My three favorite lyricists in the world are probably Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim and Frank Jacobs. For over fifty years (that is not an overestimate) Frank Jacobs has been one of the most prolific writers for MAD and while everything he does for them is great, I have a special fondness for his poems and song parodies.
Back when the song "Downtown" — the one recorded by Petula Clark — was heard everywhere, Frank did his own version of and it went a little like this. (Well, actually, it went exactly like this…)
When you eat meat / but hate the meat that you're eating / Then you've surely got
Ground Round!It's so unnerving / when they're constantly serving / in an eating spot
Ground Round!It may be called a Chopped Steak, a Salisbury or Beef Patty!
No matter what it's called, it's always overcooked and fatty!
What can you do?Sound off to your waiter there / And loudly pound on your table
Stand up on your chair / And shout Ground Round!
Piled on my plate I see / Ground Round!
Always you're conning me! / Ground Round!
Why must it always be? / Ground Round! Ground Round! Ground Round!
I loved that one. A few years ago, I was moderating a panel on MAD at Comic-Con and I asked each panelist to name one thing they did for the magazine that people always mention to them as especially memorable. Frank thought for a second — a lot of possible answers there — and mentioned "Ground Round." I, to prove his statement and I suppose to be a show-off, immediately quoted the lyrics from memory. I seem to remember Drew Carey singing it, also from memory on some talk show once.
Anyway, it's in this new book of his work along with hundreds of other goodies, including his great spoof of West Side Story with John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev heading the rival gangs, all expertly drawn by Mort Drucker. Saluting Frank's work like this makes for a book that really has some of the best things that ever appeared in that magazine.
I still think, as I've suggested for years, that MAD should put out a record — I guess a CD, now — of good vocalists and an orchestra performing Jacobs song parodies but this will do for now. Here's your Amazon link to get one.
P.S. Any singers out there with a keyboard or a Karaoke track of "Downtown?" Make a video of "Ground Round," upload it to YouTube, send me a link and I'll embed the first one here! That'll get you at least ten viewings.