Mad #344 (Nick Meglin and John Ficarra) - Oscar Mired Issue - April 1996

After 44 years of indifference, the Mad editors finally dedicated an issue to the Academy Awards and their their annual must-watch television show.  There are eleven Oscars-related pages here including the Whoopi/Alfie/Plunger cover by artist C.F. Payne.  Mort Drucker opened the issue with a star-studded, double-splash page for Stan Hart's "The Alfie Awards: Mad Salutes the Movies."  Roseanne takes the microphone to announce winners in dubious categories such as "The Worst Movie Based on Comic Book" (Batman Forever).  The article stops after five pages without a big punch-line.   Drew Friedman added another double-splash page for Desmond Devlin's "Mad's Academy Awards Seating Chart."  The drawings are excellent but the jokes are lame except for "Kevin Costner's acting coach."  The final Oscars jab in the issue is the three-page "Mad's Colossal, Stupendous, Absolutely Fantabulous Plan to Liven Up the Academy Awards" by Sam Viviano and Barry Liebmann.  Apparently, the "plan" involves a spring-action trap door, some hidden microphones and polygraph machines.  The better article in the issue was Dick DeBartolo's clever idea to allow O.J. Simpson to investigate murders with the help of the Police Squad gang.  DeBartolo and artist Angelo Torres filled this parody with LA jokes and references to LA's most embarrassing murder trial/media circus.  I spent the entire year of 1995 trying to avoid television news and the endless newspaper stories about this tragedy. [JAM 3/12/2013]

Departments:
Oscar Mired - The Alfie Awards: Mad Salutes the Movies
Putting Our Thirty Two Cents In - Comic Strip Classics in Their Full Strip Form
It's All Downhill From Hear - Opening Lines to Unhappy Stories
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
An Embarrassment of Richard's - The Malling of America
Of Mouse And Men - CyberNerd Magazine
Oscar Mired Hams - Mad's Academy Awards Seating Chart
The Fright Stuff - Strange But True
Berg's-Eye View - The Lighter Side
Oscar Mired Baloney - Mad's Colossal, Stupendous, Asolutely Fabulous Plan to Liven Up the Academy Awards
Prints Harming - Paparazzi Shots That Press Agents Try to Suppress
A Few Good Amens - Practical School Prayers for Today's Students
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at Nudity
Glove Story - Police Squad: O.J. on the Rocks
Tales From the Duck Side - The Pernicious Plaything Payoff

Fold-In - Mugshot [with tribute to "43-Man Squamish"]