"He now has a chance of winning, the joke is over.." chillingly prophetic.

Comics contributed greatly to my reading skills!

You can still subscribe to MAD. Help support them so they can get back to producing new material.

I used to think that Mad became a magazine to escape the comics code, and this nice documentary does nothing to say otherwise, but the truth is a little more complicated. Harvey Kurtzman, Mad's original editor, had always wanted to publish a magazine instead of a comic and had been approached by Pageant magazine to become its new editor. With the pressure on Mad's publisher, William M. Gaines, to retain Kurtzman, Gaines allowed the transformation of Mad from comic to magazine to take place.

whereis the rest of this vid, makes me miss being young, i had a chance to have the great Harvey Kurtzman sign my first issue here in Dallas, but he was sick that morning, that was a total bummer for a 14 year old kid in love with this stuff, i did meet and get autographs from the great Frank Kelly Freas and Sergio Aragones i will treasure those memories forever, thankx for this vid

Young Bill Gaines looked like Allan Sherman.

Nice Documentary. I have heaps of collector videos around this period. EC Comics was gutsy!

Man, I collect MAD mags from the 70s. That was my teen years! At antique stores I find them. I also collect Tales of Suspense, Tales From The Crypt, ect.

Gaines' other comic was "Tales From the Crypt",another "Banned by Washington" Comic! Copies of those a complete series the most,can go for a King's Ransom today!

Good Lord-how much all those comicbooks would have been worth today!

There was the influence of war which was really the cause of problems with teens in the 1950s. WW2 ends in 1945 then what happens? A couple of years later you have the start of the Cold War. Five years after WW2 you have the Korean War. It must have seemed that if you don't have actual bloodshed as in the Cold War you have the threat of first atomic and then nuclear weapons build up. Mad was great fun sending up the stuff that actually worried people. In the late 1960s and 1970s you had comix coming out of places such as Berkley in California attacking the build up of nukes. Comix such as Slow Death.

Apparently produced by William M. Gaines' relatives. MAD was conceived, written and even laid out by Harvey Kurtzman.

Wally Cleaver: I've got this real neat new English teacher. Yesterday he read the class a whole article out of MAD Magazine. Ward: Oh? As an example of a modern satire? Wally: No, because he thought it was funny.

People started complaining against comics in the late Forties when Crime Comics became a leading genre. In late 1948, the heat must have been great enough for the publisher of "Big Shot Comics" to put a banner on the top of each issue, "Clean Comics for Everyone."

History I can use.. Not a single skip and zero load time..thanks KZfaq

When kids could still be brainwashed into giving up their MAD magazines!! 🤤🤤🤤

Alfred E Neuman was originally named Melvin Kovnofsky.

i paid about $100 for a hard cover bookset of the first (and only) Mad COMICS way back yonder. In the late 1990s, you could get it cheaper in comic book form as reprinted by Russ Cochrane from Prescott, Arizona. RILLY? RILLY? Just about the most HILARIOUS stuff i have ever read!

Most dropped Mad at about age 15 and went to National Lampoon. Now Lampoon is defunct, and Mad has advertising. By the way, no one seems to spell Alfred E. Neuman correctly. You'd think after years of reading Mad they'd figure out it's a 'u' instead of a 'w'.

Re: the cover with a head... Too bad Gaines didn't have a print of, "Judith with the Head of Holofernes" by Christofano with him.

i think mad did influence a generation of the young and corrupt them mad rock n roll elvis chuck berry switchblades the wild one rebel without a cause betty page... look what has happened since they came out long live these wonderful things!

Very interesting

Any history of MAD Magazine that doesn't mention it's creator Harvey Kurtzman is incomplete.

Great

Also have you watch a video that is like spy vs spy that is like a parody or if the KZfaqr got inpsirations it’s a Minecraft video it is called Steve vs Steve

Time to sneak into those vaults in Washington D.C. if you know what I mean.

I'm amazed that I got away with buying every issue from about 72-73 without my Dad raising hell with me. He must not have been aware of the adult content. A bit over the top for someone who was in 5th grade such as myself. At that age, I had trouble understanding most of what would have been inappropriate for me, anyway. I do remember an issue from the presidential election that Nixon would win. This issue had a full page picture of all of the candidates and across each was written in bold text: YUCK! I remember being quite perplexed by this as I wondered how anyone could make a choice in the ballot when they all sucked! Needless to say, Mad magazine gave me an early education in politics! I learned that politics made adults act like a bunch of first graders! Makes me think 5th graders might make better, more calculated intellectual choices at the poles than adults. They couldn't do any worse!

Lol, the covers of those detective magazines were far worse than any horror comic book.

Shame they don't mention Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and the others. Shame!

Is Maria Reidelbach related to Alfred E. Newman?

Thanks for not giving into Government morals. I wish I had my original issues, though I bought MAD CD PDFs sold at comic stores covering years of issues. I am looking for a complete set of EC Hardcover Slipcase books. I had them, but lost them in a flooded room. Maybe you'll do a 3rd series. Thanks, W

Leonard brenner anyone?

Hey how come the magazine has to be founded in the 50s no pop culture parody’s yet no spy vs spy why not the 60s that’s when spy vs spy started right

Haha!

But Still! Allow your mascot, ALFRED E. NEUMAN, to run for PRESIDENT, 2016!

Humbug, lol

2:21 gotta wonder what he thinks about tik tok challenges