MAD Magazine lost it's luster with the demise of William Gaines and I canceled my subscription of some 20 years shortly after. It just wasn't so funny any more.
I'm in my 70s...in the 6th grade, a friend and I initiated "The MAD fan club." We'd devour every issue and then use the club as an excuse to have our moms take us to movies and such. So yeah, of a certain age (and certain mindset), MAD was once huge.
p.s., on the Substack/Twitter question. It's time to pull the plug on Twitter...
I loved this, Tommy. MAD was my go-to for transgressive humor when I was a kid. Considering my path in life since then, my Mom was probably right to object. I spent much of my childhood in a four-room adobe on the high desert country of Northern New Mexico. No running water or indoor plumbing. No one else lived within two miles of me and my grandfather. But about once a week he'd fire up the old Dodge pickup and drive me into the nearest town, San Jon, where I'd load up on comics and score the latest issue of MAD. It was a delicious childhood and I loved every minute of it. Like Huck Finn but without a river. And MAD started a lifelong habit of irreverence, skepticism, and general smartassery. Thanks for reminding me.
Oh, I just remembered one of my favorites. A letter to the editor of a fictional newspaper complaining about the clues in their crossword puzzle. "REALLY? 29 Down - A Left-Handed, Herniated Hopi Indian?"
Thanks, Tommy. I was thinking about this one later (I have an innate tendency to look for the deepest meaning in almost everything) and I realized that MAD probably planted the seeds of my lifelong irreverence and my struggle with hypocrisy, virtue-signalling, poseurs of all stripes, and faux-seriousness. Certainly it prepped me for MAD's descendants - George Carlin, Richard Pryor, SNL (the early years), and certainly Monty Python. So much for allies. I am also deeply ambivalent about overwrought DEI statements - too White to object without being pilloried, too skeptical to accept them as serious statements of intent. I think I may have aged out of relevance.
Magazines...for me, it was Starlog and MAD Magazine whenever I went with my mom to the grocery store, and Sports Illustrated whenever I went to my dad's office. I remember talking my parents into a subscription to the late, great Inside Sports magazine. It was the one piece of mail in our box every month with my name, so I was the coolest kid on the block in my mind.
MAD Magazine lost it's luster with the demise of William Gaines and I canceled my subscription of some 20 years shortly after. It just wasn't so funny any more.
I'm in my 70s...in the 6th grade, a friend and I initiated "The MAD fan club." We'd devour every issue and then use the club as an excuse to have our moms take us to movies and such. So yeah, of a certain age (and certain mindset), MAD was once huge.
p.s., on the Substack/Twitter question. It's time to pull the plug on Twitter...
I loved this, Tommy. MAD was my go-to for transgressive humor when I was a kid. Considering my path in life since then, my Mom was probably right to object. I spent much of my childhood in a four-room adobe on the high desert country of Northern New Mexico. No running water or indoor plumbing. No one else lived within two miles of me and my grandfather. But about once a week he'd fire up the old Dodge pickup and drive me into the nearest town, San Jon, where I'd load up on comics and score the latest issue of MAD. It was a delicious childhood and I loved every minute of it. Like Huck Finn but without a river. And MAD started a lifelong habit of irreverence, skepticism, and general smartassery. Thanks for reminding me.
Oh, I just remembered one of my favorites. A letter to the editor of a fictional newspaper complaining about the clues in their crossword puzzle. "REALLY? 29 Down - A Left-Handed, Herniated Hopi Indian?"
Thanks, Tommy. I was thinking about this one later (I have an innate tendency to look for the deepest meaning in almost everything) and I realized that MAD probably planted the seeds of my lifelong irreverence and my struggle with hypocrisy, virtue-signalling, poseurs of all stripes, and faux-seriousness. Certainly it prepped me for MAD's descendants - George Carlin, Richard Pryor, SNL (the early years), and certainly Monty Python. So much for allies. I am also deeply ambivalent about overwrought DEI statements - too White to object without being pilloried, too skeptical to accept them as serious statements of intent. I think I may have aged out of relevance.
I was a huge fan of SPORT magazine in my youth. My walls were plastered with its full-page photos.
Magazines...for me, it was Starlog and MAD Magazine whenever I went with my mom to the grocery store, and Sports Illustrated whenever I went to my dad's office. I remember talking my parents into a subscription to the late, great Inside Sports magazine. It was the one piece of mail in our box every month with my name, so I was the coolest kid on the block in my mind.