CARNIVAL KNOWLEDGE

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971)
dir: Mike Nichols

CARNIVAL KNOWLEDGE
MAD #151, June 1972
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

The title is based on the phrase “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”, supposedly what was written on stocks when people were publicly punished centuries ago for the crime of pre-marital sex, said to be an acronym for the f-word. The story chronicles two men over the span of thirty years and the women in their life.

The picture opens with the two friends at a dance in college in the 40s. Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) encourages Sandy (Art Garfunkel) to ask Susan (Candice Bergen) out.

(The extra in the crowd that looks like a dummy is meant to resemble Mortimer Snerd, one of the characters of Edgar Bergen, who was the father of Candice Bergen. “Foodly Acky-Sacky...” is a quote from a 40s pop song called 'Hold Tight'.)


Back at the dorms, they talk “guy stuff” and Jonathan gives pointers. She likes that Sandy's sensitive and intellectual, but starts seeing Jonathan on the side because he'll go all the way.

Sandy has no clue that she's seeing both of them.

Cut to a decade later, Jonathan has started dating Bobbie (Ann-Margret), a stewardess in TV commercials. Their relationship is entirely superficial, with him only liking her for her body.

They can't get by on physical love alone, she's bored, and they're always arguing.

(In a scene they don't use, Sandy comes over with his wife and Jonathan suggests to him they swap partners. Sandy is reluctant, and his wife overhears the plan and walks out.)

Now in current times, Jonathan is showing a slide show of all the women in his life to Sandy and his new girlfriend (Carol Kane).

In a part they added for the parody, Jonathan confesses that he was also seeing Susan back in college and they have a fight. It doesn't even come up in the actual scene of them going out and having a talk about how they got to where they are today. In the movie, Sandy suspects something when she's accidentally skimmed over in the slideshow, and never says anything about it.

Jonathan seeks solace in a hooker (Rita Moreno). Having been a jerk all his life, we see the only way he can be satisfied anymore is if she acts out a script he wrote telling him how great he is. MAD's standards being what they were then, they couldn't mention her profession.

This movie has always reminded me of another long-running project of screenwriter Jules Feiffer, his comics series Bernard and Huey, which is also about a misogynistic cad and his nice(r) shy friend as they go through middle age as single men.

The imitations were notorious for swiping directly from Mort Drucker. I've heard inside stories. Take for example this page from The Incredible Hunk in Crazy in 1979 (I'll post the entire thing once I get to the Is) which uses the same Candace Bergen caricature from the splash page of this Carnal Knowledge parody, the same drawing four times on this page alone. (The Bixby caricature is taken from Drucker's Burt Ward) Not just this page, but throughout. I understand the need to swipe. Not everyone can do a good likeness on their own, and an editor may be the one to instruct the artist to draw like another artist. No need to make it so obvious with the same pose, hair, and clothes, though. Keep on Druckin'.