I remember Cracked Magazine is what damaged Mad Magazine. Cracked dwelled down in the cellar, reeling kids in on burping and passing gas comedy. Some of it was funny. Overall lacking cerebral challenge mostly, but easy enough that Mad got diluted and deleted. In retrospect, it was a bigger deal than I understood then. I remember very clearly thinking "Oh, Mad requires too much words reading, oh look, Cracked has bathroom humor and cartoon low cut tops ladies, woohoo!" We are our own worst enemies apparently.
I learned SO much about the world at large through Mad magazine. In fact, whenever my girlfriend and I are watching TV and I interject some historical fact, I ask her "And you know where I learned about THAT?" And she faithfully responds, "Mad magazine."
It's a different time. I'm around a lot of young folks and they collect the old stuff like Mad and Cracked, including the music. They also like the contemporary independent comics and zines that are out now. Many of them make their own. Japanese manga and graphic novels are popular, too. If satire is still important to you the Onion is one publication good for that. Life goes on.
@@brentad2004Mad Magazine is still around... I literally have a current subscription. I also collect old issues, and no, it's not "a watered down version". It's just as good as it was back then.
I'm 65 and if Mad Magazine was still in print today, I would still be buying it. It was one of the greatest memories of my youth. It was a magazine I bought faithfully every month. And I remember finally getting to the back cover after reading it there was a picture that you would Tri fold to make into a different picture. The best Classic Magazine that ever existed.
You're the same age as me! This is crazy good to have come out the year I was born! It has the vibe of the time period but somehow the production seems far better than I would have expected.
The MadTV that everybody actually wanted to see haha. I mean, I did enjoy MadTV as a kid & all, but it certainly couldn't hold a candle to the MAD Magazine legacy whatsoever.
@@MicahMicahel When did Cartoon Network have their MAD show on? From 2010 to 2013 I believe -- and if you just type "CN MAD" into the search bar, I think you'll find that many of the 100+ 15-minute episodes are viewable here on RU-vid. In one of them I think they even re-animated the same Don Martin rubber duck gag that's in the special!
@@MicahMicahel CN's MAD ran from 2010-2013. However, Laugh-In producer George Schlatter has just started posting the New Laugh-In shows from 1978 here on RU-vid and they feature cartoons *and* live appearances by MAD's Sergio Aragones!
I think you are right. There was a serious article in The New Republic years ago that talked about how Mad Magazine taught an entire generation about sarcasm. I never saw Mad TV so I can’t comment on that. I still love the Alfred E. Newman, “What, me worry?” image. It was so perfect.
The re-run era of the 1980s never played this. But wild so many of us are seeing this 1974 masterpiece for the first time, exactly half a century later.
Originally scheduled to be shown on ABC in the fall of 1973. However, there were complaints from too many potential sponsors that the satire and parodies featured in the special were "offensive" to them [including the "Automobile Manufacturer of the Year" segment, which eliminated any interest from car manufacturers]--- in short, NO ONE wanted to be associated with it. So the network "postponed" it......and finally dumped it altogether. A small portion of the "Godfather" parody *was* seen on Barbara Feldon's 1977 syndicated series, "SPECIAL EDITION".
@@Elvusmiw Those blank slugs were there to superimpose sponsors on the fly, usually by Master Control at the local station. Keying IDs, local vendors for products like drug store names, and lower thirds etc. were very common.
I get that they were probably just making space for local sponsorships, but the funniest part of the whole thing was, "The Mad Magazine TV Special was brought to you by," and then just a long, awkward silence.
The pause is so the sponsor can be inserted. But this was a pilot that never aired. So, it never got a sponsor. Plus, in the early 1970s, syndicated copies of any show were on 16mm film like this one. They would also exclude sponsor messages. So, local channels could get their own sponsors.
@@scottmcdonald7577 hey I'm 66 and I had a stack I think I had 112 with them I didn't have any of the 50s comic book style before it became more like the magazine somebody stole them
I had never heard of this -- and I was the biggest Mad fan out there. My whole family devoured the magazine and I bought a lot of the books. This was an amazing program. The pace moved just like a magazine issue, particularly the Behind the Scenes at a Hospital. And the animation style was brilliant.
@@jnnxI don't think one man can do an entire animated segment by himself. But I remember the satire from the magazine. The word they weren't supposed to use was "mafia". Seems like the same strong arming that prevented it from being used in the movie, also prevented them from using it in this TV special, but changing it to "syndicate" loses the entire point. And the singer "Johnny Fontaine" became "Johnny Fonatra," a hint at which singer he supposedly was based on.
Me too. After I came back to my parents' place one time in my 20s I found out my mother threw them away because she thought I didn't want them anymore. I didn't speak to her for 2 years!
That first skit is absolutely spot on. In 1977 and 1979 My first two cars were a 72 Ford LTD and 74 Mercury Comet. 5 and 7 years old and they were absolutely trash. Today a 5 to 7 year old car is considered a solid, decent car. In the 70's a 5 to 7 year old was ready to the junk yard. Thanks to the Japanese, U.S. automakers were forced to build better to compete
we moved here in the 80s, someone explained that 74 was the year manufs started building in obsolescence/fallapart. i remember those $2-$3k car prices on the price is right tho.
My sister and her husband went to some meet and greet, and got signed caricatures of themselves from Mort Drucker. I can't believe how lucky they were.
i used to subscribe to MAD in 74, and remember the Oddfather. (and, 6 Millions Dollars, Man!)nice to revisit it! Man, i wish i'd saved all the issues I had. Thanks for the post.
Yeah why didn't you? What were you thinking? Were you making room for National Geographic? Sorry I couldn't resist?😂 I have an issue from 1987. Big whoopie.
I found a bunch of old MAD magazines from the mid-70's to the early 90's in a box in my storage room a few months back. I spent more than a week reading the old issues and laughing until my ribs ached. I wish MAD was still published. It was clever, filled with razor-sharp wit, and downright hysterical!
Gracias por recuperar esta obra de entretenimiento que se creía Lost Media. No sabia que Mad tuvo una adaptación animada anterior a la adaptación mas reciente que hubo en Cartoon Network
@@VilaToro64 Accurate it indeed was, though of course it also was exaggerated for satirical effect. But how could it be prophetic when that sh!t was already happening?!? The only "prophets" involved were the enormous profits rolling into the pockets of the car company CEOs (Conspirators of Early Obsolescence)...
I never hear about "Cracked" magazine anymore! It was so popular among kids in the 70's and was available at every news stand, too bad it never got the popularity it deserved!
I remember finding copies of Mad comics when I was a kid growing up in the 70s in my parent's collections & being really impressed with the artwork, nice to see the animation & great comedy satire 😅👍
I saw the Godfather segment and now some 50 years later! I couldn't believe how great it was! I had a neighbor who loved Mad and i told him about it and he had missed seeing the show. I remember being slightly frustrated because I knew I'd never see this again!! And here we are!
@@Rjensen2 The Oddfather segment apparently was on a Barbara Feldon TV show in 1977 which is when I would have seen it, so only 47 years later and it makes sense because that's the only part I remembered.
I was an avid reader of MAD Magazine back in the 70's when I was a kid, in fact I have had the issue where Mort Drucker makes the parody of The Godfather as The Oddfather, as we can see on this special. I never realized that there was an animated episode of one of my favorite magazines, that probably sounds odd, but I used to buy here in Mexico City, where there was a vast amount of fans of that magazine, and yes the version in English, because in late 70's early 80's there were an Spanish version with local characters that was frankly bad. Thanks for sharing this great video! Greetings from Mexico City.
I only had a couple of precious mad magazines as a kid. I read them over and over. Was also a faithful MadTV watcher. The neverending wedding Congo Line was my favorite sketch. The nursing/hospital pieces are brutal and still relevant.
We kids were spending so much time reading MAD and CRACKED that Mom finally took the whole stack of them and tossed them into the fireplace. Yeah, we cried. I can't imagine how much those would be worth nowadays (this was in the early 70s).
I have the original Mad comics before they turned into a magazine. I was a long time subscriber. I have all the EC hardback sets. And yet I had never heard of this special until today. Thanks for the upload!
TRIVIA: The HEIGHT of MAD's readership was .. 1973. So to all you 1973 MAD readers . Salute ! (I was a MAD reader 1971- 1979) . My favorites MAD issues were the Planet of the Apes , The Poseidon Adventure and the Towering Inferno.
@@Wachuma-icp99 Gotta love the segment 10:50 - 11:12 ! 😁👍 But unfortunately, probably one of the few reasons this special *hasn't* been re-run on almost any station up to this point. I can just imagine how all the "woke" / "p.c." idiots would jump all over it in protest!! 😱
Boy when I was young I adored MAD! Even today I have a good sized collection, but theres one thing.....Does anyone remember "Cracked" magazine? It was another MAD mag clone with a janitor as it`s mascot. I loved reading that too, but MAD is still my favorite magazine, period.
Amazing! About the same year of 1974 I got my first and only copy of MAD Magazine in Moscow, USSR from a group of US school students whom I met there as student guide. It was fun and I'm sorry I didn't keep it until now.
When I was a little boy my mom said she would buy me a mad magazine if I behaved myself during grocery shopping. Of course I just couldn't, so I'd have to steal them everytime.
My sister was subcribed to the mad magazine late 80-ties and early 90-ties. Although we are dutch she preferred the english version because the dutch translation was too lame. This animated version really captured the style and feel of the magazine, cool to see it coming to life.
I always remember their parody of the movie trading places which they called trading races and the Clint Eastwood movie sudden impact which became sudden random violence. What a great magazine it was.
Wow, this takes me back some years. Back in the seventies there was a lady who was a friend of my mum and dad that bought mad magazines. I think her son liked them as well
I am from The Netherlands and I remember my father came home from work one day when I was a kid and bought us the Mad Magazine boardgame. Like a backwards Monopoly aim to get rid of your money as fast as possible. My sis and I are way 50 now and we still remember this game to this day for it idiot gameplay, we had so much fun with it.
It's a shame that a magazine that made so many readers around the world laugh (I used to read the Brazilian version) has ended. A world without Mad's humor is a very sad world!
The anesthesiologist joke was hilarious. "Just drink this glass of whiskey and bite down on this bullet". The hospital clearly hired a cowboy for the job. 😆
I had this edition of MAD magazine when I was a kid. They left a few lines out of 'The Oddfather' like when Michael says to Sollozo, "I gotta take a pistol." One of my biggest regrets is getting rid of my collection. Bigger yet is that I never owned a subscription. MAD was the greatest use of print media, ever.
