I was 10 years old in 1957, and aware of the buzz on the movie,
Baby Doll, from a play by Tennessee Williams. I thought the images of actress Carroll Baker sucking her thumb were odd, but not only was I only 10, I was completely naïve about sex and sexual symbolism.
Baby Doll was controversial because of its sexual theme. But all of it went over my head.
That summer I bought
Humbug #1 at a local pharmacy. Later in the summer I bought
Mad #35. Both of them took off on the image of Carroll Baker.
Humbug did a more traditional satire, probably written by editor Harvey Kurtzman, and
Mad did a 4-page mash-up of Williams’s plays,
Baby Doll,
A Streetcar Named Desire, and
The Rose Tattoo, drawn by Wallace Wood. Despite my innocence, I “got” the
Humbug satire, but was puzzled by
Mad. That was because at the time I knew more about Tennessee Ernie Ford* than Tennessee Williams.
When looking at
Humbug and its bad printing, it did not match
Mad, but I recognized the names Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis from the
Mad Reader paperback. (And
Humbug cost 10¢ less than
Mad; important for a kid with a small allowance.) I knew more about
Mad than I did sex. Not impossible, because I knew
nothing about sex except I liked looking at pictures of actresses like Carroll Baker, Marilyn Monroe, and especially the incredible Brigitte Bardot . . . sigh. Oops, I’m going off into a reverie. Sorry about that.
The
Humbug scans come from my copy of
Humbug #1, and the
Mad scans come from the CD set,
Totally Mad.
*From YouTube, Tennessee Ernie’s biggest hit,
“16 Tons”.
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