CDs: Alfred E. Neuman Presents

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THE MAD SHOW DRG

In recent years, Mad magazine spawned a successful television sketch-comedy program. Back in the '60s, the long-running magazine yielded The Mad Show, a zany 1966 off-Broadway musical revue which, like the TV show, didn't have a great deal to do with the magazine beyond a certain skewed perspective on the world.

The Mad Show's music was by Mary Rodgers, who had already written Broadway scores for the hit Once Upon a Mattress and the flop Hot Spot. The lyrics were the work of her Mattress collaborator Marshall Barer along with the Mad Show's director, Steven Vinaver Divorce Me, Darling!. Sketches were contributed by Larry Siegel and Stan Hart, leading some to point out that the show was the work of Rodgers and Hart. Mad magazine publisher Bill Gaines agreed to the show with the stipulation that he have the right of approval over all the material.

The five-member cast included two ladies who would go on to TV fame, Linda Lavin and Jo Anne Worley. Worley had recently stood by for Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!; Lavin left The Mad Show almost immediately, to take a featured role in Broadway's ...It's Superman. The Mad Show men were Paul Sand, who would later enjoy a brief period of TV renown, including his own series, plus comic actors Dick Libertini and Macintyre Dixon, the latter a Broadway regular to this day, recently seen in Gypsy.

Beginning in early '66, The Mad Show played two years 871 performances at the New Theatre, on Manhattan's East Side. Cast replacements included Marcia Rodd, Alan Sues on TV's "Laugh-In" with Worley, and David Steinberg. The show ran funny, self-deprecating ads in the New York papers, featuring quotes like "Too bad the broker couldn't get us tickets to Fiddler" or "Miss Merman will not appear at the Wednesday matinee." The program's billing page attributed the show's conception to Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman, who was also seen in the show as a face outside a window; a plywood statue; and in a portrait of the Mona Lisa.

The Mad Show was full of silliness, but the material was fairly sophisticated, geared more to adults than to younger audiences. Columbia Records made the cast album, which includes songs and sketches and preserves most of the relatively short production. On February 22, it will be available for the first time on CD, from DRG.

Both album and show begin with the orchestra tuning up, followed by a barrage of machine-gun fire. The conductor then appeared, bloodied and bandaged. The curtain rose to disclose five pairs of legs, which were then revealed to be wooden by rising along with the curtain. Throughout the show there were slide projections bearing slogans like "Get Our Boys Out of Vassar," "Throw Away That Truss," "Wash a Gypsy Today," "Take a Eunuch to Lunch," and "In Case of Atomic Attack, Hadassah Meeting Will Be Cancelled."

Those who have never heard the Mad Show cast album may very well recognize one of its numbers, here cleverly delivered by Lavin. It's "The Boy From," the spoof of the '60s pop-song hit "The Girl from Ipanema," featuring a parody lyric by one "Esteban Ria Nido," a pseudonym for Mary Rodgers' friend Stephen Sondheim. "The Boy From" was later featured in Side By Side By Sondheim and recorded and performed elsewhere.

Highlights of the album which does not present the material in show order include the double-talk opening number during this song, an usher ran up and down the aisle, protesting that she couldn't understand what was being said; "Misery Is," which offered the company in a very un-Charlie Brown-like mood; "Hate Song," in which the company becomes more and more violent in its approach to stamping out hatred; a silly salute to the word "Eccch!"; and a tribute to unwanted Christmas gifts.

A child records gibberish on a home tape recorder which, when played back at half speed, makes him sound like Robert Goulet. TV commentators at a football game focus on the trivial and manage to miss just about everything important this one was actually based on a Mad magazine spoof. A take-off on children's TV offers a sharp glimpse of "Brotherhood Week" on "Pompous Room." Lavin is very amusing as two mothers, one guilt-inducing, the other with an answer for everything, in a sketch giving Academy Awards to parents.

Of sketches not recorded on the cast album, there were a mother and daughter who insist on making their everyday home life into an imaginary TV show; a meeting by two overly competitive singles; and a funny closing take-off on the cliches of Hollywood's showbiz biopics, "The Irving Irving Story," saluting the greatest writer of advertising jingles.

With its dated references to then-current personalities like Bud Collyer and Don Defore, The Mad Show is probably unrevivable. But the cast recording is fun. For its CD premiere, it has acquired new liner notes by Mary Rodgers and Ted Chapin, the latter explaining Sondheim's nom de plume.