drama
The
Mad
Show’
"The Mad Show," a pseudo satirical, semi-musical review based on Mad magazine, was
given its first amateur performance anywhere by a North Eugene High School cast last
weekend. The production fared about as well as most Mad material does when read: at its
best, it gave rise to a few chuckles, smiles, and approving nods; at its worst, it compared less
than favorably to the more raucous back numbers of Fortune and Field and Stream.
And for the better part of its two hours, it lay somewhere in between, though this is not to
fault the production of the NEHS drama department. Director Mike Snider assembled an
engaging cast which performed with verve throughout the evening, and two or three of his
principals (all of whom received equal billing, since the review has no stars) are strong comic
talents who gave the material more, often, thap it deserved. Lighting, sound effects, and
supplementary slides featuring Mad graffiti were without exception well coordinated, and the
four piece ensemble which provided the show's incidental music, though over loud at a couple
of points, generally acquitted itself well.
My quarrel is with the material produced by those small-minded and by now rather smug
sensibilities down at Mad magazine itself. The publication they produce today has, un
fortunately, gone sickly with the advent of wealth and reputation. Today's Mad is an anemic
little number indeed, compared to work done by its resident geniuses back in the 1950's and
early 1960's Although the matchless drawings of Mort Drucker and the still-fertile
imaginations of Sergio Aragones and Don Martin are mainstays, there's a heavy reliance now
on sight gags, scripts which furnish ping pong repartee' as controlled and predictable as an
exercise in logic, and pallid farce whose trivial nature precludes the introduction of risk or,
more to the point, surprise The days of those ornate, raffish, boundlessly cynical takeoffs on
TV ("Dragnet," "Peter Gunn," "Howdy Doody"), comic strips (the cheerful skewering of
Hal Foster's "Prince Valiant") and films (the reduction of Disney characters to unshaven,
bad mouthing low lifers like Mickey Rodent and Damold Duck) are too long gone, perhaps for
good
So one finds in "Mad Show" little more than a chastened, giggly tribute to the satirical
possibilities which the creators of Mad have so consistently skirted There's a mild slap at
A
Professional
Recording
Studio
SINGLES, ALBUMS, DEMOS. FILM SOUND
RASPBERRY RECOROtxJG
16D OAKWAY MALL
687 2526
Scully IOC 8 channel recorder JBL 4320 Studio Monitors Neumann AKG. Shure
microphones Giant Spectra Somes 1020 t mining console Full equalization
Reverberation Maqnasync - Naqra
U of O Crew Presents
-A Spy Thriller
“THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER”
Fri, Nov. 2
7:0049:30
STARRING
Frank Sinatra
Kirk Douglas
George C. Scott
Tony Curtis
Burt Lancaster
177 Lawrence
$1.00
SKILOM
Complete Skilom
cross-country ski
package:
Skilom skis
Bindings
Boots and
Poles
it
Complete set
, BERG’S
$69.95
11th and Mill
343-0013
S
Photo by Cal Jones
Nixon (and who could miss a target like that, these days?), a tairly amusing lampoon of TV
pro football coverage (but once you've read It, who wants to hear it again?), and someon the
beam shots at kiddie TV, commercial {ingles, and game shows There's a song called "Hate"
(the only tuneful item in the show) which captivates with clever lyrics, much enhanced in this
instance by North's boisterous, imaginative rendition
But the remainder is characteristically puerile An ostensibly satirical look at folk singers
is nothing more than a contrived series of minor sight gags, an Academy Awards presentation
tor parents who exhibit exceptional skill at driving their kids nuts is hampered by its tired
conceptions of family life, and "Yecchl," a song derived from Mad's rallying cry, provides
more yicks than kicks in its preoccupation with snot, body odor, vomit, and other sure fire
knee slappers
North Eugene s cast is really very much above the material they performed on this
particular go 'round, and that's saying a lot more than it seems. They'd be well advised to
attempt to secure rights to "El Revue to de Coca Cola," or to National Lampoon's in
lermiftently inspired review, when these vehicles become available to amateurs And they
should take a cue from the off Broadway audiences of 1945, who left "Mad Show's" original
production with no greater ciairp to fame than the presence of "Laugh in's" Joanne Worley
among its cast members A dubious distinction at best, as some would argue—heh heh—which
testifies to Mad's decline into domesticity.
Chris Houglum
l fertilize your garden
* fertilize your mind
jcyderecyclerecycle
^-*-—a _i. _j. -A, i A A_A_A_1__A_A. A A A A A A A A A W A A A a a a
¥*¥¥***¥¥
SACCO ■ VANZETTI
The dramatic story of two Italian anarchists who were
framed for a payroll robbery committed by the Mafia and
executed by the state of Massachusetts after almost a
decade of appeals and an historic world-wide struggle to
save their lives—their only crimes: being immigrant
radicals.
Also Hopscotch, the struggle between police and youth are
related to the activities on a hopscotch court.
Fri. Nov. 2
$1.00
180 PLC
7&9:30D.m.
N.U.C.
All profits go to community
and movement groups