The great caricaturist has died at 91. He could take a look at a person and get the essence of him or her on paper with astonishing accuracy.
Here’s an old thread I started about the work he did for Mad.
RIP Mort Drucker. I think his parodies came into style about when I got into Mad.
Alas, one of the greatest of the Usual Gang of Idiots.
I think the TV satire I laughed at hardest was Mission: Ridiculous.
“This is the state of Maine…”
“How come it says ‘Texas’?”
“To confuse anyone watching.”
“It **must **work. I’m confused!”
“How do we know it’s the **same **Dr Demitrius Emo, top-secret microfilm maker, we’re **looking **for? There could be **thousands **of them!”"
“Hello, room service? This is Dr Demetrius Emo. If I were to ask you to bring a bottle of **wine **to my room, **which **room would you bring it to? What do you mean, that’s the most suspicious thing you’ve ever heard? It’s a **perfectly ****legitimate **question! Uh-huh, I see. That’s 1937. Thank you!”
“That was brilliant! So Dr Emo is in room 1937!”
“No, 1937 is the year of the wine. And an **excellent **year it is! Dr Emo, on the other hand, is in 1964. Which may be a respectable enough room, but it was a lousy year for wine.”
“Look, it’s Dr Emo. And he’s dead!”
“Maybe he’s just sleeping.”
“If he were sleeping, he’d be on the bed.”
“**Room **service, Dr Emo. I’ve brought your wine.”
“Slip it under the door.”
“It won’t **fit **under the door, sir.”
“Then **pour **it under the door!”"
“Yes, sir. If you don’t mind my saying so, this is the most **suspicious **thing I’ve ever done.”
“Don’t worry. I have a straw.”
RIP, Mort! 
This news makes me MAD!
I’ve been expecting this for a long time, but it’s sad all the same.
His caricatures were uncanny. Mad has had a number of them, but I still think Drucker was far and away the best. One star (I forget who) said that you really knew you’d “made it” when you were caricatured in Mad – and he clearly meant by Drucker. (Carrie Fisher was caricatured by Drucker well before Star Wars came out – she had one panel in the satire of Shampoo It’s recognizably her. I think he stinted, thought, doing JoBeth Williams in the satire of Kramer vs. Kramer. It’s not so obviously her, although she did write in and thank Drucker for portraying her.)
My favorite of his is the one he did for 2001: A Space Odyssey (“201 Minutes of A Space Idiocy”) The caricatures of Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood are dead-on, but you can also recognize Leonard Rossiter and William Sylvester. And even the apes in the prologue look great. An it still breaks me up to see the aged Keir Dullea dying in the bed at the end, but he’s got a bubble wand and he’s blowing bubbles, inside one of which is the Star Child.
I wonder if it’s possible to buy his original artwork. I would totally be interested in doing so.
The week I bought this issue, I tried watching M:I on Saturday night. I was literally rolling on the floor laughing each time they showed a closeup of Peter Graves, Martin Landau, or Greg Morris. And I was never able to envision Barbara Bain walking seductively again!
Star Blecchh
Spock: Captain, I don’t believe my ears.
Kirk: I don’t believe your ears either, Spock.
This was actually imported into a Star Trek script shortly thereafter. Spock merely said, “I don’t believe my ears.” Kirk gave him an exaggerated sideways glance.
Mr VOW watches old reruns om MeTV. On Saturday night, it’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Except, I ALWAYS call it, “Voyage to see What’s on the Bottom.”
RIP, Mort.
~VOW
That was in “The Trouble with Tribbles.” The actual exchange was:
KIRK: Cyrano Jones? A Klingon agent?!?
NILZ BARIS: You heard me!
KIRK: Oh, I heard you.
SPOCK: He simply could not believe his ears.
[Sideways glance; Spock shrugs]
terentii, thank you!
~VOW
He drew the movie poster for American Graffiti
The obituary in The New York Times includes this story, “According to [pop-culture critic Grady] Hendrix, Mad’s 1981 parody of ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ ‘The Empire Strikes Out,’ prompted the Lucasfilm legal department to send a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the issue be recalled. ‘Mad replied by sending a copy of another letter they had received the previous month — from George Lucas, offering to buy the original artwork for the “Empire” parody and comparing Mort Drucker to Leonardo da Vinci.’”
Well, the cover was drawn by Mort. The actual satire at that link was drawn by Jack Davis, another legendary Mad artist (and written by Arnie Kogen).