Showing posts with label MY FAIR LADY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MY FAIR LADY. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

MY FAIR LADDIE

MY FAIR LADY (1964)
dir: George Cukor

My Fair Lady has been parodied several times, particularly by MAD. First a Broadway musical, but most famously a movie, it's based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which itself is based on several British plays, which were based on the Greek figure of the same name. The formula has inspired modern versions such as Trading Places. My Fair Lady uses the same names and setting as Pygmalion, though.

The plot, in a nutshell, has Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) and Col. Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) as phonetics professors, teaching common Cockney girl Eliza Doolitle (Audrey Hepburn) proper diction. They make a bet that Henry can do it. He hates women but she wins him over.

MY FAIR AD-MAN
MAD #54, April 1960
w: Nick Megliola
a: Mort Drucker

His Wikipedia page and Times obituary don't reveal Nick Meglin's real name which is weird. Unless there are two different people but that's way too much of a coincidence. That's neither here nor there, though.

Freddy Einsford, a nobleman with a crush on Ms. Doolittle, is drawn here as Dean Martin. The BBD&O mascots are Harry and Bert Piel (Piel's Beer, voiced by Bob & Ray), Mr. Clean, Old Gold, Johnny Philip Morris, Tony the Tiger, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, Swanson Birds-Eye (triplets), Greyhound (dog), Mobil Oil (pegasus), Bufferin (body diagram), Peter Pain (Ben-Gay), Johnnie Walker Red, Elsie Borden, and one of the Campbell's kids. Henry Higgins and Col. Pickering are Cary Grant and Charles Laughton. Eliza Doolittle is Frank Sinatra.

None of these have the songs in the proper order or have the same characters singing them but they're just a way to parody the songs.

HELLO, LYNDON or MY FAIR LADY BIRD
MAD #107, December 1966
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

The title parodies the name Hello, Dolly but only the title. Lady Bird was LBJ's nickname for his wife. His daughters were Lynda and Luci

LBJ was known for lobbying congressmen while on the toilet but MAD probably couldn't show that.
They thought he'd seek another term. Dean Rusk was his Secretary of State and Robert MacNamara his Secretary of Defense.
Barry Goldwater was Johnson's opponent in 1964.
Part of LBJ & Lady Bird's campaign was to rid the country landscape of billboards.

MAD #167, April 1974
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Mort Drucker

Here Henry Higgins snd Col. Pickering are drawn as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, and the Eliza Doolittle role is Burt Reynolds.
Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm are the other faces on Mount Rushmore.
The last panel has Burt Reynolds posing as his Cosmopolitan parody centerfold.

From Future Singing TV Commercials by Frank Jacobs and Jack Rickard in MAD #84, January 1964.

MORE COMBINED MOVIES
Cracked #133, July 1976
a: John Severin

MOVIE SPOOF:MY FAIR LADY
Sick #49, December 1966
w: Bill Majeski

MY FAIR SADIE
Humbug #2, September 1957
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Jack Davis

It all comes back to George Bernard Shaw.