Why do international supply chains suddenly feel like a reboot of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” or a blood sport version of “The Amazing Race”?

For those who haven’t witnessed the former, it’s a 1963 gargoyle of a movie. I say “witnessed” because you don’t exactly “watch” “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” You may like it. You may hate it. But you can only stare agape as it passes by. The film starred everybody — and I mean everybody — from Spencer Tracy to Ethel Merman to Mickey Rooney, with The Three Stooges thrown in for no apparent reason.

The plot centers around a dozen characters chasing a buried fortune in California, and the slapstick hijinks that ensue. Scarcely any mode of transportation goes untapped, including a biplane, a fire truck and a banana peel.

Which brings us to the current supply chain madcappery. Scads of stakeholders are jockeying desperately for the cheapest path to get everything from MyPillow to My Little Pony to Mylanta to global ports of choice before anybody else.

Take Panama. (Please.) Mother-in-law Nature has given this Central American linchpin an indefinite timeout. The Little Isthmus That Couldn’t is in the midst of a drought even by dry season standards, so the number of ships that can take the shortcut via the Panama Canal from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and thence to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic is way down. Instead, the luckless mariners get to watch whales or sea turtles or something on an extended excursion down the western coast of South America and around Tierra del Fuego before doing an about-face like an Arctic tern and chugging up to Nova Scotia, Florida and all points in between.

This continent-size diversion has ocean carriers lounging in Jacuzzis full of unexpected, rate-driven cash and everybody else crying, “Holy schnikes! How much are those Nikes?!” (For the record, Tierra del Fuego means “Land of Fire.” That’s a funny name for a place where penguins roam, if you ask me.)

Not to be outdone are the latest aggravations courtesy of the always aggravating Middle East. Seeing ships trek nervously from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean or vice versa via the Suez Canal while dodging missile-lobbing, drone-happy Houthis in Houthiville is no fun for the average shipper whose wares stand a fair chance of being pirated. So, they get the pleasure of watching helplessly as the ships route far south around Africa’s Cape of Good Night I Hope This Doesn’t Get Any More Expensive.

Purported solutions to this fine kettle of corn draw reactions ranging from a solid “Maybe” to “Let’s not and say we did.”