The Saturday Evening Pest (Jerry Smith) - University of Missouri Showme - November 1950 - 48 pages

https://madcoversite.com/modern_magazine_parodies.html

The cover drawing of this Saturday Evening Post magazine parody by Herb Green shows 17 tiny turbaned men destroying a bust of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).  To explain the intent of the cover, the editor stated on page three: "The idea was the result of three horrible hours in the back room of the shack where the staff wracked its collective brain trying to whip up an idea.  ... the Post runs a Ben Franklin cover once a year.  We feel that our cover expresses what we are doing to the Post."  As the Penn State Froth's Saturday Evening Most, the inside humor starts with an insurance ad parody for "The New England Scrubitil Life Insurance Co. of Boston" ("Rusty Tin Cans and Your Family's Future").  The "Pest" devoted many more pages to ad parodies than the "Most".  Reflecting the overwhelming amount of advertisement space in national magazines, the following clever parodies can be found in these pages: "Bloodshot-Eye Frigid Foods", "Fedung Hats" (The Pre-Shaped Hat-For Pre-Shaped Heads"), "Car-Lite Spark Plugs", "US Army" ("Now you, too, can afford that trip to Korea ..."), "Smoke Fat-Imas", "Digeste" ("If you can't drink it ... pour it down the drain."), "Boper Spirin" ("... if you want fast, dependable relief from small children ..."), "Edith" (gasoline), "Old Mold" ("the Penicillin Cure"), "Sufferin" ("Acts six times faster than Salt Water"), and "Woodburn Facial Soap".  Less space was devoted to short fiction parodies.  Editor Smith wrote "Two Muscular Men and a Provocative Girl", a story that rambles on and on through the advertisements until "Vanilla (reinstalled) her false right foot (and) firmly she walked into the future".  The other short story, "The Fantum Phliver" by Donn Dunn recounts the road adventure of a couple driving an Essex being pursued by a demon in a Model T.  The final piece of fiction is the never-ending serial ("The Dude of Table Forks" by Bob Skole) that is a horse opera with many twists and turns but no beginning or end.  The artwork by Herb Knapp, Glenn Troelstrup, Pat Kilpatrick, Marilyn McLarty and Herb Green is very good for a 1950s college magazine.  Art Director Knapps' drawings for "Fantum Phliver" and "The Dude" are the best of the lot.  Camel sponsored the back page with a modest female smoker without the usual celebrity/tobacco farmer testimonial.  Chesterfield did not participate in this one.  [JAM 3/3/2015]

Front Cover - Ben Franklin bust (painting by Herb Green)
2  The New England Scrubutil Life Insurance Co. of Baston (ad parody)
3  Contents
4  Letters to the Editor
5  Bloodshot-Eye Cuticle Juice (ad parody - drawing by Troelstrup)
7  Fedung Hats (ad parody - drawing by Troelstrup)
8  Editorials (drawing by Somwat Daffy)
9  Car-Lite Spark Plugs (ad parody)
10 US Army (ad parody - drawing by Herb Knapp)
11 Two Muscular Men and a Provacative Girl by Jerry Smith (drawings by Glenn Troelstrup)
14 The Fantum Phliver by Donn Dunn (drawings by Herb Knapp)
16 The Cities of America: Columbia, Missouri
18 The Dude of Table Forks by Bob Skole (drawing by Herb Knapp)
19 Fat-Imas (ad parody - drawing by H. Green)
20 Pest Scraps by Mel Britt; football cartoon by Glenn Troelstrup)
21 Digeste (ad parody)
23 What Would You Have Done? by P.D. Quick
25 Boper Spirin (ad parody - drawing by Herb Knapp)
28 The Lion's Roar by Leo
30 Edith Gasoline (ad parody - drawing by Herb Knapp)
31 Halloween cartoon by Coldbean
32 Are You a Better Speller than Our Writers?
33 Old Mold (ad parody)
34 Racing cartoon by Glenn Troelstrup
35 Sufferin (ad parody)
36 Famous Last Words (cartoon by Irwin Catgut)
37 Household Tips by Sassy Nancy
39 The Role I Liked Best; library cartoon by Roggs
44 The Perfect Squelch by Don Dunn (drawing by H. Green)
45 Woodburn Facial Soap (ad parody)
46 Hazey cartoon by Glenn Troelstrup
48 Keeping Pested by Tom Smith
Back Cover - Camel cigarettes (real ad)