Frank Jacobs

Franklin Jacobs (May 30, 1929 – April 5, 2021) was an American author of satires, known primarily for his work in <a href="/facts/Mad_(magazine)/TToM29us">Mad</a>, to which he contributed from 1957 to 2014. Jacobs wrote a wide variety of lampoons and spoof, but was best known as a versifier who contributed <a href="/facts/Parodies/xDs59sgV">parodies</a> of famous song lyrics and poems. In 2009, Jacobs described himself as "the least-known writer of hysterical light verse in the United States."
In 2021, musical parodist <a href="/facts/%2522Weird_Al%2522_Yankovic/Gt08t8m1">"Weird Al" Yankovic</a> told the <a href="/facts/Washington_Post/dRvzvqJc">Washington Post</a>, “I absolutely devoured every issue [of Mad], and Frank Jacobs was a big reason for that obsession. I can’t swear that Frank’s work was my first-ever exposure to the art form of parody, but it was definitely the first time I had seen the craft approached with that much skill, wit and attention to detail. Frank laid out the template for me — he irrevocably changed my DNA.”
Jacobs appeared in the sixth chapter of <a href="/facts/PBS/E6q9udH8">PBS</a>' comedy documentary, Make 'em Laugh: The Funny Business of America singing "Blue Cross", his own 1961 parody of <a href="/facts/Irving_Berlin/YpcSvmam">Irving Berlin</a>'s "<a href="/facts/Blue_Skies_(Irving_Berlin_song)/lUKNzXXH">Blue Skies</a>". That lyric was one of 25 that were the subject of <a href="/facts/Berlin_v._E.C._Publications%2c_Inc./8tlpL0Yf">Berlin v. E.C. Publications, Inc.</a>, a precedent-setting case that was appealed to the <a href="/facts/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States/rJHothwW">Supreme Court</a> and helped to define the boundaries of <a href="/facts/Parody/xDs59sgV">parody</a> in American law.

Frank Jacobs open-in-new

Frank Jacobs