Mad Magazine had an enormous influence on me. I especially remember their parodies of advertising where some clever wordsmithing turned awful reviews into glowing endorsements (such things like "I think it's best we buried this in the desert and never spoke of it again!" being shortened to "I think it's best...!"). They were the first time it occurred to my young mind that grownups could tell a lie without quite telling a lie, and it stuck with me forever.
Everyone involved with Mad, thank you. You permanently changed the way I look at the world, in ways that've made my life a lot better.
Same. It's almost incredulous to me there was a time you could go down to the local news stand and purchase some thing like Mad. Subversion on a mass scale. Aimed at basically elementary school kids.
A single highlight from Frank Jacobs epic career: 1976 "Keep on Trekkin'", A Mad Star Trek Musical ;)
A teacher took a look at my copy of Mad and lost her mind about “that filth” I was reading, and told my dad.
She didn’t know that one of my earliest memories was sitting on his lap while he read “Don Martin Drops 13 Stories” to me, with funny voices to make me laugh. Thanks, Dad. I passed the favor down to my own kids.
If some "Enterprising" souls want to turn this into a real-life musical they would probably be guaranteed an interesting cross-segment of Mad Magazine fans and Star Trek fans.
My favorite was a record single included with an issue that played a song but played with a differently every time (well up to eight times). Super Spectacular Day.
This is done by having multiple concentric grooves in the record. When you drop your needle on, it'll play one of the grooves which makes it seem randomly selected. Another example is Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief, which has two grooves on one side to make a "3-sided" record.
argh right, I said it right in the tweet I made with a closeup of that hand, I posted this after reading the article (and being stoned and distracted by the cats)
Everyone involved with Mad, thank you. You permanently changed the way I look at the world, in ways that've made my life a lot better.