I spent most of my childhood flipping through MAD Magazines. The local MAD printed the older stories from MAD's early days along with current movie parodies and such, so I was well educated on the subject. I still have a dedicated shelf for my collection, although I haven't read them that much in the last five years.

It's so sad how far MAD fell. It was a nosedive ever since the Time Warner merger and it only got worse as time went on after. It was completely unreadable 10 years ago. I can't even imagine how awful it is now.

This is great, now I'm ashamed that I hadn't thought to look on Youtube for stuff about MAD.

I give MAD and later on The Church Of The Subgenius credit for my current lot in life. In high school I made and spray painted stencils of Alfred E. Neuman and J.R. Bob Dobbs around town. Maybe it's time to make some more stencils.

I was reading up on the connections between the Mafia and MAD Magazine (they were owned by a mobster for years). It seems like every time I hear about the Mafia owning a creative enterprise, it sounds like they were fantastic for creativity.

Mad magazine was always aimed at kids. That's why no one since Bennet Cerf has taken it seriously, that was the source of its subversive power. Everybody grew up reading Mad Magazine. If not for Mad, would there be a National Lampoon, an SNL, a Ghostbusters?

In the 80s I once had a MAD magazine with a computer program that you had to type in to see what it did. Probably took an hour to type it in but it printed Alfred E Neuman on the screen. Worth it.