Mad's 1979 "Superman:The Movie" spoof

The collection cabinet swings open this time to present issue #208 of Mad magazine, with their spoof of "Superman: The Movie" from July of 1979. Mort Drucker delivers his stunning character drawings, which -although caricatures- capture the essense of each actor's faces in just a few lines.

(Click on images to enlarge; you may have to click
on the opened image again to view full-size.)

Bonus: the back cover of the same issue.

Superman Video

Here's a little video I put together a couple of years ago, which takes the audio portion of the 1960's cartoon "The New Adventures Of Superman" and combines it with matching scenes from "Superman: The Movie" and Superman II."

There are no added sound effects; everything you hear is from the original TV show intro, but I tried to make every sound match up with something from the movie scenes. I managed to make a couple of scenes match with lip movements during the helicopter rescue scene; watch closely and you will see two different men in the crowd seem to say "Up in the sky!" and "It's a plane!"

I had fun doing this, but the resolution is low. I need to redo it at a higher resolution so it will look better. I will post it when I do.

Click to view: www.sheeplaughs.com/supermantvvideo.wmv

Superman 2 FX Behind The Scenes

Miniature special effects master Derek Meddings works on the set of Superman 2, preparing the miniature Metropolis city street for the scene of the battle with the Kryptonians.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Below, the farmhouse in Texas that is destroyed by the helicopter crash caused by the three criminals, as it appeared in camera....

And below, Derek working on it, which reveals the scale of the realistic miniature. His best work was done when you didn't realise the shot involved a miniature.

1982 "Superman III" Filming Article

From the "Star" tabloid, published September 28, 1982, comes this sneak peek at the filming of "Superman III." The article's revelation of the comedic nature of film did not bode well; I also had suspicions from the nature of the shot, which seemed more like a scene for a TV show than a movie, that the film was not going to be very good. Unfortunately, that suspicion was borne out. Regardless, this near-two page spread is a nice behind-the-scenes look at Christopher Reeve's work, which is always welcome. The writer got the scene wrong, though; the guy in the car was in danger, and not a bad guy. I suppose the writer overlooked the water pouring from the car's interior, or he thought it was a water-breathing bad guy. :)

(Click on image to enlarge.)

This large article took 6 scans in sections, that I pieced back together in Photoshop; all done for you, my readers! If you enjoyed seeing the fruits of my labors, comment and let me know.

1979 "Newsweek" Superman: The Movie article

(Click on images to view super-sized!)

Check out the full-page newspaper ad I featured over on my other blog, "Held Over!"