Don Martin joke on 'Family Guy'

[Steve Timko]

I was surprised to see the Don Martin joke on "Family Guy" last night.
Seems like that would be too obscure, Did that many people read MAD
magazine? Was Martin around that long? Is there any connection between
Martin and Seth MacFarlane?

[Jim Ellwanger]

Steve Timko wrote:

With the caveat that Seth MacFarlane is not the only writer on "Family
Guy," and so it may not have been "his" reference in the first place:
he's about the right age to have started reading MAD in the early 1980s,
when their circulation was well over 1 million (peak circulation was
something like 3-4 million in the early-to-mid-1970s).

New Don Martin work appeared in MAD up until 1988 (and then in Cracked for
a few years after that), and then there were the reprints that appeared in
the "Super Special" issues, plus various paperback collections that were
readily available.

(I can speak from experience on this because I'm about the same age as
MacFarlane, and read new issues of MAD regularly from 1982 to 1992 -- I
also had some Don Martin paperbacks that were "inherited" from my father.)

--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv>

[stan]

> Jim Ellwanger <train...@ellwanger.tv>
> <http://www.ellwanger.tv>

It was an overall weak episode. As if the whole thing had stepped in
glitch.

-Stan

[Jon Delfin]

So what's the joke?

[Wesley McGee]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Jon Delfin <jond...@nyc.rr.com> wrote:

So what's the joke?

It was more of a reference than a joke. At the beginning the "Shawshank Redemption" reenactment of the episode they're betting who breaks first. Cleveland says the "fat looking one" (Peter). Quagmire says "I'll take the Don Martin-lookin' one" -- cut to a clown in chains drawn in Martin's style, with goofy-ass sound effects along with comic-book type word-balloons to represent the sounds.

[dsi...@yahoo.com]

On May 11, 3:17 pm, Wesley McGee <wesley.mc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Jon Delfin <jondel...@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > So what's the joke?
>
> It was more of a reference than a joke. At the beginning the "Shawshank
> Redemption" reenactment of the episode they're betting who breaks first.
> Cleveland says the "fat looking one" (Peter). Quagmire says "I'll take the
> Don Martin-lookin' one" -- cut to a clown in chains drawn in Martin's style,
> with goofy-ass sound effects along with comic-book type word-balloons to
> represent the sounds.

Oh. My sides.

--Dave Sikula

[Chris Neuman]

 I was reading MAD magazine in the lae 80s, but most of the ones I read were from comic book stores or garage sales, which meant they were late 60s, and 70s.  My mother was the one who clued me in to the iconic Don Martin flapping foot.

Chris