The new issue of Mad comes out February 19th, and it's one after our own hearts...
Are you wondering what 50 things could possibly have made that list? You don't have to wait two more weeks to attain all that knowledge, because after the jump, we've got reason #29, courtesy of artist Anton Emdin.
Don't give Dreamworks too many free ideas, Mad.
And in case you're interested, they'd like me to point out that Mad subscriptions are available online.
Tags: Adventure Time, Mad Magazine
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38 comments
Adventure Time is one of the worst things about cartoons? Wow, fuck you, Mad. They're not even trying to hide the fact that they've devolved to the professional level of an 8-year old Youtube troll commenter, anymore.
No one has been buying their shitty magazine since 1993, anyway. Sadly, stooping to this low of a level, will probably get them the most sales they've had in years, just for this issue. But I'm guessing only from the majority of similarly minded 8-year old Youtube trolls, who get their kicks calling Adventure Time "hipster shit" or who believes that the height of informed critique is calling bronies "gay".
Mad has been limping on pathetically in the field of sad, irrelevance for nearly over a decade, but this is a new low, for a magazine that his it's lowest point nearly 10 years ago, and never climbed out of it, aside from their own terrible excuse for a parody show, on Cartoon Network which couldn't hold Pendelton Ward's jock if it tried. Not to mention their own incredibly and painfully unfunny Saturday Night Live rip-off well before that.
Someone needs to tell the writers and editors of today's Mad Magazine that they're no longer any discernible yardstick or relevant source of parody or pop-culture satire anymore, and put the magazine and it's mud-covered, skid-mark-laden ass down like the rabid, shambling, zombified shitrag of an unfunny toilet paper substitute that it now is and has been.
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@nightstarx Sorry, but it's pretty obvious the butthurt angle applies. Try actually picking up a copy of MAD sometime, which it is obvious you have not done in a decade (if ever), instead of tossing out typical, uninformed net hate-tripe like this. You have no idea what you are talking about. For example, MAD had nothing to do with the Fox show, other than WB licensing their name. Ditto the Cartoon Network show. But, don't let things like actual knowledge of a subject get in the way of a good rant.
BTW, I would guess Pendleton Ward is probably thrilled to have been scewered in MAD.
@nightstarx From the content of the bit that was linked, the list itself is satirical. So calm down a bit.
And hopefully its number one where it belongs (well maybe it should be #2 behind the horrible Flapjack)- I think it has sent animation back to the 1920's
Oh, and just to quell this eventual comment I would probably get after this, now, no, this is not a sudden, butt-hurt reaction to their assessment of Adventure Time.
I have already felt as if Mad Magazine has sucked for well over 10 years of it's continued modern existence, certainly, well before this issue, and quite possibly well before the 10 years of credit i'm even giving it. This is just the perfect time for me to re-assess that statement.
After William Gaines died, MAD should have folded. They have ads and most of the artists who made it great are dead or retired. Whoever decided to continue Spy vs. Spy after Prohias' death should be the guest of honor at a blanket party.
And Mad officially consigns itself into the bin of irrelevancy IMO.
Seriously, Adventure Time is one of the worst things? I know, comedic exaggeration, and I can understand there's a hype backlash, but I would think Phineas & Ferb (which I love as much) would be ahead of AT on that score. But still, this makes me happy to say I was always a Cracked guy.
Look, I know Mad at it’s best was better than Cracked, but the emphasis is “at it’s best”, ie 60’s to 70’s. I don’t buy the “Mad was funniest when you first read it” story because when I was a kid in the 80’s I was only interested in the Mad paperbacks that reprinted their classic material (which I bought a lot of) and only bought the occasional new issue, while I bought most every issue of Cracked and it’s spin-offs. Best examples from that time were their respective STTNG parodies, Mad’s was a shitty “TOS RULZ! TNG SUXS!” waste of 7 pages while Cracked’s was at least amusing even if it’s only two jokes were “Wesley’s annoying” and “ALF’s the villain”. To be fair, the DS9 parody years later was good, because it obviously wasn't written by a TOS fanboy.
So yeah, even if the cover isn't representative, great way to make me decide against buying another issue to pass the time on work breaks, Mad.
(Cue "Stop being so butthurt" responses, which I might deserve TBH)
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@donnaryoko Mad has a long tradition of covers taking shots at popular and beloved things as 'one of the worst things about X'. And then the list inside picks on some specific detail, typically in an absurd way, of that thing, but doesn't even try to prove the thing as a whole is bad.
It's what they do.
@mjgollschewski ..........And have continued to have done incredibly poorly since the early 90's, when everyone who either passed the first year of grade school, or grew half a brain stopped reading it's painfully limping attempts to stay the slightest bit culturally relevant with it's half-hearted, disingenuous, and bottom barrel, lowest common denominator bored-troll pandering, embarrassingly weak attempts at, what could only be considered decent satire, through the strongest of microscopes.
@mjgollschewskiin addition, Mad Magazine is honestly, every bit as relevant and worthwhile today, as an endlessly regurgitated Lockhorns comic strip where-in the characters could now just theoretically resort to vomiting in every panel from now on, in the vain hopes of finding a new kind of joke to make.
If Mad holds any kind of possible appeal in this day and age, that's the kind of quality that comparatively comes to mind. i.e: The most vapid and desperate kind.
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One of the 50 worst things about cartoons? Look no further than your own animated show MAD.
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@skrag2112 Actually, considering Mad magazine's self-depreciating humor, I'd bet even money that their cartoon actually is on the list.
I can't remember where I read it, but the fact that Cracked has somehow remained relevant and adapted itself to the internet age while Mad just kinda... stayed there... might be the upset of the century.
Also, I don't know who the hell buys them, but there's a TON of Alfred collectibles put out by DC Direct each year.
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@step5555"I can't remember where I read it, but the fact that Cracked has somehow remained relevant..."
"Remained" probably isn't the best word to use. Compared to Mad, barely anyone seems to remember Cracked as an actual magazine anymore. And for about an entire decade or so - right before the website became more popular - it was pretty much on life support, if not flatlining, with an attempt to rebrand itself as Maxim-style magazine/parody outright killing it.
It is the upset of the century, you're right. But really, as a magazine, Cracked was never really "relevant". Getting spoofed in Mad was something to be proud of & a sign that you'd "made it" (most of the time), with celebrities even writing in with photos showing them reading their spoofs, getting spoofed in Cracked barely raised an eyebrow.
I actually purchased some old issues a while back, & I think the big reason for this is that while a lot of grade-schoolers read Mad, it had humor aimed for more adolescents & beyond. Cracked, on the other hand, went straight for the grade-schoolers. Definitely more cartoonish stuff, spoofing more subject matter aimed at kids (fully aware of the irony here, btw). Hell, there was pretty much an entire year where they couldn't go one issue without a whole article spoofing TMNT.
Long story short, one magazine was the hip big brother who wore leather jackets & sunglasses that the other kids thought was cool, & the other was his kid brother desperately trying to imitate him.
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@step5555 I was going to say that i read a lot of Cracked too when i was younger, now i find i go their website so i know it has some staying power.
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Is Mad still relevant? I mean i will admit that this is the first time i've seen it mentioned in a very long time. Do people still read it? This isn't a troll comment but a legitimate question.
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@Canadian.Scott Well, seeing as how they built a whole damn cartoon around it (a vastly, vastly inferior cartoon, but still), I'm gonna say yes.
That being said, while the magazine doesn't pack as much punch at it used to (I remember when an issue was guaranteed to have at least two movie or TV show parodies), most celebrities will still consider being spoofed in it to be an honor, even to this day. So it's still pretty relevant, I'd say, just not as much.
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@SlyDante777 Sorta works for me, although i don't see a lot of people expressing love for being spoofed in Mad. I would think some people would probably ask (a) what is Mad? or (b) They still publish this?
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@SlyDante777 @Canadian.Scott How dare you play with my love for PA!?! But they do say that any attention is good attention. But seeing as i have not heard from MAD in a long time, at least I figured i would ask. Plus it depends, the people from Adventure Time probably love this because there influences are people from MAD but if you asked Jennifer Lawerence what she thought of their take on the Hunger Games, she would just look at you funny.
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@Canadian.Scott @SlyDante777 Seriously? Because most of the people they target pretty much grew up reading the magazine. Imagine if, twenty years from now when they release a direct-to-video Paranormal Activity film, they threw in a character that was a tribute to you. Would you still be honored?
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I am with you Scott. I really can not remember when the last time found one in the store was.
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@10glfan59 Look on grocery stores. They're ubiquitous.
I haven't been as much of a fan since the artists I grew up on kinda aged out, but i find that kids who discover it at the age I did like it just as much now. Plus my fiance digs it.
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@Canadian.Scott Mad's got its adult readers but the majority of its audience is grade schoolers.
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@kumanoken @Canadian.Scott That is actually true, seeing as how even I read it as a young'un back in the '90s. I mean, most of the jokes pretty much went over my grade-schooler head (who was this "Gorbachev" guy?), but it always kinda felt like the PG equivalent of sneaking a Playboy under the covers & feeling "mature".
That being said, it gets pretty embarrassing when your older cousin that teases you spots you reading this.
...Because if I had to live with that image scarred in my brain, you will too. Especially if you diss Mad. =)
@GarethPrime @SlyDante777 @kumanoken @Canadian.Scott "NYPD Boobs," actually. But it's always great to see someone regurgitate a 15-year-old "Simpsons" joke.
@GarethPrime @SlyDante777 @kumanoken @Canadian.Scott
While NYPD Blecch sounds like typical MAD, I'd have gone with NYPD Blew.
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@SlyDante777 Hey, at least you got spotted with a cover illustrated by Mort Drucker!
I'm in my late forties now, so I grew up with mad during the post-hippie 1970's and it was a rather different animal back then. The writing was a lot sharper and much more scathing, geared as it was more toward teenagers and early twenty-somethings, so reading it from the time one was seven or eight was a crash course in the absurdity of the grownup world of that era. Nowadays Mad is considerably dumbed down — plus to say nothing of the caliber of contributing artists being a serious downgrade from back in the days, which is not to say that they are terrible — and just as frivolous as much of the current pop culture. There used to be a reason why parents, teachers, and authority figures considered Mad to be a "dangerous" publication and I, for one, miss that edge. It was the perfect primer for cultivating a thinking, cynical sense of humor before one was old enough to move to the waaaaay darker material found in National Lampoon of the era, but now there's pretty much nothing else out there and it's a sanitized shadow of it's former self.
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@kumanoken @Canadian.Scott That would probably explain why I haven't seen one since grade school...not even high school.
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@Canadian.Scott I wonder the same thing every time I hear about a print magazine. On the other hand I do somehow have a lifetime subscription to Vibe...
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Come to think, I'm sure there's actually a lot of middle eastern fables and tales that could stand to be adapted into stuff.
Hollywood would like it because they could pretend they're being original more easily than when they take a story everyone already knows.
