FOR THE BIRDS

THE BIRDS (1963)
dir: Alfred Hitchcock

FOR THE BIRDS
MAD #82, October 1963
w: Arnie Kogen & Lou Silverstone
a: Mort Drucker

Melanie (Tippi Hedren, they mostly use the actors' names in this) is working at a pet store in San Francisco. Mitch (Rod Taylor, called Roger in this) is a city lawyer who has come in looking for lovebirds for his kid sister.

(“The Birds Is Coming” was a tagline for the movie. Grace Kelly was often a favored ingenue of Hitchcock's before she married a prince. Hitchcock was known for making cameos in his films and slightly resembled Russian Premier Nikita Krushchev, who said “We will bury you” to the US in a speech.)


They don't have birds at the store that day but that weekend she goes to deliver them to Bodego Bay, the small town where he lives. On her way there she's attacked by a seagull.

(In the margins, where MAD usually had miniature cartoons by Sergio Aragones, there were drawings on these pages of birds by Mort Drucker that looked slightly like Aragones.)


He brings her to the house and introduces her to his mother (Jessica Tandy) and sister. A flock of seagulls descends on them when they go out.

They go to check on someone and find that he's been killed by birds. This time the famous fat man they think will be Hitchcock eally is him this time. In the actual film, he's a dog walker in a street scene after the credits. (Sorry for the spoiler. You've had 58 years to see this.)

Later, she visits her friend at a school (Susanne Pleshette) to warn about the attacks and is told to wait outside for a moment. As she waits, a group of crows descends.

I'm not sure if the caricatures of Steve Allen and Red Skelton doing Gertrude & Heathcliff here are birds or are also sitting on the bench being attacked by them. But regardless, she warns everybody to evacuate the school and now she warns everyone at a diner.

She hides in a phone booth for shelter, Roger finds her, and brings her home for safety. It turns out Burt Lancaster was behind all this. That year, he was the lead in Birdman of Alcatraz. Gregory Peck is next because of To Kill a Mockingbird. Get it?

I didn't get this clip when I was seven, but thought it was funny nonetheless. I thought High Anxiety was really funny when I saw it, but had no idea the whole film was a parody of Hitchcock.