Mad Magazine. April, 1991
By Angelo Torres and Dick DeBartolo
MACGIMMICK
This page contains the text of the MAD Magazine cartoon MacGimmick.
GADGET GOES TO WASHINGTON DEPT.
Voice 1: Look!? A guy leaped out a ten story window and landed in a trash can and how he's rolling down the street in it!
Voice 2: I'll bet he's some undercover cop or a top government agent chasing spies!
Voice 3: Wrong, folks! He's just on his way down to the corner to buy a newspaper!
Voice 4: Really? Then why did he jump instead of just taking the stairs like a normal person?
Voice 3: Stairs? No way! He's got to show off his inane, I mean innate, inventiveness! He's ...
MACGIMMICK
Artist: Angelo Torres Writer: Dick Debartolo
Old Lady: MacGimmick, my landlord is trying to force me out of my apartment! He's made my life a living hell!
MacGimmick: Here!
Old Lady: Your business card?
MacGimmick: No, The Equalizer's phone number! I don't do "local stuff"!
Lady: MacGimmick, my niece supposedly committed suicide but I think she was murdered!
MacGimmick: Here!
Lady: Your business card?
MacGimmick: No, the home phone number of Jessica over at Murder She Wrote! I don't do "murders of friends and relatives!"
Woman: MacGimmick, I think my boss is involved in some international conspiracy!
MacGimmick: International conspiracy! Great! Here!
Woman: This says "Do not pass Go, do not collect $200"!
MacGimmick: Only on one side! Flip it over! I transformed it into my business card!
Woman: Wow! You really are clever! And CHEAP!
Woman: I see you live on a boat!
MacGimmick: Of course! It's not so unusual. Lots of famous sleuths have lived on boats. Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice, B. L. Stryker, the team of Simon and Simon and even Quincy all lived on boats!
Woman: True, but none of them converted their boat into a treehouse!
Woman: I work for a fruit exporter. Something strange is going on at the company. Lately, my boss has been getting outrageous prices for the crates of oranges we export!
MacGimmick: Last spring's frost did drive up the price of produce!
Woman: He's getting $2,000 a case!
MacGimmick: Wow! At that price a quart of orange juice would cost $300! That's even more than a 7-Eleven would charge!
MacGimmick: Your story bears investigation! Let's see, I have a gun, rope, food, waterproof matches ...
Woman: I'm glad to see you're taking that stuff along!
MacGimmick: Oh, I never take anything along! I take inventory before I leave to make sure I don't accidentally bring something that might cut down on my ability to improvise!
MacGimmick: This motorcycle is a little weird, I know! But I built it myself!
Woman: My, aren't you clever!
MacGimmick: Yep, I made it out of a 1990 Lincoln Continental!
Woman: You should buy a real motorcycle! You could probably make it into a great skateboard!
Woman: A friend gave me your name but they didn't tell me who you work for.
MacGimmick: I work for the The Phonex Agency! It's a top secret organization!
Woman: Really? Who funds it? Who pays your salary?
MacGimmick: Sorry, those are the TOP TWO SECRETS!
Woman: That's where I work, Fraud Fruit Exporters.
MacGimmick: Is there a night watchman?
Woman: Yes, and that's another suspicious thing! The night watchman works 9 to 5 just like the rest of us!
Woman: Now I'll show you around inside!
MacGimmick: Wait! Watch this! I take an ordinary stick and a piece of rusty metal! Eyeballing the lock, I start to whittle a key!
Woman: But I have the key!
MacGimmick: Good! Give it to me! Whittling will go much faster if I use the actual key as a guide to make my copy!
MacGimmick: On second thought, we'll have to climb inside!
Woman: We wouldn't have to if you didn't screw up the lock with that stupid wooden key!
MacGimmick: I'll cut the wires to the burglar alarm!
Woman: Hold it! Wait! That's not --
Woman: I'm trying to tell you -- there is no burglar alarm! You cut the wires to the company's electric supply!
MacGimmick: I knew that!! It was merely a clever ploy for me to use my entire body as a flashlight! Now I can see the window clearly!
Woman: Look! Last year on sales of $1 million, we cleared a profit of 42 million dollars!
MacGimmick: God, I'd love to have your accountant do my taxes!
Woman: I'll tell him! He'll be eligible for parole in about ten years!
MacGimmick: There! I made a hole in the wall with this forklift so we can get to the the shipping dock!
Woman: You go through the hole you made! I'll just use this unlocked door that leads to the same place!
MacGimmick: "The Horizon sails tonight at midnight!?" Humm ... it must be some sort of code!
Woman: See that big ship over there? It's named the Horizon! It sails at midnight!
MacGimmick: Hey -- you broke the code! You're my kind of woman!
MacGimmick: We've got to catch your boss red-handed! We'll get a foreigner to pose as the president of a third-world nation who wants to buy illegal weapons! But we have to work fast!
Woman: Where can we find a foreigner at this time of night?!
MacGimmick: Easy! We'll call a New York cab! I haven't gotten in one yet that wasn't driven by a foreigner!
Woman: My boss is on his way!
MacGimmick: And I've briefed the cabbie on exactly how to act!
Woman: MacGimmick, people may believe you can make a car into a motorcycle, but asking them to believe you can turn a cab driver into a president is really pushing it!
Boss: I'm happy to meet you, Mr. President! Exactly how much are you willing to pay for 1,000 of these guns for your little country of Absurdo?
Cabbie: My country is prepared to pay you fifty thousand dollars!
Boss: $50,000?? That's all?
Cabbie: No, $50,000 plus tip!
Boss: Tip? What are you talking about?
Cabbie: Er ... $50,000 for you, and a $5,000 tip to your secretary for arranging the deal!
Boss: Agreed! Do you have a ship to pick up the guns?
Cabbie: No! I'll take them back to my country in my cab!
Boss: Cab?!!
Cabbie: I'll have to make several trips!
MacGimmick: Okay, the game is up, slimeball! Put up your hands!
Woman: MacGimmick, how can you threaten him with a yardstick?!
MacGimmick: It's a yardstick now, but in 20 minutes, I could make this into a death-dealing sword!
Boss: There's no need for violence! I assure you, this is an honest operation!
MacGimmick: Really? How come every case I've opened contains a few dozen oranges and the rest is guns and ammunition?
Boss: The orange business is slow! We give the guns and ammunition away as "premiums"!
Woman: Why did you let us all get caught?
MacGimmick: Escaping is the only fun I have! Once, I was tied up down on the docks and I cut the lines with a swordfish!
Woman: Do you have a swordfish now?
MacGimmick: No, but I was able to reach a tuna salad sandwich someone left from lunch! Cutting the ropes with it may take a bit longer than the swordfish did, but I know I can make it work! Say, did I ever tell you how I once made a jet plane out of a frisbee? Of course, it could only seat two people!
MacGimmick: We're free of the ropes, but we're locked in! What in the world can we use to get out?
Woman: MacGimmick, we're in a room full of guns, bombs and explosives and you ask "What can we use?"
MacGimmick: Oh, okay, but I hate doing this! Image me -- MacGimmick -- sinking so low on the "creative escape meter" that I use explosives as explosives!
MacGimmick: That creep won't be selling guns anymore!
Woman: But how exactly did he get caught?
MacGimmick: I don't know! I don't sweat the little details!
MacGimmick: Sadie, you aren't going to be safe now that you ratted on your boss! Even with him in jail he can manage to get back at you!
Pete: You're going to have to get into our relocation program. We'll get you a good job, you'll make good money, but you'll just get lost in the mass of nameless faces and faceless names!
Woman: Does your relocation plan really work?
Pete: I'll say! Our last informer is currently going under the name of Dan Quayle!
Pete: MacGimmick, for your many years of loyal service to the Phonex Foundation, we'd like to present you with this 24 Karat gold Rolex watch!
MacGimmick: Wow! Thanks! Hey, I can smash the crystal, pull off the hands, knock out the works and make this into a neat sundial that I can tell time with!
