Continued from…

THE MAD READER

"Every generation seems to be growing up at a younger age," says Meglin. "The younger people today are much more advanced and sophisticated–they know much more. So we can't get away with mild snickers anymore; we have to go a little further in order to keep our audience interested.

"MAD is starting to be grosser as things get grosser."

But what is MAD humor to begin with? The formula is a simple one: take a satirical bent on some part of modern life, throw in some absurdity, and add plenty of visual gags. But it's a difficult formula to crack.

"We get about 100 submissions a week through the mail; 99 percent really fail at being MAD scripts," says Meglin. "That doesn't mean that they're not funny or don't come from talented people, it just means that MAD humor is totally enigmatic; we cannot train someone to do it. It's either there or it's not.

"We have some very successful authors sending us 32-page short stories which they think are very funny and that MAD should run. We'd like to say, 'You're a professional, you've been published, you know what the situation is–don't you read MAD?' Because they are MAD readers, and when they read a MAD article, we can't conceive of the fact that they don't realize that this is not a short story that has suddenly been illustrated by someone. That's not what we do. That's not what we've ever done."

There are very few things that MAD hasn't done over the years. At the height of President Clinton's popularity, you would've read "It's a Blunderful Life," starring a suicidal Bill Clinton who's shown by his guardian angel–Richard Nixon–how the world would change if he hadn't lived (Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones wouldn't have gotten book deals); a handy guide to determine whether you're a stalker; "A MAD Look at Body Piercing;" and "A MAD Guide to Corporate Thinking" ("Lambaste celebrities who use their names to plug any old garbage…while selling your name to the Fox Network for their latest SNL rip-off!"). Nearly everything in our culture is a worthy target, including MAD itself.

But there are some things MAD just won't touch. The editors won't mock religions, for instance, though they aren't above knocking certain practitioners like Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggert. ("We're not going after them or their religion, we're going after what it is they've done.") And they won't use four-letter words. ("We don't have to do that to be funny.") However, MAD's biggest taboo subject is, simply, victims.

"People will say, 'Hey, you've done some brilliant satires–I can't wait to see what you do with Schindler's List or Philadelphia.' And we say, 'What we're going to do with those is nothing.' What's funny about AIDS in Philadelphia? What's funny about the Holocaust in Schindler's List? Why would we want to do that? We like to stick a pin in the balloons of pretentiousness, but what's pretentious about something like that?"

Nevertheless, MAD has always upset people with its content over the years, and will perhaps do even moreso as it institutes changes to keep up with its readers' tastes.

MAD STRIKES BACK!

MAD humor is of a strong anti-authority stripe, whether it's about the medical establishment or about MTV's dominant idiocy. And such humor is always bound to rub some the wrong way. ("Authority that is vulnerable doesn't want anti-authority thinking," says Meglin. "We're not against the police force, we are against the police state.") In particular, MAD's politics often come into question.

"We go after issues," says Meglin. "We have knocked Clinton, we have knocked Kennedy, we have knocked Johnson. The Republicans will suddenly forget that when they see us knock Reagan, Bush, or Dole. Nobody wants to see what they believe in knocked, and that's where you get people thinking we have an agenda. We don't. We've always kicked the man in office, and always will. That's our job. Personally, some of us are Democrats, and just as many are Republicans. Bill Gaines himself was politically conservative. But never once in all those years did he say, 'Hey guys, I'm for this candidate, I'd like to go easy on him.' He never interfered or suggested anything that took sides on any issue."

Parents, too, have voiced their ire over MAD's content. Meglin believes the biggest reason for that is because since MAD is in print, it therefore provides them with more opportunities to get upset–even if what MAD is parodying is much worse.

"Parents will let a kid watch a TV show, and get very angry at MAD for some gag or some visual that we have that is so mild compared to the original. But you see, it stays there, it lays there forever in print–they can open it up and look at it three months later and still be offended by the same image, whereas television has long since evaporated into the ether."

You would think such public irritation might dismay MAD's corporate overlords. However, such is not the case, according to Meglin. In fact, Time-Warner would like to see MAD become even more daring–a challenge which the editors are in the process of planning in time for their April 1 edition.

"They're asking us to be a lot more daring, a lot more risky," says Meglin. "I think MAD is going to go through changes that some people will think, 'Hey, I don't know if I want to take this magazine home to my 12-year-old, or have my 12-year-old subscribe to it anymore.' In which case, we'll have to say we're not going after the 12-year-old, we're going after the high school, college people and up. If a 12-year-old wants to pick it up, fine, but I think there's going to be stuff in there that would not have appeared in MAD five, six years ago.

"But we're not throwing out the old MAD and making it a new MAD–there'll still be our famous movie and TV satires. But on the inside pages there will be a lot more risks being taken, a lot more envelopes being pushed than people are used to. And we're hoping that creates an excitement where people will then rediscover us and not think of us as just a mild echo of something that was much more powerful in the past."

Whatever Meglin's usual gang of idiots come up with, though, you can be sure it will carry on the MAD sense of humor.

"I think if MAD does have a philosophy, it's 'What, Me Worry?'" says Meglin. "If you really took life and every aspect of it seriously, you're in bad shape. But if you can maintain a certain sense of humor, it equips you–it arms you with something that at least for a moment helps you see a different perspective. I think humor is our salvation."

First Published: October 10, 1996 • Metro Pulse

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Sidebar: Nick Meglin Q&A

Back to Profiles in Greatness

Related Website:

MAD: The official site by Warner Bros. Well, it does have a semi-decent message board.

Doug Gilford's MAD Cover Site: Just like it sounds—every MAD cover online!

What, Me Gone? Read the transcript of William M. Gaines' memorial service at instantclassics.com.