Created by The Usual Gang of Idiots
I‘m not exactly sure who wrote this (I’m assuming the usual gang of idiots), but this MAD Magazine spoof of 1970s detective shows (and TV Guide itself) is pretty much spot-on.
A long-haired, motorcycle-riding, deaf Trappist monk private eye?
Why not?
After all, this was the era of “gimmick detective shows” and the tube was jammed with assorted defective detectives, all clamoring for attention: there were fat dicks (Cannon), old dicks (Barnaby Jones), carless dicks (Harry O), blind dicks (Longstreet)Â and even smarmy Polish dicks from Boston (Banacek).
LONGSARGE would have fit right in, and if I’m not mistaken, they even gave him Longstreet‘s slot in the schedule, which would be opening up soon.
Very generous of them.
The preview of the show-that-never-was appeared as part of TV Guise, a 16-page insert in MAD Magazine Special Eight (and now that MAD’s almost gone isn’t every issue”special”?), back in 1972, just in time for the 1972-73 fall television season.
There was plenty of other lampooning going on in TV Guise, their send-up of the perennial coffee table fixture, of course. Not just with the previews of the upcoming shows that sounded just this side of implausible (The Even Newer Dick Van Dyke Show, The Skip Zbojniewicz Show, The Indoor Sportsman, etc.) but with their spin on the Guide’s long-running  Tele-Tripe column, which offered “inside info” on the TV biz.
It’s just a shame that the usual gang of idiots didn’t go all the way, with a few articles and some actual listings.
