Mad #225 (Albert Feldstein) - Mort Drucker's Popeye Issue - September 1981

Not only can Mort Drucker draw Popeye as well as anyone, he can also draw Robin Williams playing Popeye better than anyone.  Drucker adds another side of Popeye that we have never seen.  Twice he showed the famous sailor looking directly into the camera, a view of Popeye that had not been seen for 52 years since Elzie Crisler Segar (1894-1938) first introduced him on Thimble Theatre (January 17, 1929).  Although I was probably in the minority, I was a big fan of Robert Altman's movie.  I thought that he really captured the characters that Mr. Segar had invented.  I think that those people who were looking for a riveting plot were just missing the boat. 

Issue #225 was another one of the clever issues designed to confuse magazine readers.  The issue was split into halves printed upside-down (like Mad #61) to promote its "double-feature" movies (like Mad #214).  The two 24-page magazines met in the middle with the letters pages.  [JAM 11/24/2010]

I can't believe that writer Frank Jacobs forgot how to spell "poiuyt," and forgot how many players were on each side of "43-Man Squamish" in "Mad's Really Relevant Book of Lists."

Sergio Aragones was especially clever in this issue showing one marginal " ... closed for repairs" and another with a self-portrait drawing a stick woman.

One of George Woodbridge's airplanes is on crutches in "Mad's Airline President of the Year."

Departments:
Strip-Wrecked - Flopeye
Don Martin - One Blazing Hot Day on the Desert; One Blazing Hot Day on the Beach; One Blazing Hot Day on Main Street
Inside Poop - A Mad Look at Some Celebrities' Diapers
Luna-Ticked Off - If They Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can't They ...?
Plane Nonsense - Mad's "Airline President of the Year"
Compiling It On - Mad's Really Relevant Book of Lists
Pest-Aside - Publically Prohibited Bad Habits of the Future
From "Soup" to "Nuts" - Assaulted State
The Other Side of the Con - Real Life Madness
Something Is Rotten - William Shakespeare - Social Critic
Berg's-Eye View - The Lighter Side
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Re: Verse Psychology - Mad's Career-Oriented Mother Goose

Fold-In - Mailman