Sad day. Mad magazine, Monty Python and Sledgehammer went a long way to forming my sense of humour.
Many of MAD’s film parodies were inspired.
This, from the first MAD magazine I bought when I was a kid:
I read MAD a bunch when I was a kid/teen. I even had the privilege of access to a fair number of issues from the 70s due to my uncle being an avid buyer of comics and magazines of that sort when he was a teen. Looking back I don’t think I ever fully grasped some of the political or social humor in play, but really enjoyed every issue I got my hands on.
MADTV was also a bit too short-lived. They certainly had some inspired moments, though…
So true, here’s one of my faves…
ahhhh…I got my first proto-boner as a kid while reading Mad magazine. Barely concealed boobs, probably. Sorry to see the end of things but it was a helluva a run. What,me worry?
Back in the 60s and 70s, I read MAD as often as I could afford to buy another issue with my $0.50 weekly allowance. MAD introduced me to the idea that funny things weren’t limited to knock-knock jokes or Gilligan’s Island. Funny things could also be satire, and used as social commentary or a political weapon. And they also taught me that there didn’t have to be limits on what they would lambaste. They were happy to grind sacred cows into quarter-pounders, and then rail on McDonald’s for profiting from them!
This was in an era when school, church, and society were busy telling me how important someone like the President was, and how we automatically assumed that our leaders were deserving of our respect, almost as if they were divinely ordained. MAD was a counterbalance in my life. They were at their best when they were telling me that we were being led by liars, cheats, and thieves. They made me uncomfortable reading them while I still believed in the schoolhouse version of events, until I finally learned what “question authority” really meant.
So yes, I weep for the current generation who won’t have MAD, and who get their “news” from Facebook; slanted and doubly reinforced by their friends’ insipid viewpoints, Zuck’s doublethink policies, and corporate advertisers. Too many of them are already becoming nothing but dullards who not only don’t think for themselves, but actively refuse to do so.
R.I.P., Alfred E. Newman. But not for too long, because we still need you.
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