# Any Mad magazine readers out there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 5, 2012, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966 "2012-05-05T07:19:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/41 "2012-05-06T16:09:20Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Charlie, the milkman > Is the biggest slob in town! > Never leaves the quarts you’ve ask him for, > When he does, they’re upside-down! I can’t remember the second verse, about Harry the mailman, but the rest is: Eleven months throughout the year, they’re slothful as can be But starting in December, they show great efficiency, then Charlie and Harry, show they’re really full of zip And they’ll work that way, every doggone day Til they get their Christmas tip ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/42 "2012-05-06T16:13:59Z")
My MAD magazine period was early to mid-nineties, but I was definitely obsessed. Like one of the posters above, I credit MAD with a lot of my critical thinking skills, but also with most of my older pop culture knowledge. I was always trying to chase down back issues, and buying the books and collections. To this day, I’ve never seen Love Story or All in the Family, but I’ll never forget their parodies (which introduced me to theatrical truism like “the heroine who gets more beautiful as she’s dying” disease). ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/43 "2012-05-06T16:33:24Z")
Anyone remember J. Edgar Hoover doing Gilbert & Sullivan? > [@](#): > > \*I am the very model of a modern criminologist, > My instinct for survival would intrigue an anthropologist. > For more than forty years I’ve clung to my official residence, > Outlasting Walter Lippman, not to mention seven presidents! > > But rather than remove me from my post proprietorial,\* \* > They’d rather take a hammer to the Jefferson Memorial. > It’s known, you see, I’ve got the goods on Congressmen and Senators, > Including information on their children and progenitors!\* That’s entirely from memory - it is amazing what a stash of useless information I have tucked away back in the shadowy recesses of my head. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/44 "2012-05-06T16:36:24Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > …they were absolutely forbidden in my household, along with Playboys, The Realist, Rock & Roll, Jazz, and anything else that smacked of _The Devil,_ who we all know is lurking _everywhere_ to corrupt the flower of our nation’s youth. > > So I had to hide my record and magazine collection from parental eyes. My dad had a strict “no comics of any kind” policy, probably influenced by the EC Comics/juvenile delinquency hearings in the 1950s. I remember him finding the issue with Batman and Robin on the cover and tearing it up. After that I had to devise extreme hiding places for my MAD magazines, which came in handy later on when I started reading more “adult” material. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/45 "2012-05-06T17:44:36Z")
In contrast to my home environment (see above), I had a high school teacher who thought that MAD was good for English Literature. She said you couldn’t understand a Shakespeare or Chaucer parody if you didn’t know the original, and she often read MAD in class to illustrate. The MADs she read in class were confiscated from students. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/46 "2012-05-06T18:01:11Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > In contrast to my home environment (see above), I had a high school teacher who thought that MAD was good for English Literature. She said you couldn’t understand a Shakespeare or Chaucer parody if you didn’t know the original, and she often read MAD in class to illustrate. > > The MADs she read in class were confiscated from students. 🙂 In that same spirit here’s the first hit I found on the MAD parody of [I Wandered Lonely as a Clod](http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1-general-topics/f5-general-discussion-news-members/f1167-off-topic/66549-axolotl-poetry.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/47 "2012-05-06T18:41:08Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > I just recently bought the entire mad collection on computer CD. Has every magazine up to issue 500. > > I’ve read from number 1 to about number 348 in a month’s time. Seems to still be just as funny when it first started. > > Anyone else a fan? How do they reproduce the fold-ins? Do they show the before and after? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/48 "2012-05-06T19:12:54Z")
My Dad bought me my first Mad magazine, sometime in the late 70s (I guess I would have been around 9 or 10). For the next few years after that, Mad was generally my go-to purchase whenever I was at a store with a magazine rack and had any extra spending money. I’m pretty sure Mad magazine was a major influence on both my sense of humor and my view of the adult world and popular culture. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/49 "2012-05-06T19:25:02Z")
My mom’s rule was that anytime we saw a new issue of \* Mad\* she would buy it for us. I love my mom. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/50 "2012-05-06T20:09:39Z")
I grew up through the 1960s and 70s, so _of course_ I grew up reading Mad Magazine. While I haven’t looked at one for a long time, I remember it very fondly. About 15 years ago I picked up a copy of _Bedside Mad_ at a secondhand book store, and I still have it. I think it was just about the first ever _Mad_ paperback book, and it includes a couple of the earliest movie parodies–“Hah! Noon” and “The Cane Mutiny”. Among other things there are additional items that hearken back to the magazine’s comic-horror roots, and a delightful take on _Robinson Crusoe_, which everyone either read in school, or was supposed to have read. The _RC_ story (“RC” to use the license plate of his handmade automobile) includes what is probably the earliest _Dragnet_ spoof, for his man Friday turns out to be _that_ Friday. I had the book when I was a kid, too, but lost it somewhere along the way. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/51 "2012-05-06T21:53:52Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > How do they reproduce the fold-ins? Do they show the before and after? They do have the before and after; the actual “folding” is animated. There’s an early one featuring the Beatles that doesn’t work because it folds diagonally. I have the earlier 7-CD set. ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/52 "2012-05-07T15:53:06Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > I just recently bought the entire mad collection on computer CD. Has every magazine up to issue 500. > > I’ve read from number 1 to about number 348 in a month’s time. Seems to still be just as funny when it first started. > > Anyone else a fan? Fan since 67. Used to collect the mags, books, etc. They still make me laugh. Quality humor will do that. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/53 "2012-05-07T16:12:12Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > They do have the before and after; the actual “folding” is animated. There’s an early one featuring the Beatles that doesn’t work because it folds diagonally. > > I have the earlier 7-CD set. The DVD edition I have has the folded version as a separate PDF that appears when you click on the unfolded version. The diagonal Beatles page naturally works properly on this one. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/54 "2012-05-08T03:12:23Z")
My brother has some of the oldest ones, in comic book format. They still have an edge 60ish years later. An “ad”: ## _Live alligators! Surprise your friends! Or your enemies_ A puzzle page parodied rebuses [E. g., (picture of a cat) + SUP = CATSUP] One puzzle showed not just plus signs and minus signs, but also multiplication and division. Along with impossible-to-identify drawings looking like machine parts. ## The solution read: _By golly, we’re still trying to figure this one out ourselves_ Yet another puzzle page showed variations on the “What’s wrong with this picture” theme. One such had people listening to a TV and watching a radio, etc. The solution read: “A better question would be, what’s right with this picture?” The most memorable clue in the picture was a newspaper headline reading, _Liberace Wins by KO in 9th_ ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/55 "2012-05-08T03:26:41Z")
I wish there was a big slick book of all the original comic book _Mads_. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/56 "2012-05-08T04:33:06Z")
I remember once (I believe in the 50’s or early 60’s) they ran a very precient parody ad for a weight loss system called Nu-Mal Nutrition: "It has no harmful chemicals to hurt you. It has no bothersome hormones to mess up your system. It simply knocks you unconscious for days on end." Man, would that stuff sell today. I always smile whenever I see weight loss commercials now. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966/57 "2012-05-08T07:21:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I wish there was a big slick book of all the original comic book Mads. There is. The four volume Mad Archives set. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mad-magazine-readers-out-there/620966.md?page=2)