Mad #443 (John Ficarra) - Michael Jackson Potato Head Issue - July 2004

Michael Jackson (1958-2009) was certainly talented but also had severe mental problems that haunted his legacy.  He wanted to be something that he was not so he subjected himself to multiple medical procedures that left him with eerily white facial skin and an unreliable nose.  The Mad editors and writers could not be blamed for satirizing his existence in almost every issue in the Y2K decade.  With television dominated by inane reality shows, and with the dysfunctional Bush administration starting wars and crashing the economy, targets for responsible parody & satire were often hard to find.  Artist Scott Bricher found Jackson to be the perfect model for a Mr. Potato Head parody in "Special Edition Games and Toys".  Unfortunately, the issue went downhill after the Jackson Potato with gay marriage humor, cell-phone jokes, more ugly Monroe stuff and seven pages of reality show parodies ("Meet the Crew Behind Your Favorite Reality Dating Show" and "Weird Eye on the Queer Guise").  The feature parody of the third Harry Potter movie ("Harry Plodder and the Pre-Teen Nerds are Actin' Bad") is also a parody in search of jokes that work.  Pimples are just not that funny.  [JAM 7/6/2014]

Departments:
Random Acts of Mindless - The Fundalini Pages  [Celebrity Cause-of-Death Betting Odds - Olsen Twins]
They're Off to be the Wizards - Harry Plodder and the Pre-Teen Nerds Are Actin' Bad
It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity - 13 Things You Really Learn in Summer School
Who's Your Baghdaddy? - What Saddam Hussein's Body Doubles Are Doing Now
Revision Impaired - Special Edition Games and Toys We'd Like to See
Mad Vow Disease - How Gay Marriages Really Affect You
Circuit Clowns - The Mad World of ... High-Tech Communication
Hating to Exhale - The Ironic Breeze Silent Air Purifier
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at the Mall
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Angster's Paradise - Monroe and ... Grandpa's Last Ride
You're Expired - What if Omarosa Dated O.J. Simpson  [fake department]
Staff Infection - Meet the Crew Behind Your Favorite Reality Dating Show
The Subscribe Has Spoken - Inside the Twisted Minds of Magazine Readers
The Drab Five - Weird Eye on the Queer Guise
A Farewell to Arm - VH1's The Behind of the Music

Fold-In - William Hung