WashPost Columnist Can’t Mourn MAD Magazine Without Trashing Trump – IOTW Report

WashPost Columnist Can’t Mourn MAD Magazine Without Trashing Trump

Sunday, 7 July 2019, 13:00 MJA Uncategorized 36

Newsbusters:

What, Me Worry?

Or perhaps: What, Me Worry About “World’s Oldest Seventh-Grader?”

Why can’t someone mourn the imminent demise of Mad magazine without a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome? Such was the case with Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle on Friday. Instead of concentrating on Alfred E. Newman, poor Von Drehle just couldn’t get his mind off of You-Know-Who. 

At least he made a good start writing about the topic before his TDS took him on a bizarre tangent in “Mad magazine’s demise is part of the ending of a world.”

My own middle-school years in the early 1970s coincided with the peak of Mad’s influence and circulation. Two million people bought the magazine in those days, and even on a 50-cent weekly allowance, it was worth 40 cents. The “usual gang of idiots” (as Mad referred to its stable of contributors) included a number of supremely talented caricaturists and gag writers alongside a few authentic geniuses.

…To be subversive, however, requires a dominant culture to subvert. Mad was the smart-aleck spawn of the age of mass media, when everyone watched the same networks, flocked to the same movies and saluted the same flag. Without established authorities, it had no reason for being. Like the kid in the back of the classroom tossing spitballs and making fart sounds, a journal of subversive humor is funny only if there’s someone up front attempting to maintain order.

Okay, so far so good. He has stayed on topic but then…the TDS attack happened and poor Von Drehle went far afield:

36 Comments on WashPost Columnist Can’t Mourn MAD Magazine Without Trashing Trump

  1. The first MAD I saw was the October 1962 issue. We started reading it regularly in 1964 and I read it regularly through about 1973.

    I have seen issues in the past few years but it did not have the charm it used to have — it was snarky for the sake of being snarky, which I don’t find entertaining.

    Either that or I am older.

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  2. OT: Trump is not happy (although inside his national pride is probably beaming) but the USA women just won the FIFA World Cup and Megan Rapinoe won the Golden Ball, the MVP of the entire tournament. Way to go, ladies, you rock.

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  3. I never read Mad, but I loved National Lampoon, some genius writers there.

    The funniest magazine cover ever;

    https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=lZARwKIq&id=CC5DE66F18CC5F1FF010E8884663637485B2B1BC&thid=OIP.lZARwKIqgkS2Yh5Hwpm77wHaJ4&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2foriginals%2f6e%2f34%2f04%2f6e340434575978becde15dab50f42d87.jpg&exph=1000&expw=750&q=National+Lampoon+cover+gun+at+dog&simid=607997068306156423&selectedIndex=3&ajaxhist=0

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  6. Rich Taylor — with the comments she has been making she could have tripped over her own feet and made a number of own-goals and she still would have been the MVP.

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  7. Yes, Mad took the nearly inevitable long dive of print media but was blocked from transposing itself onto the
    internet in large part due to the current batch of the
    “new generation” whateverers not having a sense of humor;
    just entitlement and discomfort at jokes unless they are
    humorless political stabs at evil, gun toting conservatives and Machavellian corporations (quietly run by socialists).

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  12. RadioMattM, there is a small element of truth in your hyperbolic comment. I watched every USA match and thought Rose Lavelle was more deserving, more integral to the game over game success of the team. But the goal scorers unfairly get all the plaudits.

    I know I’m in the minority here but I think it is unpatriotic to root against a national team because of the political opinions, loud and obnoxious as they are, of one or any of the players. We should be able to separate sports and our love of country from politics, just my opinion.

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  14. My earliest recollection of Mad Magazine was about 1958. My older brother brought it home and my parents chuckled over its advertisement parody for Salem cigarettes. The header was “Salem, Don’t Inhale ’em”, and showed some people trying to sail packs of Salem’s on a lake.

    Mad’s movie parodies were great, with excellent comic art by Jack somebody-or-other (can’t remember his last name). The movie “Bullet” became “Bull-bit”, for example.

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  15. in my teens, Mad was great. Nothing was sacred. The folding back cover was the first thing i went to as i browsed the magazine racks. I was one of six kids and we didnt have enough money to go around for things like mad so I would gently bend the back page to see the folded art. Had to be real careful so the drugstore didnt yell at me. And,thanks to RichTaylor for reminding me, National Lampoon replaced Mad. ‘Poon was incredibly funny when I was in my 20’s. (I had a job so i bought each issue)

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  16. IMHO the best Mads were the early ten-cent comic book version, in color. I remember how disappointed I was to see them change to the larger black-and-white magazine format in 1955. The corresponding increase in cover price to 25 cents was just insult to injury, as far as I was concerned.

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  17. @Rich Taylor

    But a few players did not separate their sport from politics. That caused the avalanche of criticism toward them. I would never have even noticed Rapinoe if she hadn’t said “Eff the White House” or whatever it was she said.

    Statements like that brought it into politics. I don’t like politics in sports but liberals are the culprits.

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  20. Mad was an ok satire magazine for it’s time and I read it. Until National Lampoon came out. It was THE subversive humour magazine that left no person, institution untorched. Great writing by great writers and had about 5 or 6 good years before it started going downhill. I still haunt used bookshops for copies.

    @Rich Taylor; I don’t think Trump gives a damn, in fact, the more Megan Rapinoe and her playmates bad-mouth the President the worse they look as representatives of the sport. He already disarmed most of her barbs by inviting the team win or lose to the Whitehouse. I’m sure some won’t show as they dance to the usual shrill anti-Trump tunes but some will show up and they’ll get a lot of attention from the President and the First Lady with a lot of press coverage enhancing their advertising opportunities and putting more money in their pockets.

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  22. @scr_north; Where Playboy magazine was polished, urbane, trendy, National Lampoon was vulgar, disheveled and brutal (and clearly superior), it was like the guys from Animal House decided to write a magazine. They ripped everyone and didn’t give a f#ck.

    Re: The USA women’s team, what I don’t want is for Trump to get all pouty and rescind the invite altogether, which he has done before. There is an enormous sense of pride for this team. Some have likened them to The Dream Team in US men’s basketball, which is patently ridiculous. But the nation will want a celebration, I want a WH invite.

    And if the team as a whole decide they don’t want to attend, let’s invite the under 14 boys team that beat the snot out of them 2 years ago, I’m sure they would love it.

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  23. Dick DeBartolo was another Artist Contributor to Mad for Years…He

    also had a really cool side gig as a Boat Tester for Powerboat

    Magazine ..Then later on became the Gadget Guru for said Magazine

    until it folded in 2012. For those of You that don’t follow

    High Performance Boating…PB was the #1 Boat Mag in the World !

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  24. Davis did the art work for the satire of Hogan’s Heroes. Those satires were not Davis’s forte. I always wondered if the guy who usually did the TV satires did not want to do that one so Davis stepped in. That one did not work, at least for me.

  25. Oh, Chevy Chase wrote something for MAD. I found a copy of that issue and sure enough, there was his name. That was before SNL was on.

    Somewhere I have a CD ROM of MAD from the beginning until about 2000.

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  28. “Spy” magazine was good as well. But since I’m the only one that remembers it I can see why it didn’t last long.

    You would think a guy would remember to put in his name, joe6pak.

  30. No Blushes, you might be thinking of spy vs spy, which is different from “Spy” magazine. I remember I was going to buy a Spy hat, but then I never saw the magazine again.

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  32. You can download every issue of Mad Magazine (from peer to peer file sharing sites) and never be able to read them all.

    I loved it too, especially when it roasted Hollywood movies, but it shifted to politics, and now I could care a less if it’s gone.

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  34. Just for the record, the cover artist of Mad, and the drawer of Afred E. Newman was Norman Mingo. “Mingo” always accompanied his cover art on Mad magazine.

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  35. I still have all my old Mad magazines from issue # 25 Sept. 1955 (the second Mad magazine after they dropped the comic book format) up into the mid 70s’s. I still love Don Martin, Mads maddest artist and they still crack me up to this day. The first Don Martin cartoon I ever saw was in the early 60’s when the usual nerdy character was in a restroom at the paper towel dispenser and the sign said Pull up, tear down and sure enough he did that. And Fester Bestertester was the best, I wish that I still had that book. Some of the stuff like my Mad Flag from the early 70’s would probably incite a riot amongst the snowflakes because of it’s inclusion of everyone in it’s pledge of allegiance, it reads as follows; I will pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands when it is one nation under God with liberty and justice for all including Kikes, Wops, Spics, Niggers, Wasp’s etc., try that nowadays and you’d be crucified. National lampoon, Mad and Firesign Theater, Tom Lehrer, Jean Shepherd, Stan Freberg etc. were some of the best satirists ever. I don’t know if I’ll miss the new Mad since the mid 70’s but the old ones were the best when you could have a sense of humor and not have to apologize for it.

  36. And I’d be in bigger trouble if I still drove around in my 55 Chevy station wagon like I did in HS in the early 70’s with all the old Mad political posters taped inside all the back windows. They’d probably break every window in that car if I did that now. I still have most of the posters though and most of the stickers as well. My dad just shook his head and laughed, he laughed just as hard as I did reading Mad magazine back in the day.

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