Licensed to Blecch: Mad Magazine's James Bond Parodies

"The Spy Who Glubbed Me," Mad #199

Mad gave in and finally did a full-length, movie-specific parody of 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me (while pretending that 1974's The Man With the Golden Gun didn't exist, as so many of us do), changing the name from "James Bomb" to "Dames Bong," probably just to keep from getting too bored with the material. It didn't really work.

"Moneyraker," Mad #213

The film series had long since devolved into self-parody by 1979's Moonraker, and like its immediate predecessors it bore almost no resemblance to Ian Fleming's ostensible source novel, but if you're a connoisseur of Star Wars rip-offs and/or 1970s optical effects, it's the last of the truly entertaining Roger Moore movies. And one of the better Mad Bond parodies too.

"For Her Thighs Only," Mad #229

By all rights, 1981's For Your Eyes Only should have been Roger Moore's final Bond movie. It wasn't -- Octopussy and A View to a Kill followed -- but unless Wikipedia somehow contains inaccurate information, it's Mad's final Bond parody. They just didn't care anymore, and you can hardly blame them.

I'll admit, I would have loved to have seen their take on the first couple of Pierce Brosnan movies. Will Mad eventually start doing Bond parodies again, especially since there are at least two more Daniel Craig movies on the way? If they do, will anybody even notice, since Cracked has long since supplanted Mad in pop culture? Why are you asking me? Stop asking me things!

(Next time, what with the impending release of The Hobbit, we'll look at Mad's parodies of The Lord of the Rings over the years, including -- aw yeah -- the musical.)

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Sherilyn Connelly is a San Francisco-based writer. She also curates and hosts Bad Movie Night at The Dark Room, every Sunday at 8pm.

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