A
Good Thing gone horribly wrong.
My first experience with Mad came ca. 1990 when my beloved aunt brought us a large carton of back issues from the 60s and 70s—about a hundred magazines. And so I was introduced to the wonders of Alfred E. Neuman, Drawn-Out Dramas, Don Martin, potrzebie and all the rest.
I found much of the humor incomprehensible—I was about 8 years old, and lots of the jokes had to do with politics and culture that had happened several decades ago. However, these magazines were a rich educational resource for me (“Mom, what’s marry-jowna?”) and brought me hours of entertainment. My sister and I, using the dictionary as a reference, laboriously translated the Morse code that appeared on the page with the Spy Vs Spy cartoon. I don’t remember being at all disappointed that it only said, “By Prohias.”
In the early nineties, having read each antiquated issue several times, I bought a brand spankin’ new Mad magazine. I was quite excited at the prospect of reading my new purchase, but I was sorely disappointed at what I found within. Don Martin was gone, there were no jokes about hippies or Nixon, and perhaps worst of all, Spy Vs Spy was drawn by a different artist!
I have read perhaps three subsequent issues of Mad, each time becoming more and more disillusioned. The thing that finally did it for me happened in a video store when I noticed that they stocked Mad. Not having read an issue for several years and bored with standing in line, I felt a little surge of hope. Maybe the magazine had improved over the last few years, maybe it wasn’t really as bad as I remembered. I boldly picked up a copy and flipped open to a random page.
I should have known something was wrong when my eyes were jolted by the bright colors (color? In the middle of the magazine, not relegated to the fold-in where it belongs?) and my fingers felt the glossy slickness of the pages. However, I foolishly plowed on and turned the page. And there it was, a screaming full-page abomination: An advertisement. An actual, serious ad for a real product. Stunned, I scanned the page for a few seconds, searching, praying for the punch line, the irony, even sarcasm. There was none. I felt ill.
I have no idea what happened to that carton of old magazines my aunt so generously bestowed upon my family. Maybe my parents still have it somewhere in their attic, maybe I’ll go find it someday and spend a few hours feeling nostalgic for a time period that was over before I was born. And maybe now, I’ll understand more of the jokes.