Norman Rockwell Museum Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

What, Me Worry? MAD Magazine

Alfred E. Neuman

Photo by Matthew Dee

All summer, I had been anticipating seeing the display What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum in western Massachusetts. It opened on June 8 and ended on October 27. My wife and I finally got there on October 26th. It was worth the trip.

In many ways, it was even better that I went with my wife because she knew far less about the history of Mad Magazine than I did. She was unfamiliar with the history of the comic book, which became a magazine to skirt the Comics Code. Moreover, she didn’t read the magazine much, though her late brother John, only 14 months older, devoured it.

So, for me, the visit was more of a pilgrimage to see the “more than 250 original illustrations and cartoons gathered from artists and collectors” created by the “Usual Gang of Idiots” and other contributors.

I suspect that some may wonder why that museum, beyond the homage MAD did of Rockwell. But it has done lots of possibly unexpected shows, including Snow White, Roz Chast, and Andy Warhol.

Irreverent

From the museum website: “‘MAD was a groundbreaking magazine that influenced generations of readers and set the bar, and the tone, for contemporary humor and satire. We are delighted to present original selections from the magazine’s brilliant, irreverent artwork that captured and lampooned nearly all aspects of American life, and we are grateful to the collectors and artists who have made originals available for this exciting installation,’ said Norman Rockwell Museum Chief Curator Stephanie Haboush Plunkett.”

Check out this MAD: Making A Magazine.

“Subversive, silly, serious, and shocking—often all at once—MAD was controversial from the start. Ostensibly geared to kids, the publication touched on the big social, political, and cultural issues of the day: from McCarthyism and the Cold War to political corruption, consumerism, and celebrity culture to the defining social and liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s that continue to reverberate today. Adored by some, criticized and attacked by others, the publication enlightened and offended in equal measure. In MAD’s pages, sharp satire fused with a penchant for silly gags and a love of the double entendre, giving the magazine its unique and often, yes, ‘MADdening’ appeal.”

Surprising

But there were a couple of surprises for me. The MAD folks wanted Norman Rockwell to create the definitive Alfred E. Neuman drawing in 1963. He considered it, but ultimately, he wrote a letter back to MAD, which is on display. He had just left the Saturday Evening Post and was now doing more serious work for the covers of Look magazine, and he just couldn’t fit it in. One can tell, though, that he was clearly flattered.

The other big surprise for me was watching the What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine video at about 5:10. Teresa Burns Pankhurst from Albany, NY (!) met John Caldwell (d. 2016), a local artist and MAD contributor, who encouraged her to submit to MAD, which she successfully did. I knew John from when FantaCo, where I worked, published his Mug Shots. John was a sweet guy, and the story totally tracks.

“‘MAD was much more than a magazine to my generation. It represented a portal to adulthood,’ reflected exhibition co-curator Steve Brodner, widely considered among today’s foremost satirical illustrators and caricaturists. ‘MAD was a heat-seeking missile designed to blow open the hypocritical core of most things. In so doing, it engendered in readers an ability to come closer to what might today be called critical thinking.”

August rambling: the war on drugs

MAD magazine exhibit at Norman Rockwell Museum through October 27

**Alfred E. Neuman and Norman Rockwell, 2002;** **Cover illustration for Mad Art: A Visual Celebration of MAD Magazine and the Idiots Who Create It (Watson Guptill, 2002)** **Oil on canvas**
**MAD and all related elements ™ & © E.C. Publications. Courtesy of DC**

Nixon Started the War on Drugs. Privately, He Said Pot Was ‘Not Particularly Dangerous.’

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What’s 11,000 Times Dirtier Than a Toilet Seat?

Squirrel!

School Lunch: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Hugh Taft-Morales: Racism and the Weight of History | The New York Society for Ethical Culture

I Want to Free My Mother’s Killer From Death Row

No, the world doesn’t hate America: It’s still the world’s dominant cultural power, and that’s ok

Why You Should Never Make a Major Purchase on Your Phone

Are you in the American middle class? Find out with the income calculator

10 Worst Things About The djt Presidency | Robert Reich

15 Best FREE Printable Books for Early Reading

Longtime anchor Jeff Glor and three correspondents exit CBS News in a cost-cutting move (msn.com)

What Is Jeopardy!’s Future? One day, I got a furious email from one of the show’s stars. It only got weirder from there.

“Track Meet”-starring Heather Graham for MoveOn.org (2010)

Did Frank Sinatra Really Perform at My Grandma’s High School?

Writing about vaudeville

Sciolist: A person who pretends to be knowledgeable and well-informed.

My former blog, in Polish.

MADness

“What, Me Worry” is on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, through October 27, 2024. There is also an online symposium, The Usual Gang of Idiots and Other Suspects:
MAD Magazine and American Humor, on October 18 and 19. MAD magazine on CBS Sunday Morning.

Dame Maggie Smith , grande dame of stage and screen, died at 89. I only saw her in the movies The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), A Room With A View (1985), Sister Act 1 and 2 (1992, 1993), The First Wives’ Club (1996), seven Harry Potter films (2001-2011), Gosford Park (2001), The Best (and Second Best) Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011, 2015), Quartet (2012), Downton Abbey and A New Era (2019, 2022), and The Miracle Club (2023).

Now I Know: Like Two Ships Not-Quite-Passing In the Night and Why Isdied This Football Player Sitting in the Stands? and A Different Type of Mug Shot and The Problem With Food Allergies on Mars and A Slippery Way to Win a Football Game

MUSIC

Please note: all of the links in this and other posts worked when they were created. However, there’s a dispute between YouTube and SESAC (Society of European Stage Acts and Composers), a performance-rights organization similar to ASCAP and BMI. So, certain videos are blocked until the dispute is resolved.

Rebecca Jade Rewind: Music Through the Years

Oldest Surfer on the Beach – Jimmy Buffett

Dolly Dagger – Jimi Hendrix

Elegy by Jonathan Leshnoff.

That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be – Carly Simon

Coverville 1503: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Cover Story II and 1504: The Bruce Springsteen Cover Story IV

Polkamania! – Weird Al” Yankovic

Break It Up – Patti Smith

Spike Driver Blues – Mississippi John Hurt

Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 by Georges Enescu

Crystal Beach – Kim Deal

Titanic suite

Mutations – Nilüfer Yanya

Suite from True Lies by Brad Fiedel

Panic In Detroit-David Bowie

The Abyss, suite from the film’s score, by Alan Silvestri.

Highwayman – The Highwaymen –

Pleasant Valley Sunday (2024 Re-Mix) -Monkees

Revolution – MonaLisa Twins

Anyone Who Had A Heart – Shelby Lynne

Hit Me With Your Rhythm – Ian Dury and The Blockheads

Circles – Of Monsters and Men

Missing You – John Waite

Please Please Please – Sabrina Carpenter

Klingon Style (Star Trek Parody of PSY’s Gangnam Style)

Hank Green explains The Forgotten Viral Video that Could Never be Made Today. Bree Sharp’s David Duchovny

More DNC music

Nebraska — Firework – Katy Perry

Nevada — Mr. Brightside – the Killers, a rock band from Las Vegas

New Hampshire — Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey

New Jersey — Born in the U.S.A. by the New Jersey native son Bruce Springsteen. The song has often been misread by politicians; it is not an enthusiastic celebration of American birthright but instead a conflicted protest song, with criticisms about the Vietnam War.

New Mexico — Confident – Demi Lovato; the New Mexico singer has performed at the Democratic National Convention in the past.

New York — Empire State of Mind, a duet by two New York artists — Alicia Keys and Jay-Z — that became the anthem for the New York Yankees’ 2009 World Series run.

North Carolina — Raise Up – Petey Pablo, a hip-hop artist from North Carolina.

North Dakota — Girl on Fire – Alicia Keys.

Northern Mariana Islands — Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, a Motown staple by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Ohio — Green Light – John Legend, the Ohio native scheduled to play a concert in Chicago after the convention’s proceedings on Tuesday night.

Oklahoma — Ain’t Going Down (Till the Sun Comes Up) -Garth Brooks, the Tulsa, Okla., country legend.

Oregon — Float On – Modest Mouse, a band born in Washington but now based in Portland, Ore.

Pennsylvania — Motownphilly by the Philadelphia group Boyz II Men, and Black and Yellow by the Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, a staple at Pittsburgh Steelers games.

Puerto Rico — Despacito– Luis Fonsi; one of the biggest singles ever by a Puerto Rican artist.

Rhode Island — Shake It Off – Taylor Swift, who owns a home in Watch Hill, R.I.

Imprinted: Illustrating Race

Kadir Nelson

Imprinted: Illustrating Race is a current exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, 45 minutes from Albany, NY. I’ve written about visiting there a few times. In 2017, Rockwell and Warhol; in 2015, Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs; and in 2013, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The current show, running from June 11 through October 30, 2022, “examines the role of published images in shaping attitudes toward race and culture. Over 300 artworks and objects… will be on view, produced from the late eighteenth century to today, which has an impact on public perception about race in the United States.

“The exhibition will explore stereotypical racial representations that have been imprinted upon us through the mass publication of images.” Many of these involve formerly enslaved people, but also Chinese would-be immigrants. These are generally from the 18th to the early 20th century.

But some creators took on the bigotry in that period. “William J. Wilson published the ‘Afric-American Picture Gallery’ under the name of Ethiop in the Anglo-African Magazine.” He wrote: “we must begin to tell our own story, write our own lecture, paint our own picture, chisel our own bust.”

Later, “The Harlem Renaissance… inspired pride in Black life and identity following World War I through the Great Depression. Artists associated with the movement conveyed a rising consciousness of inequality and discrimination and an interest in the rapidly changing modern world, many experiencing a freedom of expression through the arts for the first time.”

Modern times

“Illustration, Race, and Responsibility: 1950s to Now will explore activism through art from the Civil Rights movements of the mid-20th century to the racial unrest of present-day…

“Concurrent to the Imprinted exhibition, In Our Lifetime: Paintings from the Pandemic by Kadir Nelson will be on view… Featuring recent works which have never been exhibited publicly. These are large pieces all created between 2020 and 2022.” You may recognize one work, his George Floyd piece, that was featured as a New Yorker cover.

My wife and I also went on a tour of Norman Rockwell’s studio, a short walk away. The docent was very informative. One thing I had never noticed was that on Rockwell’s cover featuring Ruby Bridges walking with the marshalls, they are all walking in step, signifying their unified purpose.

If you are anywhere near Stockbridge, MA, I recommend a trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum, especially in the next month.

Oh, on the same trip, we also saw a Rodin exhibit at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. Unfortunately, that show has concluded, but there are other fine things to see there.

Inventing America: Rockwell and Warhol

Warhol was a poor coal miner’s son from Pittsburgh

The notion that the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA was going to have an exhibition comparing Rockwell with pop art icon Andy Warhol may have sounded strange to many people. When I bought the catalog for the exhibition – and I almost NEVER do that! – even the saleswoman in the gift shop had thought it didn’t seem obvious. Yet we agreed that, somehow, it really worked.

Both artists were cultural icons who worked a great deal in commercial art. Some of their subject matter – Jackie Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Judy Garland, for example. Warhol owned at least a couple pieces of Rockwell art, including her Jackie piece and the Christmas piece Extra Good Girls and Boys.

They were both considered apolitical, yet there were partisan glimmers in some of their works. It was clear that Norman had some influence on Andy; see the Razor’s edge picture of Tyrone Power by Rockwell (left) compared with the male fashion model by Warhol (right).

They were both city kids. Rockwell grew up in Manhattan’s West Side, which he did not enjoy, preferring instead his summers on Long Island or upstate New York. Warhol was a poor coal miner’s son from Pittsburgh; his parents recognized that the youngest of three sons had talent and scraped to send him to art school. Eventually, he found his way TO New York City, where he thrived on the Upper East Side, living with his mother for the last two decades of her life.

Of course, they did have their differences. Rockwell was a generation older, e.g. But they were both misunderstood. Rockwell was supposedly doing treacle, Warhol simplistic items such as soup cans, when both their bodies of work were far more complex.
The third artist represented in the exhibit is James Warhola, Andy’s nephew, son of Andy’s brother Paul; the family kept the final A. He has done everything from paperback book covers for science fiction books of Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke to Garbage Pail Kids cards (asked to do so by Art Spiegelman of MAUS fame) to MAD magazine.

He was also a devotee of Rockwell, but of course was affected by Uncle Andy. In fact, Paul and his family would surprise Andy with their visits to New York, when James and his brother would end up stretching canvases.

The show continues through October 29. It is HIGHLY recommended!

Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs at Norman Rockwell Musuem

As spring ended, I told the family that the one thing I really wanted to do during the summer was going to the Norman Rockwell Museum to see the work of cartoonist Roz Chast, having loved her material in the New Yorker magazine for decades. When my friend David Brickman reviewed the show, which had opened on June 6, in July, it just intensified my desire.

Life being what it is, we didn’t make it to the Stockbridge, MA site until October 24, a mere two days before the close of the Chast exhibit, even though it’s only an hour away from Albany, NY. As it turned out, they were having a show outdoors featuring vintage cars; it cost $10 per carload, but the price would apply to going inside the museum, so no big deal.

The linchpin of the Chast portion of the exhibit was her first graphic memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (2014), about her aging parents, “who were in the same fifth-grade class.” There was “her gentle, worrywart father, George” (d. 2007) and “her strong-willed mother, Elizabeth” (d. 2009), educators both, “who subscribed to The New Yorker and inspired” their only child’s “art and world view.” I could have read the whole book right there, on the walls, but I perused enough to know that it’ll be on my Christmas list.

The Daughter preferred some of her other work, such as What I Hate from A to Z, also shown in its entirety. The video about the Brooklyn-born artist was quite entertaining as well.

We’d been to the museum at least twice before, but there were works by Rockwell I had never seen before, notably Glen Canyon Dam; the texture of this painting is lost in the photograph, because, up close, this is a STUNNING piece.

Oddly, a section called Love a Vet: Honoring Our Veterans was already open; the website had given the dates as from November 7, 2015, through January 5, 2016. The playing card format of the works from various artists was very effective.

Finally, I checked out the vehicles outdoors, which were of many makes and models from the 1930s to the 1980s. I’m not a “car guy,” but the 1936 Rolls Royce was, as they say, sweet.