Another piece of my youth is gone...

[Steve DeRosa]

https://www.aol.com/article/entertai...tent/23763244/

Discovered Mad in summer '63, between my fifth and sixth grade years...

On the first day of sixth grade, my teacher - mid-twentyish, with a wisdom and toughness far beyond her years (along with - as I would soon discover - an over-the-top sense of humor) - turns to me and asks gruffly:

"Hey, DeRosa - do you read Mad magazine?"

Her fearsome reputation having preceded her - and in the interest of continued survival, dreading the potential consequences of answering falsely - I admitted that I did...

Her response: "Thought so..."

I had it made for the rest of the year...

[Brucebubs]

We got Mad down here when I was growing up too.
Loved it.

'What Me Worry?'

[Paddy1951]

I read this today and was saddened. Mad magazine is/was a great magazine on a number of levels.

On the surface, it probably was viewed as a low rent publication. A comic book variation. It is so much more than that.

It is aimed at adolescents. But it has a whole other level of humor and satire the was definitely for adults.

It is/was way more sophisticated than it appeared at first glance.

[BoneDigger]

Mad Magazine was a staple of my life for many years! Alfred E Neuman, Spy VS Spry, etc. were so much fun!

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Paddy1951

...It is aimed at adolescents. But it has a whole other level of humor and satire that was definitely for adults.

It is/was way more sophisticated than it appeared at first glance.

I read it well into my college years - and the older I got the more I appreciated the subtle things you don't pick up when you're 11-12 years old...

[robj144]

I liked Mad too?

But AOL??? I thought that was a piece of my much later youth which died a long time ago.

[frankmcr]

It was wonderful in its heyday, but it died long time ago.

[upsidedown]

Sad too. Still funny and still cheap!

[Silly Moustache]

I'm a Brit and loved Mad mag as well. But, well, "what me worry""
Who can remind me of the various characters?

Edit : I used to love tha cartoons with he people with "floppy feet" ...was it Don Martin ???

Who what else ?

[westview]

My young nephew loves mad magazine. I recently gave him my old magazines from the 60's and 70's. I also gave the original mad magazine game from 1979.
I wanted to pass on those memories and humor. He enjoys and plans to save them. He already knows their place in history.

[FrankHudson]

I felt the same way as Steve when I read the news yesterday. I told my wife "There's been two earthquakes, one in California and they announced Mad magazine was folding."

I was introduced to Mad circa 1960 by my beloved Auntie Red, who had a great sense of humor. It's style of ridicule in those days was to reframe things. You saw things differently after reading Mad, asked more questions (and had more snappy answers).

Safer than drugs and probably under-recognized as a cultural force in creating "The Sixties" and the Sixties own distrust of "The Sixties."

[TBman]

I read that all the time growing up. My father was a part owner of a newspaper/breakfast/coffee store for a while and I actually became an advanced reader due to my constant reading of comic books and Mad Magazine. Great stuff. Even my dad liked it.

[woodbox]

I read somewhere, that you know you're getting old when your childhood toys are found in antique stores.
But you know your REALLY old when you find them in museums!

The last time I was wandering through a small town "Antique Store Row",
I saw some 50 yr old MAD magazines at $5 each.

I didn't know if that was a "good deal" or not, and although tempted and curious, I didn't buy any of them.

Maybe they will increase in value... I use that word somewhat loosely, I mean, did they ever really have any "value".
I'm sure the magazine itself would ask that very question.
Which was part of the fundamental MAD philosophy.. don't take anything, us or yourself or anything, too seriously.

[upsidedown]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

Who can remind me of the various characters?Edit : I used to love tha cartoons with he people with "floppy feet" ...was it Don Martin ??? Who what else ?

Right. Don Martin did the floppy people.

Mort Drucker/Larry Siegel's satircal renderings of then-current Hollywood films ("Dirty Dozen Rotten Eggs" comes to mind).

Spy V Spy.

Don't remember the artist/writer team, but those super-realistically drawn cynical looks at "normal" suburban life, which always tended to end with the husband and wife (often in curlers) face to face screaming at each other!

Like TBman above, MAD really got me on the path to reading. Didn't realize it at the time of course, but it also contributed to a certain outside perspective...

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by upsidedown

Right. Don Martin did the floppy people.

Mort Drucker/Larry Siegel's satircal renderings of then-current Hollywood films ("Dirty Dozen Rotten Eggs" comes to mind).

Spy V Spy.

Don't remember the artist/writer team, but those super-realistically drawn cynical looks at "normal" suburban life, which always tended to end with the husband and wife (often in curlers) face to face screaming at each other!

Like TBman above, MAD really got me on the path to reading. Didn't realize it at the time of course, but it also contributed to a certain outside perspective...

Don Martin Steps Out.

Then, there was Mr. Natural, or am I confusing him with another magazine from the 60s? As I seem to dimly recall, if you remember the 60s, you probably weren't there.

Tony