My dad had (I'm sure still has) almost every Don Martin book and those taught me how to read, or at least appreciate reading, when I was a kid so they mean a lot to me. But when I started trying to read it in the 90s it just wasn't funny at all compared to his Don Martin books so I kinda gave up after something like "Silence of the Hams." Because they were pigs.

Holy shit really? The ones that I remembered always said "Cheap!" next to the price, which was steadily going up.. and it was kinda funny. But that's like McSweeny's expensive! Not funny!

I was exaggerating. I checked about 2 years ago and they were like six or seven bucks at the newstand. Which is crazy because they were only in the 90s and .50 in the early 00s.

The content was atrocious too. Despite popular belief, MAD was never really a kids magazine (Spy vs Spy was the closest it ever got) unless you consider stuff like dissecting the social satire of All in the Family as kiddie material. After the buyout it turned into a pre-teen nightmare. That FUCKING Monroe comic and everything else was barely above Youtube comment levels of "LOL Justin Beiber". Every 3rd page an ad for xtreme snacks or Clearisel.

What preteen pays for a magazine?

Yeah.. at some point it seems that Cracked surpassed Mad in terms of content and humor. Didn't see that one coming.

Are you talking about the HBO show? Seriously I loved that show but the series finale was total shit. Let's not spoil anything but damn. Way to make my generation look like a bunch of idiots addicted to clickbait and hashtags..

Oh.. that's The Newsroom. Nevermind. I stand by what I said though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29

...and what do you mean by 'look like'?

I've seen the movie. Newsroom is more or less the soap opera version of that movie. It's not because it begins with an "Ne" and I let autocorrect take over.

If somebody ate Network and a chorizo breakfast burrito that sat on the counter too long, and washed it down with a glass of Broadcast News and some sour milk, Newsroom would be what came out of that person.

I thought it was smart and funny but I only started with the final season, kind of like with Californication, so I can't speak for the rest of the series. In both shows' cases I think I got the point. But damn that last episode was just.. bad.. and not just for the "Let's turn CNN into Buzzfeed" thing. Oh well, what else is on?

The one I found had the rules. You more or less got the gist.

I also found a copy of the Mad Magazine Card Came around the same time, which is miraculously still in a box in my closet, I found it the other day.

Just checked eBay, looks like I could get upwards of for it!

Yeah those were the ones that my dad had. Unlike my Don Martin comment above, he doesn't have those anymore. He went away to college, and then got drafted, and came back home to find that my Grandma had thrown them all out, every issue from #1 to whatever issue it was in 1964. And judging by the Martin books, he took pretty good care of them too. That could've paid for MY college education!

50s Mad is the best. Early 70s Mad is the second best.

Just the poor Colonial's version of the infinitely superior Viz, if you ask me.

It's safe to say it isn't nostalgia talking when someone claims MAD was better in the old days. You can pick up the entire digital collection and there is a definite, staggering difference in quality.

This episode felt like it was in the transitional period between "biting social commentary" and "let's do a movie parody but replace all of the names with lazy stereotypes."