This waiter looks like he could be straight out of the gag described by Dick DeBartolo in his Good Days and Mad - pages 177-178: "The last MAD trip Bill made was a cruise to Bermuda in the fall of 1991. By that time, the MAD trips had been opened up to include spouses for part of the tour, and on this trip, about forty MAD staffers, friends, and family members set sail on The Horizon. One evening while on deck, I was talking to a ship's officer, who said he was proud to have the MAD staff aboard. But he was especially proud, he added, that William M. Gaines was among us.



I recognized an opportunity, so I asked if he would like to play a practical joke on Gaines. He was very willing. I told him how much Bill loved the Marx Brothers and how he especially loved the overcrowded cabin scene in A Night at the Opera. I said I wanted to fill Bill's cabin with at least a hundred people. The officer asked me what I needed, and I told him, 'About four ship's mechanics with tool boxes, a half-dozen waiters with big trays of dishes, a lot of cleaning people with mops, brooms, vacuums...' et cetera. He agreed.



Now all this had to be carefully orchestrated, because you only get one chance to do something this elaborate! We got everyone assembled one deck above Bill's cabin. Annie had made sure that Bill was awake and was at least wearing underwear. (Thank God, he was!)



For openers, Duck Edwing and his beautiful wife, Cluck (yes, Duck and Cluck), entered 'just to visit.' Then about every ten seconds, someone knocked on the door and went in. After about ten MAD staffers were inside, we started sending the maids, engineers, and other ship's personnel, interspersed with more staffers. It took about two minutes for Gaines to figure out what was going on, and from that moment on, he laughed every time a new person came through the door. That night I managed to cram Bill's stateroom with about 150 people -- including a couple with a crying baby! Bill claimed this was his favorite practical joke ever, even though it was played on him."