MAD is an american light hearted magazine that was started by William Gaines, a long time ago, sometime in the 1950’s. A year later, the magazine adopted the idiotic Alfred. E. Neuman (of ’’what, me worry?’’ fame) and pretty soon became a household name.
MAD is the only name that is fitting for this outragous, hilarious magazine. (though the latest MADS are quite cheap and trashy and nothing at all like the older ones). MAD magazine’s staff were called ’’the usual gang of idiots’’ and I have sometimes wondered how in the world someone could be as creative as them to come up with the outrageous material found in the MAD magazines of yesteryears.
The style of humour in the magazine varied, from Don Martin’s complete nonsense style, to the more sensible and punch-line style of Dave Berg. (personally I laugh more at Don Martin’s cartoons). But what was unique about MAD magazine at the time was their ability to keep cracking jokes on themselves. Here is how they introduced Don Martin -
’’Well, we said to ourselves we need a new cartoonist, so we put out an ad, and it was answered by thousands of talented cartoonists.. we had a tough time deciding amongst them, then in walked a young talented fellow, who’s cartoons soon had us rolling on the floor in laughter. He was just right, and what we were looking for. We were convinced he was the right person. We could stop looking.
Unfortunately, his fees were too high and being tired, we decided to just hire the next fellow who walked in, unfortunately, that turned out to be DON MARTIN!’’
Most popular features in MAD’s are movie spoofs (Dumbo, Funny to shrink the kids, if you read this magazine, youd go BATS-MAN!, etc), A MAD look at - whatever , by Sergio Aragones, (Aragones has a character called the ’avenging oar’.. check him out, he is so wacky.. he’s the savior of the galley slaves, and always comes and beats up the fat guy who whips any of the slaves.. its really hilarious..), of course, Don Martin’s cartoons - which are the best feature of MAD (often ending in very violent ends for the subject, but funny nonetheless), and misc stuff by Jaffee, and the others. Intermittently peppered through the magazines (Especially the larger ones, not the book format) are quotes by Alfred. E. Neuman - ’’if thats a buoy then Im a gull’’. But the book formats were funnier, the newer versions of MAD are larger magazine style.
Some older MAD’s used to also have some material where the humour would be more like an essay rather than pictorial, and it was VERY good writing, almost Punch-like, and much more ’’clever’’ humour than say, Don Martin’s cartoons or Al Jaffee’s snappy answers. But those mads have all but disappeared.
I agree with those who say that the best years of MAD are past. Nobody can compete with guys like Martin and Jaffee. Sergio Aragones is in a league by himself. For best MAD’s, you should read the book versions of the 80’s and early 90’s, though I wonder where they’re available.