TWIT-STERS

TWISTER (1996)
dir: Jan DeBont

TWIT-STERS
MAD #349, September 1996
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Paul Coker, Jr.

In Twister, Bill (Bill Paxton) is a former tornado tracker who used to work with his ex-wife Jo (Helen Hunt), and has come to their site to get her to sign divorce papers so he can marry his fiancee Melissa (Jami Gertz), and they're stuck tracking the next tornado with Jo.

Note how many of MAD's mascots are caught up in the storm in this spread, including the apteryx getting its feathers blown off.

The beginning shows Jo experiencing a tornado as a child, which takes away her father and starts her lifelong obsession with them. Cut to the present of Bill on the current site where he used to work. He's retired and started a new job as a weatherman and his crew is glad to see him. He's only there to get Jo to sign divorce papers. Jo's finished Dorothy, a machine they've invented that will get into the heart of the tornado and be able to warn civilians in time. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) is a rival meteorologist with a similar prototype he's showing the press.

Melissa was curious about Bill's past exploring tornadoes on the ground but realizes how dangerous it is, and also realizes still a spark between Bill and Jo. She's constantly being interrupted by patients calling her as they drive through tornadoes.

Jo and her team of stoners and slackers go to visit her Aunt Meg (Lois Smith), an artist that's always glad to see them and feed them,. Over meals everyone discusses the most powerful tornadoes they've ever seen. Jo's made several Dorothy prototypes that keep breaking. A tornado eventually destroys Aunt Meg's house and injures her.

They comment how the movie could be improved with Wizard of Oz dialogue though the movie does reference it by calling their machine “Dorothy”

Meg's sculpture is left standing and looking they realize something similar to it could work as a makeshift Dorothy prototype which ends up working. Melissa can't relate to Bill's return to his former adrenalin-based lifestyle and leaves him, and Bill reconciles with Jo.

The parody continues with the Wizard of Oz parallel and has Helen Hunt waking up in her sitcom Mad About You with co-stars Paul Reiser, Anne Ramsay, Leila Kenzie, and John Pankow.

The Mexican edition put it on their cover.