Al's Pals

[anthontherun]

A couple things:
The magazine that has had a relationship of mutual respect with Al, Mad, is going to a quarterly publishing schedule after the 500th issue comes out in April.

Ben Folds will be releasing a compilation of A Capella covers of his songs by various college groups on March 10. The song Al did backing vocals for on Songs for Silverman, "Time," is included. I really like the second video on the page, "Army" (although it's censored).

And speaking of Ben, this had better happen!

Is there an artist in particular you are hoping to collaborate with in the future?
Yes. Calvin Harris because he created disco, and Ben Folds because he says whatever the f#ck he wants.

[TMBJon]

Poor MAD Magazine. I used to read it from about 1995 - 2003 or so. It started going downhill bigtime by the end, and issues I have picked up at the newsstand lately have been incredibly unfunny. Of course, I remember in my MAD Magazine heyday reading about fans of the magazine from the 1970s who said the same thing about MAD Magazine in the 1990s and wondering if I would ever come to the same conclusion.

I guess the bottom line is MAD Magazine is only funny when you are in your early teenage years.

[Orthography Enthusiast]

If you're going to sing over Pachelbel's Canon, do it right.

Just goes to show that songs about food never truly go out of style.

[HappyGilmore]

Poor MAD Magazine. I used to read it from about 1995 - 2003 or so. It started going downhill bigtime by the end, and issues I have picked up at the newsstand lately have been incredibly unfunny. Of course, I remember in my MAD Magazine heyday reading about fans of the magazine from the 1970s who said the same thing about MAD Magazine in the 1990s and wondering if I would ever come to the same conclusion.

I guess the bottom line is MAD Magazine is only funny when you are in your early teenage years.

Last one I picked up was about a year ago. It wasn't anywhere as good as some old magazines I have from around '97 or so.

My neighbor pulled out ones from the '70s. To him those were the best years. I didn't get to read them, but most people seem to say the '70s were the highlight years.

[TMBJon]

My perception as someone who read it mostly in the late 90s (remember the yellow borders anyone?) was that the magazine was equally good from its first issue until about the time I was reading it. I have read many articles where the author says everyone thinks the magazine started sucking right after they grew out of it.

[HappyGilmore]

I quite liked it when I collected them. I'm talking from '95-'00, is when I regularly read them. After that, my interest/money wasn't able to afford reading them as much, but I still liked them enough to buy when I could.

I do see they have, or at least HAD, a MAD Kids magazine, aimed more for kids/teens. Wonder if that means Mad moved back to being more for 'adults'. I dunno.

[anthontherun]

I remember one of the editors made a comment like "The best era of Mad is whenever you first started reading it." And it's true, I started in the late 90s not too long before they went into color and advertising. It used to feel like it was aimed at a wide audience with something for everyone; if one article wasn't to your liking, you could turn the page for something completely different. Now it's targeted purely at 13-year-old boys.

[louietheweaselfaceddogboy]

Now it's targeted purely at 13-year-old boys.

Hey, excuse me, buddy! I enjoy the magazine...and I'm fifteen! So just back off, okay!! BACK OFF!!








Wow, I guess last month was a bad time to ask my parents for a subscription. Whoops on my part!

[weird_el]

I liked MAD best in the mid-70s. I imagine that's when Al liked it best too. I haven't seen one in awhile. Do they still parody popular songs regularly?

Once I discovered National Lampoon, I kinda lost interest in MAD.

[ludovica64]

Poor MAD Magazine. I used to read it from about 1995 - 2003 or so. It started going downhill bigtime by the end, and issues I have picked up at the newsstand lately have been incredibly unfunny. Of course, I remember in my MAD Magazine heyday reading about fans of the magazine from the 1970s who said the same thing about MAD Magazine in the 1990s and wondering if I would ever come to the same conclusion.

I guess the bottom line is MAD Magazine is only funny when you are in your early teenage years.

Well I mainly read MAD magazine between 1968 and 74 as those were the issues my dad had. I thought it was awesome but I didnt *get* a lot of the humour being not only pretty young, but English as well. There was one issue that had a whole sheet of spoof stamps and after I demolished those Dad didn't let me near his magazines again