on the campaign trail, as just these few recent examples demonstrate:

 

But making fun of Trump is hardly a new pursuit for “The Usual Gang of Idiots,” as the MAD stable of creators is known. In fact, as long as Trump has been in the limelight — and way before he was ever considered a credible politician — this venerable American publication has been tearing down at The Donald’s vanity, hypocrisy, and monstrous ego.

In an example appropriate to the holiday season, let’s review the 1988 feature, “Famous Stories As Told By Famous People,” in which Trump was cast as the narrator of one of America’s favorite stories about the noble underdog: It’s a Wonderful Life. But in Trump’s telling, it becomes a story that rips George Bailey for being “a total loser!”

“MAD” #283. Click images to enlarge.

Trump’s description of what George should’ve done might also sound familiar to anyone who has seen the movie: Foreclose on people, knock down their houses, and put up a casino. Say hello to Trumpsville!

“MAD” #283.

The very same issue featured a newly discovered species of flower, the “Creeping Trumpweed,” which “spreads in all directions,” threatening the entire ecosystem by “totally blocking out all sunlight from more lowly species.”

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“MAD” #283.

Then in 1989, a feature entitled “New Comic Book Superheroes Based On Real People” depicted Trump as “Captain Avarice” — who rose up from his humble origin as the “son of a lowly real-estate millionaire,” vowing to work hard and (“by any means”) become “a respectable billionaire!” (Compare this with Trump’s talk of how his father “gave me a small loan of a million dollars” to start up his business.)

The dubious crusader’s powers include the ability to “devour an entire block and still be hungry for more” and to “leap over zoning laws with a single ‘campaign contribution’!” Among his biggest enemies: “Lawful tenants… ‘communistic’ ideas like ‘Rent Control,’ and the word ‘enough’.”

“MAD” #288.

A feature in 1992, “When Should We Believe…?” explored the differences between the words and actions of various public figures. Their section on Trump — at a time when his businesses were in a tight spot — contrasted his public persona of bottomless, bombastic confidence with the reality of his businesses filing for bankruptcy.

“MAD” #315.

But in a strangely prophetic (and pertinent) joke, the very next sample of this MAD feature asked: “When should be believe American voters?” — when the complain about the political class or when they end up electing them back into office.

“MAD” #315.

Perhaps the American public’s constant hatred of the usual politicians, while we indeed keep re-electing “these very same crooks,” has finally found its outsider champion — or at least, a different crook from the usual ones.

In 2000, MAD depicted a satirical version of Mt. Rushmore, featuring some of the zanier characters who were poking their heads up as possible presidential candidates: Warren Beatty, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Ventura — and Trump!

“MAD” #389.

But seriously, folks, it’s not like Trump would ever actually run, right?

Another feature from ten years ago, “Trump Roast,” began after The Donald achieved a resurgence of media fame thanks to his show The Apprentice. These full single-page comic strips featured such gags as:

  • Trump yelling at a cleaning lady: “This is my personal bathroom. it has to be the best, most fabulous bathroom in the world! I want you on your hands and knees all day cleaning it. And if I come back here and don’t like what I see, you’re fired!” Then while he’s gone, the cleaning lady indeed works hard to clean the toilet — using his electric toothbrush.
  • Trump at a church altar, for his latest wedding. Behind the couple we can see the long, flowing train of Melania’s wedding gown — and the even longer, even more flowing train of The Donald’s combover.
  • The construction crew of Trump Tower Chicago happily telling their boss that the building is now complete and inviting him to see their fine work. But Trump isn’t happy, saying that it still isn’t finished — and he then directs a helicopter to place a huge, orange hairpiece over the top of the spire, to truly mark the skyscraper as his own.

Here’s hoping The Donald doesn’t get a chance to do anything like that to the White House.

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This is the second in our new series “Pop Culture Warned Us About Trump.” 

Check out Part 1: “The Penguin” here.

Al Feldstein, Editor Of Mad Magazine, Dies At 88

Al Feldstein, Editor Of Mad Magazine, Dies At 88

By David Colker, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — The goofy, cartoon face of Alfred E. Neuman looked out from the cover of Mad magazine for decades in various guises, always with the same message: “What, Me Worry?”

“He looked like a boob, but he had a very interesting philosophy” said Al Feldstein, who as editor built Mad from near-obscurity in the 1950s into a satirical powerhouse. “Meaning no matter how bad things get, if you maintain a sense of humor, you can get through it,” Feldstein told the Kansas City Star in 1998.

Under Feldstein, who edited Mad from 1956 to 1984, the magazine skewered presidents, the Cold War, the tobacco industry, Madison Avenue advertising, Hollywood and numerous other targets. And its legacy from that time lives on.

“Basically, everyone who was young between 1955 and 1975 read Mad,” comedy writer/producer Bill Oakley said in the book “The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History.” “That’s where your sense of humor came from.”

Feldstein, 88, died Tuesday at home on his ranch near Livingston, Mont., of natural causes, said his wife, Michelle.

Though Mad was the forerunner of current satirical outlets such as The Onion, “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live,” Feldstein had long ago left that high-pressure comedy life behind. After retiring from the magazine, which left him well off because he owned a portion of the profits, he moved to Montana, where he painted realistic scenes of wildlife, Native Americans, cowboys and Western landscapes — with no laughs intended.

“I’ve had a wonderful career, and now I’m trying another one,” Feldstein said in a 1997 Denver Post interview. “Thank God I don’t have to make a living at it.”

Feldstein was not the original editor of Mad and he was far from the wittiest person in the office. But his intense, micromanaging approach to putting out a magazine aimed at young readers and adults was a proven success. When he took over as editor in 1956, circulation hovered around 375,000. When it peaked in 1974, it was more than 2 million.

“He was not a warm and fuzzy guy,” said Grant Geissman, whose biography, “Feldstein: The Mad Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein,” came out in August. “But he knew how to get the magazine out. It was his commercialization of Mad that made it such an American institution.”

Albert Feldstein was born Oct. 24, 1925, in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, N.Y. His father worked in the dental industry, which did not shield the family when the economy plummeted. “My father made false teeth, Feldstein told the Denver Post in 1997. “Unfortunately, during the Depression, not many people could afford them and my parents lost their home.”

The financial situation killed his dream of going to medical school. But a teacher who noticed his love of drawing steered him to the High School for Music and Art in Manhattan, and while still enrolled there, he got a job at a comic book company.

In the 1940s, he began drawing comics for William Gaines, head of EC Comics. They collaborated on creepy publications such as “Tales from the Crypt” and “The Vault of Horror,” that were a hit among teenage readers, but were called a scourge to the nation by some politicians and parents. A comic books code that was essentially forced on the industry killed EC’s more sensational titles, but Mad — founded in 1952 — was able to continue.

With fake ads for products such as Carry-On cigarettes (in the face of medical reports on smoking), the humor was not always subtle. But that was by design.

“We wrote hard-hitting, very clear and concise, satirical criticism, and that’s what the kids dug,” Feldstein told the Denver Post. “It wasn’t Jonathan Swift, but it reached a large audience.”

Feldstein’s survivors, in addition to his wife of 25 years, include his stepdaughter Katrina Oppelt, also of Montana; and stepson Mark Feldstein of Tustin.

Photo: Christian Montone via Flickr