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Oh, but that MAD Magazine spoof is embarrassing. It's a bitter sort of man who blames the original for being better than his cheap imitation. |
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The Mad parody needs to put into context. In the September 1958 issue of Mad magazine, an article appeared entitled "How to Put Out an Imitation of Mad". At the time of the article, several humor magazine competitors were on the stands, and Mad named many of them in the piece. Even Kurtzman's magazines, Trump and Humbug, were lumped in with the others in the article. Some of the competitors named chose to respond to Mad and basically accused Mad, not without a valid point, of whining that any other humor magazine on the market was a cheap imitation of their magazine and ripping them off. Unfortunately, it's a stigma that virtually all humor magazines have had to deal with over each decade, regardless of their own quality, even the ones that were as different from Mad as a satire magazine could be. The Mad parody appearing in this issue of "This Magazine is Crazy" is their response. It's certainly not as good as the typical article to appear in this magazine, and "This Magazine is Crazy" should not be judged by it. An extended parody of "The New Yorker" from the February 1958 issue is brilliant, pointed and much more humorous than the Mad parody. In general, "This Magazine is Crazy" was one of the best humor magazines on the market during 1957 to 1959. The February, June and September 1958 issues are particularly funny and well-written (I have not yet been able to find a copy of the November 1957 issue). Gary Belkin was the writer of the magazine during this period (virtually writing the entire magazine) and he had a quick wit, having been one of Sid Caesar's core group of writers for his TV show, and later going on, after "This Magazine is Crazy" folded, to become a writer for Mad magazine itself. |
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Beautiful Civil War work by Jack Davis...which he probably just bopped out in an afternoon. Either a copy of or a precursor to "Western!" from MAD, but this time historical. |
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Indeed, Jenny. Mad's attack on the imitations was rude and crude. The reply of most of the imitators was more to the tone of the Mad article than to the quality of Mad itself. The whole story and all samples are in my (and Craig Yoe's) book Behaving Madly, still available from Amazon. |
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Jennyluvver excellent comment from 2015 probably wasn't read by many.
I'm glad it's come to light now with our new system of comments being shared as new posts on the forums. |
