This `Clone' madly attacks funny bone

Leave it to the "usual gang of idiots" at Mad magazine to get worldwide publicity without really trying.

As you read this, countless Internet users are clicking their mice to view the Mad poster "Gulf Wars: Episode II -- Clone of the Attack."

It's modeled on the movie poster for "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones." But in Mad's version, a steel-jawed President Bush replaces Anakin Skywalker (the future Darth Vader), and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, with flowing tresses, stands in for Padme Amidala.

The humorous hybrid -- conceived by writers Arie Kaplan and Scott Sonneborn before becoming a group effort at the magazine -- parodies the Bush administration's de facto determination to go to war with Iraq.

Maybe 250,000 readers originally saw the foldout poster in the magazine's December issue, say Mad senior editors Charlie Kadau and Joe Raiola.

But they have no idea how many more people -- hundreds of thousands? millions? -- have since viewed the satiric image online, even though it has never appeared on Mad's official Web site, madmag.com (not true - here's the link: www2.warnerbros.com/madmagazine/files/onthestands/ots_424/gulfwars.html. Of course, you can see the fine print better right here).

"For us this is in a class by itself in terms of the response that it's gotten," Raiola said from New York. "The thing is ubiquitous.

"My guess is this works almost like a chain letter. I know I (e-mailed) it to a handful of friends, and apparently a bunch of the editors sent it to a bunch of friends. And they sent it to friends, who sent it to friends who sent it to friends.

"It's the Internet world, man. It's 21st-century. Things catch on fast. But it can only happen because the image and material clearly strike a nerve. This is something that people care about."

And, however anxiously, laugh about.

"Coming Soon!" the poster announces over intersecting head shots of Bush and Rice. Co-starring are Vice President Dick Cheney, in place of Jedi master Yoda, as well as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, standing in for droids C-3PO and R2-D2. The president's father, who was president during America's first war with Iraq, supplants Jedi good guy Obi-Wan Kenobi, while Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein replaces brutal bounty hunter Jango Fett.

Why no cease-and-desist from Mad's lawyers regarding online piracy? For one thing, the online version of the poster still says `Mad magazine' on it, the editors say. For another, it's too late.

"More and more the way the culture responds is online," Raiola said. "So it's not in our interest to try to clamp down on this."

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Kadau said.

In that spirit, just type "Mad Magazine Clone of the Attack" into an Internet search engine. You'll be greeted with a panoply of Web sites showing the poster, which also declares that the nonexistent film is presented by "The Bush Administration in association with The Other Bush Administration."

"Obviously we have cast this whole thing as a Star Wars movie," Raiola said. "But one of the reasons it works so well is because there is a real pathos to it. It is absurd, obviously. But it really is striking the way all these people fit into this fictional world."

The editors pooh-pooh any notion that Mad is predisposed to criticize the Bush administration. In its 50-year history, the world's most famous humor magazine has poked fun at every American president.

"I guess we could be accused of having a cynical view," Raiola said. "When you see a `coming attraction,' the movie's already made."

Or is it?

"At the bottom of the poster, it says, `The success of this military action has not yet been rated,' " Kadau said. "So you could take that either way."