What an Obscure Reference

Here I'm moving on to something I hope will become a regular thing for my blog: "What an Obscure Reference." If you hadn't noticed already from my long, long post about young heroes from the 90's, I enjoy really obscure and small-time comic characters. I enjoy wasting valuable time by researching them. Everyone knows about Wolverine, but How many people know about Mad-Dog? That's who todays "What an Obscure Reference" is about: Mad-Dog. Now to clarify for my fellow super geeks, I'm not talking about the Mad-Dog who was married to Hellcat and became a villain. I'm also not talking about the DC character who appeared in Batgirl. I'm talking about a character who came out of a sitcom starring Bob Newhart.

This all started one rainy day that prompted me to flip through myMarvel Comics collection. eventually I stopped at an issue that had always sort of puzzled me since I was a kid. It was Mad-Dog #1 and it intrigued me for a number of reasons. First, it was a double story issue with a cover for each of its sides. The first cover showed Mad-Dog as a vicious, long-haired vigilante with claws and an overcoat. If you flipped the issue over to its back you'd get another cover (the image above) which riffed off of Batman covers from the 1950's. I thought this was interesting and could mean that Mad-Dog was a character Marvel revived from the 1950's. Another mystery was the fact that Mad-Dog had the logos of two comic companies. The first, obviously, was Marvel, but the second was an imprint that said: ACE Comics. I'd never heard of ACE Comics before and a google search for them came up with jack. Finally, two indicators from the book led me to my answer. The first was the supposed creators name: Bob McKay. The second was a claim on the back cover which stated: "Based on the character from the hit TV series BOB." With a bit more googling and some help from imdb.com I solved the mystery of Mad-Dog.

"BOB" was a sitcom from 1992 starring legendary comedic actor Bob Newhart. In it Newhart played an artist named Bob McKay who created a superhero in the 1950's called Mad-Dog. McKay's Mad-Dog was a veternarian by day who would become the Batman-esque Mad-Dog to fight usually animal related crime with his faithful sidekick, dog, and receptionist. One of the show's plot points was that the comic company (ACE Comics) that picked up McKay and Mad-Dog since its fade in the '50's wanted to revamp the characterinto a Liefeld-era gritty vigilante (because if there's one thing the 90's lacked it was that). McKay, however, wanted to keep his character classic and wholesome (like the prudish 50's itself). I guess Marvel Comics made a deal with the show and agreed to do a six issue mini-series that would contain stories with both classic Mad-Dog (claiming McKay to be the artist/writer) and badass Mad-Dog. The miniseries ended and, without even having gone through two full seasons, "BOB" was canceled (despite having the acting power of future Marci X, Lisa Kudrow).

How was the comic itself? Well, the intense 90's version was your run-of-the-mill intense 90's comic. Mad-Dog with his flowing hair and seedy overcoat beat up a bunch of thugs who kind of resembled my Uncle Randy

because they were harassing the kind, innocent patrons of a Chicago gas station. Highlights of the battle include Mad-Dog hilariously closing a dude's head in a car door and sneering. The '50's Mad-Dog story was actually a little more interesting. Mad-Dog fends off an invasion of Martian cats by helping their leader pass a hairball. Yup...Anyway, with the TV studio probably owning the rights to Mad-Dog it's unlikely we'll ever see him again. Yet he will always live in our hearts as a bizzare deal between Marvel comics and failing prime time television.