STAND BUT ME

STAND BY ME (1987)
dir: Rob Reiner

STAND BUT ME
MAD #269, March 1987
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Richard Dreyfuss narrates this reminiscence of himself as a 12-year-old over the summer, about to go into seventh grade and going on a camping trip with his friends to find a dead body. Roy Brower was someone they heard died and was left in the woods and they plan to find him, locate him, and be lauded as heroes. The parody begins with Teddy (Corey Feldman), Chris (River Phoenix), Gordy (Wil Wheaton, the narrator as a kid), and Vern (Jerry O'Connell) on their hike running from a freight train as they're crossing a railroad bridge.

As they hike to their spot they pool their money for food, and trespass at a junkyard and find the junkyard dog isn't as mean as legend says, but tits owner (Milo Pressman) is. He knows who they all are and that Teddy has an abusive father in jail. The teenage gang, led by Ace Merrill (Keifer Sutherland) is competing to find the body, because they may have something to do with his murder.

The kids all trade stories at night and Gordy tells a short story he's written about about a pie-eating contest (see below). They're attacked by leeches and find the dead body before Ace does.

Ace shows up, threatening the kids at knifepoint and Gordy chases the gang away with a gun one of the kids stole from his father. They all decide to pretend the whole thing never happened, return home, and go their own separate ways. The adult Gordy narrates what happened to everyone and ends what he wrote to spend time with his kids.

This is the pie-eating contest. Gordy's a stand-in for Stephen King but he could have written for MAD.