1969 was a busy year for bikers. Of course, there was Woodstock, a lot of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and the death of Meredith Hunter during a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Raceway in California, as detailed in the 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter.

However, In May of that year the groundbreaking independent film Easy Rider hit the silver screen, after a successful debut at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Many a young wannabe’s imaginations were fired by the fever-dream vision of two riders aboard gleaming Harley-Davidson panhead choppers, balling through the Desert Southwest in search of America, or comely hippie chicks, or wisdom, or New Orleans hookers, or freedom, or a safe place to park their scooters and enjoy the proceeds of their big drug score.

After a two-hour pilot movie broadcast on March 24th, 1969, the weekly series Then Came Bronson debuted on December 10th of that year, just four days after the tragedy at Altamont. The lead character was loosely based on journalist and former Hells Angel Birney Jarvis, mentioned in Hunter S. Thompson’s 1960s book about California’s outlaw motorcycle clubs. After the suicide of a friend, James ‘Jim’ Bronson quits his job as a newspaper reporter and hits the road aboard his mildly customized Harley-Davidson Sportster. The opening scene features Bronson’s iconic exchange with a weary commuter in a station wagon, as they idle side-by-side at a red light.

For reasons too numerous and convoluted to delve into in this entry, both the series and film continue to resonate with riders today. I may discuss all that in a later post. However, today is for fun; specifically, the parodies of both motorcycle-themed works in a single issue of the humor magazine called MAD.

The June, 1970, issue featured a cover by artist Jack Davis (who also illustrated the comic-book style cover of pop group Sailcat’s Motorcycle Mama album, posted below), which shows film actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, alongside Bronson star Michael Parks and MAD‘s very own avatar, Alfred E. Neuman of ‘What, Me Worry?’ fame.

The Easy Rider piece had artwork by the inimitable Mort Drucker and a script by Larry Seigel. The Then Came Bronson pages included artwork by Angelo Torres and a script by Dick De Bartolo.

Here, then, in their entirety, are the moto-themed spoofs from the June, 1970, issue of MAD Magazine.

SLEAZY RIDERS

THEN CAME BOMBSOME

And there you have it! 😏

Sláinte!