THE PRINCE OF TIRADES

THE PRINCE OF TIDES (1991)
dir: Barbara Streisand

PRINCE OF TIRADES
MAD #312, July 1992
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres

Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte) finds his sister Savannah (Melinda Dillon) has attempted suicide and has goes up to New York to visit her, and also answer some questions her psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein (Barbara Streisand) has about her, causing him to reveal more about their dysfunctional family Lila (Kate Nelligan), Henry (Brad Sullivan), and older brother Luke.

The Alpo in the splash panel is from a scene early on where the mother deals with the abusive father by unsuspectingly feeding him dog food for dinner. There's another scenes left out of the parody where Luke uses a gun during a family squabble and later to kill intruders.The Duke pin could either refer to Duke University, which is in North and not South Carolina where this takes place or David Duke, who ran for President that year. He was a notorious racist but not known for being a tough guy, so I fail to see the connection.

When Tom first talks to Susan he's skeptical of psychiatry as a whole but opens up, and ends up becoming a patient.

References are made to Streisand's songs 'People' and 'The Way We Were'.

In his absence, Tom's wife Sally (Blythe Danner) has started seeing someone else (she tells him, he doesn't find out). Back in New York as Tom and Susan grow closer, he finds out her husband is famous violinist Herbert Woodruff (Jeroen Krabbe). Tom's a professional high school football coach and agrees to coach her son Bernard (Jason Gould).

Tom finally meets Herbert Woodruff who doesn't approve of Bernard playing football, wants Bernard to follow in his footsteps as a violin player and feels sports could ruin his fingers, and sees Tom as a lowly Southern hick. At a dinner party, it's all let out as Susan's feelings and Herbert's affair are revealed.

Tom and Susan's feelings grow closer, they begin having an affair, and he shows her some family's old movies. The father was a failed businessman who used a tiger as one of his marketing gimmicks and Luke was the only one to get along with it. Tom and Susan break up when he reconciles with his wife.

George Carlin as the man Tom Wingo stays with while in New York is cut out of the parody altogether.