What’s My Shine?
Mad #17 November 1954 Before becoming the premiere parody magazine teaching young readers to distrust all authority, MAD was a comic book spoofing other comics. Archie became the juvenile delinquent “Starchie,” who ran a hall-pass racket. “Superduperman” beat up old folks and showed inappropriate interest in Lois Pain, “Girl Reporter.” Political cracks formed when cartoonist Jack Davis subpoenaed Senator Joseph McCarthy to testify on a spoof of the game show What’s My Line?, where the notorious red-baiting witch-hunter gets a little help from Machiavellian ventriloquist Roy Cohn.
First Issue: The New MAD
MAD #24 July 1955
MAD Congratulates John Kennedy
MAD #60 January 1961 The 1960 Presidential election was close, but no surprise to MAD which hit stands proclaiming “Mad congratulates John Kennedy upon his election as president. We were with you all the way Jack!” The issue was shipped before votes were even counted, so how could they have been so sure? They weren’t. If flipped and read upside down, the issue congratulated Richard Nixon on his amazing win, which they’d always known was coming. Stores just had to display the right side.
Spy vs Spy
MAD #18 April 2021 When Antonio Prohías was president of the Cuban Cartoonists Association, he published anti-Batista cartoons. When Fidel Castro took power, Prohías criticized the new regime and was accused of working for the CIA. Worried he was putting his co-workers in danger, the suspected spy escaped to America to imperil the writers at MAD instead. Conceived at the height of the Cold War, “Spy vs. Spy” reduced nuclear anxiety to cynical slapstick. It starred two secret agents concocting elaborate schemes of Mutually Assured Destruction. The spies debuted in January 1961 but didn’t infiltrate the cover until 2021.
Who Needs You, Vietnam issue
MAD #126 April 1969
We’re Number One
MAD #166 April 1974 MAD was at a peak period, with nearly 2 million subscribers, in April 1974. There were no bigger gross-out periodicals, and none came close to its disgusting depths. MAD was pumping out so much waste, they sold rolls of their own brand of toilet paper. With a realistically painted middle finger standing at attention, they declared themselves “The Number One Ecch Magazine.” The cover was barred from store shelves. It was the only time publisher William Gaines publicly apologized.
Mad’s first barcode
MAD #198 April 1978 Feeling hypocritical about taking money from advertisers they would rather skewer, MAD didn’t run any (real) ads for 44 years, starting in 1957. So, when Universal Product Codes started invading supermarkets in 1974, the magazine held out. They felt the barcodes marred the craftsmanship of their hand-drawn covers. When they were required to include a UPC for scanning purposes in 1978, MAD protested by featuring a cover code so exaggerated they hoped it would screw up every checkout in the country.
Alfred E. Neuman for President 1980
Mad #217 September 1980
Yes We Can’t, the Alfred E. Obama cover
MAD #493 September 2008 Barack Obama’s campaign phrase, “Yes we can,” was sunny, optimistic, and bright. In celebrating his historic win, MAD was not quite so cheerful, hedging as always, with a cover banner reading “Yes we can’t.” It initially embraced the newly-elected president as one of its own, merging its mascot with the chief commander to form Alfred E. Obama. The honeymoon was over by February, 2009, when MAD came out with Obama – The First 100 Minutes. In an era of hope, it was a hopeless issue.
“Weird Al” Yankovic as guest editor
MAD #533 April 2015 In many respects, “Weird Al” Yankovic was the audio version of MAD. His music was one of the few things the magazine respected. MAD’s first guest editor couldn’t have become “Weird Al” without the pages which shaped a generation’s humor, or the legal precedent it set for song parody. Irving Berlin sued when a 1961 MAD songbook turned “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” into the hypochondriac ode “Louella Schwartz Describes Her Malady.” The Appeals Court ruled in favor of the magazine.
