Was this “let your child in second grade write your comic” day?
The surprise is on them. The castle anticipated their attack and surprised them with boiling oil which they didn’t anticipate.
The gag is the cliche about holding a glass against a wall to hear what’s going on in a neighboring room. These guys assume the glass thing will work on a many-feet-thick stone rampart, and cannot hear that preparations are indeed being made.
This falls under the heading of Comically Inadequate/Inappropriate Ideas. Far Side had two tiny spiders spinning a delicate web at the end of a playground slide, confident they were going to catch a large child speeding downhill.
@ M.A. – True, but if those spiders had been able to pull it off, they would have eaten like kings.
While I didn’t find this funny, the schema of “Mr. A is planning to get Mr. B, but it turns out that Mr. B gets Mr. A” is a pretty basic joke plan. This is basically pretty much every Spy vs. Spy ever.
Winter, Spy vs Spy always had a double-cross or other twist: all I see here is people thinking they’re approaching the castle undetected but whoops, they’re wrong.
Since the comic isn’t worth discussing, let’s take a poll of who rooted for which Spy (vs. Spy).
I was always for the White Spy, but I have no idea why. If the colors were inverted, it would have turned just about every strip into a nighttime scene in which the other spy wins.
With the cracks and slightly wobbly lines drawn onto the wall, at first I thought the castle was trembling, perhaps shaking in an earthquake or some undermining operation.
@ narmitaj – <sarcasm> Leigh took all that trouble to put the stonemason’s ID marks on each brick, and then they get misinterpreted as movement. </sarcasm>
That’s not boiling oil; it’s leftover pea soup!
I always loved the grey spy when she showed up as a kid; as an adult revisiting the whole thing, I was seriously disappointed in the whole thing — the original ones that Prohias did were marginally better, but especially some of the later ones were really tired and banal. Oddly, as a kid I already began to see The Lighter Side as tired and cranked-out because the popularity outshown the author’s interest (what, I have to do one every month now??), especially when compared to the first one he did; looking over them as an adult, they actually aren’t as bad and cringe worthy as I remember (they are still bad and cringe worthy, just not as bad as I’d told myself as a child).
Similarly, I thought The Muppet Show was the best thing ever as a kid, and I just can’t watch it as an adult — so many fond memories ruined on the rewatching! It seriously does not hold up. (Yet Sesame Street Muppet vignettes do…)
” It seriously does not hold up. ”
YMMV.
@ larK – I had never heard of a “Grey Spy” until I read your comment. It turns out that Prohias included her only from 1962 to 1965, which was some years before I was old enough to enjoy “MAD Magazine”.
Kilby: I always rooted for the black spy. I thought that the white spy was everyone’s default guy to root for, so I decided to root for the guy less rooted-for.
In a Spy vs. Spy book I had, the white spy won slightly more than the black spy (I counted), so it felt like I was rooting for the underdog. However, as an adult I think it was Prohías’ intent to make them indistinguishable in all but color, as if they each represented a side of a senseless rivalry. So in the end it didn’t really matter who won — they were all just cogs in a machine.
For all we know, a white spy could have been a double-cross secret agent for the black team, and vice-versa!
Despite all this, I still root for the black spy.
Kilby: I too am too young to have enjoyed Mad Magazine in the original run from ’62 to ’65, yet somehow I have absorbed all that material nevertheless. I have two theories: 1) I was a big fan of the super specials that were just reprints of older material — even back then, the older stuff was clearly better than the current stuff (and the way old stuff — the Kurtzman comic books — was divine!), and this was near the height of Mad! 2) My aunt had an extensive collection of back issues which I devoured when we visited my grandparents, but I don’t think it went quite that far back. Her collection stretched back 5 or 7 years to the present, the present being 1976 or so, but it included numerous super specials, so I think that’s where it came from.
He’s holding the glass backwards – the bottom should be against the wall.
I rooted for the white spy, because as a Catholic child, I knew that white was what God wanted. Now I think the white spy was stupid to wear white, it’s too obvious.
The only Spy Vs Spy was the one about the woman’s tight-fitting coat.
Kilby: It never occurred to me to root for other spy, they just seemed too obviously interchangeable.
Except I always rooted for Grey Spy (and was never disappointed, of course). She was before my time, too, so I’m not sure how I knew of her. She must have appeared in old collections or something.
“all I see here is people thinking they’re approaching the castle undetected but whoops, they’re wrong.”
But they are wrong right at the very moment. The oil is falling on their head right now.
The joke of the Far Side Spiders wasn’t that they were small and inadequate (actually they looked pretty huge) but the audacity of their hope. And the the humor that it *would* be awesome and funny to imagine if they did manage to pull it off.
The joke of Spy vs. Spy is that the role gets reversed in a clever (in theory) unforeseen way.
Here the joke is simply … they are wrong. That *is* the joke. This is a joke a second grader would write. It’s very hard to imagine anyone not putting it in their reject pile. It hard to imagine anyone taking the time to draw it before putting it in their reject pile.
……
I always assumed the Grey Spy was a Red Spy.
” However, as an adult I think it was Prohías’ intent to make them indistinguishable in all but color, as if they each represented a side of a senseless rivalry. ”
That was clear to me as a child. One of the weirdest and longest Spy vs. Spy (in a book; not the magazine) played a bit on their rivalry. Black Spy is being seen being berated and down-ranked by a superior at the Black embassy. Stripped of his uniform former Black Spy is protests the embassy with placards and clenched fist. White Spy approaches former Black Spy. They shake hands and conspire. Former Black Spy is recruited in the White indoctrination center and watches White propaganda, trains in attacking Black effigies, completes training and has his hand shaken by the White superior and is given a White Uniform. The two Spys now buddies are given a task of dynamiting a Black Government building. The original White Spy holds a detonator while the former Black but now White Spy goes toward the building holding a wooden crate containing dynamite. The original White Spy smiles and starts the press the detonator plunger early. The entire thing was a ruse merely to kill the former Black Spy. Apparently that’s more important to him then having a legitimate recruit or actually doing serious harm to the Black Government. But the final panel has the wood crate panels falling away revealing a second panel which the former Black Spy depresses very quickly blowing the White Spy to Kingdom Come. The entire thing from him was a ruse to kill the White Spy in the most inefficient way possible.
The “cauldron of burning oil” seems to be a common theme for this artist.
I guess I am older than others here. I read the Spy vs Spy in Mad in the 1960s. I probably stopped reading it by high school in the early 70’s. I lent my copies to a cousin and our parents family circle never met again, so I never got them back. (The cousins on mom’s side seem to be like this, another gave us a combination of check, cash, and travelers checks for a wedding gift and yet another gave us a rubber check for same.)
Meryl, my wife’s cousin have our son a bad check as a bar mitzvah present. Are you sure we’re not related?
@J-L, I remember reading an interview with Prohías where he mentioned that although he might want to be impartial, he did in fact have a favorite spy, and that was white….because he was easier to draw!
CIDU Bill – it was a cousin on my mother’s side, on her mother’s side, whose name has left me (I do have our wedding master list somewhere – its only been almost 40 years since same) I want to say Marvin, but I know that’s not right.
But what about that combination one – did you ever get a gift like that – cash, check, and traveler’s check? At least none of those bounced.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Was this “let your child in second grade write your comic” day?
The surprise is on them. The castle anticipated their attack and surprised them with boiling oil which they didn’t anticipate.
The gag is the cliche about holding a glass against a wall to hear what’s going on in a neighboring room. These guys assume the glass thing will work on a many-feet-thick stone rampart, and cannot hear that preparations are indeed being made.
This falls under the heading of Comically Inadequate/Inappropriate Ideas. Far Side had two tiny spiders spinning a delicate web at the end of a playground slide, confident they were going to catch a large child speeding downhill.
@ M.A. – True, but if those spiders had been able to pull it off, they would have eaten like kings.
While I didn’t find this funny, the schema of “Mr. A is planning to get Mr. B, but it turns out that Mr. B gets Mr. A” is a pretty basic joke plan. This is basically pretty much every Spy vs. Spy ever.
Winter, Spy vs Spy always had a double-cross or other twist: all I see here is people thinking they’re approaching the castle undetected but whoops, they’re wrong.
Since the comic isn’t worth discussing, let’s take a poll of who rooted for which Spy (vs. Spy).
I was always for the White Spy, but I have no idea why. If the colors were inverted, it would have turned just about every strip into a nighttime scene in which the other spy wins.
With the cracks and slightly wobbly lines drawn onto the wall, at first I thought the castle was trembling, perhaps shaking in an earthquake or some undermining operation.
@ narmitaj – <sarcasm> Leigh took all that trouble to put the stonemason’s ID marks on each brick, and then they get misinterpreted as movement. </sarcasm>
That’s not boiling oil; it’s leftover pea soup!
I always loved the grey spy when she showed up as a kid; as an adult revisiting the whole thing, I was seriously disappointed in the whole thing — the original ones that Prohias did were marginally better, but especially some of the later ones were really tired and banal. Oddly, as a kid I already began to see The Lighter Side as tired and cranked-out because the popularity outshown the author’s interest (what, I have to do one every month now??), especially when compared to the first one he did; looking over them as an adult, they actually aren’t as bad and cringe worthy as I remember (they are still bad and cringe worthy, just not as bad as I’d told myself as a child).
Similarly, I thought The Muppet Show was the best thing ever as a kid, and I just can’t watch it as an adult — so many fond memories ruined on the rewatching! It seriously does not hold up. (Yet Sesame Street Muppet vignettes do…)
” It seriously does not hold up. ”
YMMV.
@ larK – I had never heard of a “Grey Spy” until I read your comment. It turns out that Prohias included her only from 1962 to 1965, which was some years before I was old enough to enjoy “MAD Magazine”.
Kilby: I always rooted for the black spy. I thought that the white spy was everyone’s default guy to root for, so I decided to root for the guy less rooted-for.
In a Spy vs. Spy book I had, the white spy won slightly more than the black spy (I counted), so it felt like I was rooting for the underdog. However, as an adult I think it was Prohías’ intent to make them indistinguishable in all but color, as if they each represented a side of a senseless rivalry. So in the end it didn’t really matter who won — they were all just cogs in a machine.
For all we know, a white spy could have been a double-cross secret agent for the black team, and vice-versa!
Despite all this, I still root for the black spy.
Kilby: I too am too young to have enjoyed Mad Magazine in the original run from ’62 to ’65, yet somehow I have absorbed all that material nevertheless. I have two theories: 1) I was a big fan of the super specials that were just reprints of older material — even back then, the older stuff was clearly better than the current stuff (and the way old stuff — the Kurtzman comic books — was divine!), and this was near the height of Mad! 2) My aunt had an extensive collection of back issues which I devoured when we visited my grandparents, but I don’t think it went quite that far back. Her collection stretched back 5 or 7 years to the present, the present being 1976 or so, but it included numerous super specials, so I think that’s where it came from.
He’s holding the glass backwards – the bottom should be against the wall.
I rooted for the white spy, because as a Catholic child, I knew that white was what God wanted. Now I think the white spy was stupid to wear white, it’s too obvious.
The only Spy Vs Spy was the one about the woman’s tight-fitting coat.
Kilby: It never occurred to me to root for other spy, they just seemed too obviously interchangeable.
Except I always rooted for Grey Spy (and was never disappointed, of course). She was before my time, too, so I’m not sure how I knew of her. She must have appeared in old collections or something.
“all I see here is people thinking they’re approaching the castle undetected but whoops, they’re wrong.”
But they are wrong right at the very moment. The oil is falling on their head right now.
The joke of the Far Side Spiders wasn’t that they were small and inadequate (actually they looked pretty huge) but the audacity of their hope. And the the humor that it *would* be awesome and funny to imagine if they did manage to pull it off.
The joke of Spy vs. Spy is that the role gets reversed in a clever (in theory) unforeseen way.
Here the joke is simply … they are wrong. That *is* the joke. This is a joke a second grader would write. It’s very hard to imagine anyone not putting it in their reject pile. It hard to imagine anyone taking the time to draw it before putting it in their reject pile.
……
I always assumed the Grey Spy was a Red Spy.
” However, as an adult I think it was Prohías’ intent to make them indistinguishable in all but color, as if they each represented a side of a senseless rivalry. ”
That was clear to me as a child. One of the weirdest and longest Spy vs. Spy (in a book; not the magazine) played a bit on their rivalry. Black Spy is being seen being berated and down-ranked by a superior at the Black embassy. Stripped of his uniform former Black Spy is protests the embassy with placards and clenched fist. White Spy approaches former Black Spy. They shake hands and conspire. Former Black Spy is recruited in the White indoctrination center and watches White propaganda, trains in attacking Black effigies, completes training and has his hand shaken by the White superior and is given a White Uniform. The two Spys now buddies are given a task of dynamiting a Black Government building. The original White Spy holds a detonator while the former Black but now White Spy goes toward the building holding a wooden crate containing dynamite. The original White Spy smiles and starts the press the detonator plunger early. The entire thing was a ruse merely to kill the former Black Spy. Apparently that’s more important to him then having a legitimate recruit or actually doing serious harm to the Black Government. But the final panel has the wood crate panels falling away revealing a second panel which the former Black Spy depresses very quickly blowing the White Spy to Kingdom Come. The entire thing from him was a ruse to kill the White Spy in the most inefficient way possible.
The “cauldron of burning oil” seems to be a common theme for this artist.
https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/password.gif?w=288&zoom=2
Hope the link works. Doing this from my phone.
I guess I am older than others here. I read the Spy vs Spy in Mad in the 1960s. I probably stopped reading it by high school in the early 70’s. I lent my copies to a cousin and our parents family circle never met again, so I never got them back. (The cousins on mom’s side seem to be like this, another gave us a combination of check, cash, and travelers checks for a wedding gift and yet another gave us a rubber check for same.)
Meryl, my wife’s cousin have our son a bad check as a bar mitzvah present. Are you sure we’re not related?
@J-L, I remember reading an interview with Prohías where he mentioned that although he might want to be impartial, he did in fact have a favorite spy, and that was white….because he was easier to draw!
CIDU Bill – it was a cousin on my mother’s side, on her mother’s side, whose name has left me (I do have our wedding master list somewhere – its only been almost 40 years since same) I want to say Marvin, but I know that’s not right.
But what about that combination one – did you ever get a gift like that – cash, check, and traveler’s check? At least none of those bounced.
I guess in the beginning we are all related.