Available now from Del Rey Books is MAD About Star Wars, a compilation of some of the best MAD Star Wars parodies of the past 30 years, collected and annotated by author Jonathan Bresman. Included in the collection are the works of MAD writer David Shayne. Here's an exclusive interview:
I was six years old in 1977 and my mind was blown by the original film. I saw it in the theaters 14 times and I think it was a perfect storm of right age, right movie. I was hooked instantly. And besides, look at the other movies that came out at the time -- it wasn't like playing Annie Hall with your friends was that much fun. Everyone was always fighting over who got to be Alvy.
Were you the kind of kid who would play with Star Wars toys?
I had a ping-pong table covered with just about every action figure and ship I could get my hands on. My first toy was the X-Mas Early Bird certificate, which, come to think of it, was pretty boring to play with. ("Hey, look at me! I'm leading the Rebellion... um, by folding and unfolding the certificate.") But the best Star Wars toy moment for me was when the Han Solo figure finally came out, because I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that I was supposed to play Star Wars without having Han Solo. Up until then it was like playing Justice League without Batman. You just can't do it.
I don't really collect per se, although a few years ago my wife was in Toronto and found a bilingual edition of the Escape from the Death Star board game. Because escaping from the Death Star is much more fun when it's L'Evasion De Death Star. And it now occurs to me, why didn't they translate "Death Star" into French?
Since you have never-ending comedy cred as a writer for MAD magazine, you would know best -- who do you think is the funniest character in the Star Wars saga?
Han Solo. Anyone who can answer "I know" when being told Princess Leia loves him AS HE'S BEING LOWERED INTO A CARBON-FREEZING CHAMBER is my kind of comedian. In fact, it seems that danger always brings out Solo's comedic A-game. Like in Jedi, when he and Luke are being driven out to the Sarlacc pit, and he notes that his eyesight must be getting better, since he can now see a bright hazy blur. C'mon, that's comedy gold! Oddly enough, second funniest is Too-Onebee, the medical droid. That dude has a face like Elvis' microphone.
I went to Celebration IV in L.A. this year and had a blast. The highlight for me was getting Richard LeParmentier's autograph. I thanked him for terrifying me during my childhood and he said, "You know, a lot of people say that to me."
How did you get started as a writer for MAD magazine?
I interned at MAD between junior and senior year of college on the basis of a freelance submission that eventually became a collection of political kids books. Up until then, about the only place I had been published was in my high school yearbook (although my cafeteria wrap-up article should've won the Pulitzer). I continued to freelance for MAD, and joined the editorial staff in 1995, where I stayed until 2001. I still write for them, and will do so for as long as they're dumb enough to buy my articles.
I wrote a piece called "Star Wars Playsets You May Have Missed" which was more or less tied in to the release of the Special Editions.
What is your favorite Star Wars parody that you've written for MAD?
I got to write the spoof of Revenge of the Sith. If you had told me when I was six years old that I would be writing a Star Wars parody for Mad magazine, I would've laughed in your face. And there I was almost 30 years later doing exactly that -- talk about the circle now being complete.
Star Wars is as big a pop cultural icon as there is, and one that spans 30 years. So you're starting from a place where a wide audience knows and loves what you're spoofing. Its themes are universal and its characters are so well-drawn, you can put them in other situations and they're still funny (I'm thinking of fan films like "Chad Vader" and "Troops"). Aside from such great characters, Star Wars' sci-fi world is strange enough that there's lots of stuff to make fun of. And in just about any film, no matter how good it is, there are going to be little things that make no sense -- and we always try to include those in a MAD movie parody. So in the Episode III spoof, I got to ask the question that's always bothered me: "Why, if you're trying to hide Luke from his father, would you give him the same last name?" I've never heard a good answer to that one. In fact, if someone writes in on this, let me know!
Why will Star Wars fans get a kick out of MAD about Star Wars?
Well, if you're at all a completist, it's great to have all that Star Wars material collected in one place. And from the excerpts I've seen, the running commentary on the movie spoofs is pretty cool. It's kind of like a DVD commentary, giving you a little insider info on how a MAD spoof gets put together. Oh, and the binding glue they used on the book's spine is supposed to be top-notch -- really good stuff.
