Mad Magazine. Who Loved It As A Kid? (Or An Adult)

I used to read it in the early 80's. Used to love their takes on movies, etc. Some really funny stuff. I still have a few. I think I have a issue that features a parody Superman II.

Pat

 

I LOVE MAD!!



My Dad was a huge fan from when it began, and turned me onto it in the 70s. By the 80s i was buying every issue and still have them all..right up to about 2002. I stopped buying them for a few years, then about 5 years ago i picked up a 'Harry Potter' issue and was stunned to see MAD was now in full color. I was equally stunned to see REAL adverts inside too..w0w! Needless to say, it just did not have the same spunk...and i gave it a couple more issues chance to impress me but it was plain as day MAD was a different creature now.

I still read those piles of old mags. The artwork by Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee, along with Sergio always impressed and entertained me the most. I loved all the hidden details ( light years before the 'Where's Waldo' concept came around) and the satire was right on target. Absolutely hilarious stuff they got away with...and some damn clever observations too.

I still love MAD, but on MAD from the past.

 

I read it quite a bit in the mid 70s as a kid and really loved it---"The Lighter Side of _____________", "the TV show parodies ("Little House Oh So Dreary"), movie parodies ("Saturday Night Feeble"); it's amazing how I can still remember some of it word for word.

Mad Magazine did have a lasting effect on my sense of humor---to this day, I still use some of their terminology, like referring to the airport as the "airplot", after one of their run-downs.

When I bought it, it was 50 cents (Cheap), and near the end had gone up to 75 cents. I also bought a few of the paperback books, which I guess were compilations of stuff from prior years.

 

It was perhaps the earliest example of what is now considered "modern humor", I loved it as a kid in the late 60's and early 70's but then graduated to "National Lampoon" and never looked back...

As a parent now, I must I admit I enjoy "The Lighter Side Of..." from a whole different perspective.

 

Do they still do the fold-in thing on the last page?

 

Same here. I was a huge fan of Mad from about 1968-72. I bought my first National Lampoon around 72 or 73 and that changed my interests.

Mark

 

I used to read as a kid in the '60's. Even today I can remember some of the movie and tv parodies like I Spy, The Sand Pebbles, etc. I like stuff like how to spot a MAD non-conformist, or snappy answers to stupid questions (i.e. guy in car wreck; "Have an accident?", "No thanks, already had one.")

And titles like "Don Martin Drops 13 Stories".

 

If you want to sample some of the roots of this humor, check out Fred Allen radio show recordings. Their are many samples and complete Mp3s on OTR sites. Allen did film and radio show satires. Perhaps the best filmed example of his wit is in his film, It's in the Bag (similar plot the Mel Brooks' Twelve Chairs). He once did a satire of faddish Husband and Wife celebrity morning radio shows, lampooning how they name-dropped every sponsor's product that is truly side-splitting. She: "It cuts wash day in half". He: "It cuts everything in half".

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Gaines was a Fred Allen fan.

 

60's Kid here and I lived for "The Lighter Side Of'

I'll always remember that free 45 they put out of "She Got A Nose Job"

 

Classic!

 

When it went to 30 cents an issue, it was "KINDA CHEAP".

 

Me sir! Still waiting for the CD remaster of that one.

Got to visit the MAD offices in 1977 and be shown around (after hours) by the late Jerry DeFuccio. Vividly recall him stating that most of the talent worked for MAD because they loved it, since apparently they were paid little for their efforts.

 

I loved Mad Magazine as a kid and couldn't wait for every new issue. Along with Marvel Comics, Mad Magazine plus Creepy and Eerie made me want to be an artist.

Remember those fold in back cover gags?

 

I loved it as a kid. My cousin gave me a stack of back issues & I was hooked!

I think some of the stuff in the newer ones is pretty funny.

 

Read it through the 80's as a kid, and was buying vintage issues from a local used book store dating back through the early 1970's. Wore them out just as with the "modern" issues, for which now I totally regret it!

 

Loved it as a kid. Haven't seen a new one in a very long time.

 

If you can get used to reading MAD on your computer, this is a handy item to have.

http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-MA...MQ64/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294108334&sr=8-1

 

I bought each issue for several years in the early 70s when I was in junior high and early high school. My father would always make a stop at Lawson's for several bottles of milk on Sundays (remember those you N.E. Ohio people?). I would go in with him looking for a new release of Mad, and be very excited when I could go home with a new one to read that day.

I think they are all stored somewhere at my parent's house, unless they or I got rid of some of them for space along the way. The issues that stick out in my mind as really fun at the time were the Poseidon Adventure issue, and the Kung Fu issue.

That magazine always gave me many hours of entertainment.

 

I also bought Mad in the 60's and 70's then graduated to National Lampoon. I collected the original MAD comic reproductions and I still have those but nothing else. Every so often I go and read them and laugh...

 

+1

 

Loved it as a kid through late teens. (50's through late 60's)

 

I have an earlier version of that CD-Rom in post #42 and I read through the ENTIRE thing. It definitely peaked in the '60s-'70s. Max Brandel doesn't seem to be remembered too well because he wasn't there for long, but his stuff was really, really good. Also liked Don Martin and Sergio Aragones and all those guys but Max Brandel seems really underrated and forgotten now and it's too bad.

In the '80s there was an upswing in "gross-out" humor, probably trying to keep up with the rise of the teen movies, also Don Martin left in the late '80s After Gaines died in 1992 the humour also became a lot meaner It's now down to five issues a year and I'm not sure how much longer it will last... I don't think, in the age of Youtube and free streaming episodes of shows like South Park, that many kids these days would be very interested in shelling out for a magazine like this.

I can't find what issue it's in now but there was a stereo guide published circa the early '70s (by Al Jaffee I think?) that I bet a lot of forumites here would get a kick out of

 

I think it was earlier than that, judging by the equipment and that they never say "stereo". Looks more like early 1960's. Files too large to post as attachments, so I put them here.

http://www.desideratijams.com/mad/

Does that CD include the early comic-book style Mad magazines?

 

I too remember Mad's heyday from the 1960's-'70's and up to the '80's, and was once a subscriber in fact. I would have to concur that it's been on a downward slope ever since Bill Gaines' death. (Incidentally, it's now part of the Time Warner empire, a trajectory that began with National Periodical Publications' [later DC Comics] acquisition of the magazine in the 1960's.)

Also . . . a few of Mad's writing "usual gang of idiots" worked on the TV side, including four (Stan Hart, Larry Siegel, Arnie Kogen and Gary Belkin) who at varying times were among the writing staff of The Carol Burnett Show (which in many ways was many times funnier than the later MADtv series); plus another (Dick DeBartolo) who was listed in the credits of several 1970's Goodson/Todman game shows including Match Game '7__. And that's not counting illustrator Sergio Aragones' animations for TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes.

 

It was a gas.