Mad #416 (Nick Meglin and John Ficarra) - Bored of the Rings Issue - April 2002

I was surprised when I saw that Mad's Desmond Devlin had taken the name of his movie parody (Bored of the Rings) from the 1969 book by Henry Beard and Doug Kenney of Harvard Lampoon.  The Beard/Kenney 160-page parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, Lord of the Rings is the classic book parody that set the standard for all others.  See www.mindsnackbooks.com/bookreviews/bored_of_the_rings.html.  Considering the notoriety of the Harvard Lampoon book, it is unlikely that Devlin and the Mad editors had never heard of it.  Although I think they should have used a different parody title, the Mad parody with drawings by Hermann Mejia is the excellent feature of Mad #416.  The additions of Jerry Garcia & The Grateful Dead, Shrek, Harry Potter, Anakin Skywalker, and Legendary Quests for Dummies to the story are exactly what Mad readers expect.  Sergio Aragones added his touch with "A Mad Look at The Lord of the Rings".  The only thing missing from the issue is a great cover drawing of Alf as a hobbit.  Instead, we got a lame note from "The Editors." [JAM 3/18/2014]

Color Pages: 33 of 56 pages (59%)
Humorous Content: 48 of 56 pages (86%)

Departments:
An Embarrassment of Richard's - Mad's Privacy Policy
Kicking the Hobbit - Bored of the Rings
Grid And Bear It - Mad's Prime-Time TV Listings
Grim And Bear It - Drama on Page 14
Angster's Paradise - Monroe & ... Babysitting Part I
The Playbill's the Thing - Mad Examines Selected Pages in a Typical High School Theatre Program
The Plots Sicken - The Mad (Dead) People Watcher's Guide at a Typical Cemetery
In the Ire of the Beholder - Their Team ... & Your Team
Reading Between the Lies - A Letter to the American People from Enron
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Jive From New York - The Final Minute of Saturday Night Live
Weed the People - If Medical Marijuana Was Legalized
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at The Lord of the Rings
Nanny Get Your Gun - When Goats Go Bad  [fake department]
Alphabet Scoop - Sports Acronyms You Never Knew Existed
Grieving Las Vegas - Mad's Celebrity Cause-of-Death Betting Odds [Drew Carey]
Clooneytoons - No Emotions Eleven

Fold-In - Joan Rivers (not Shrek)