Little Joey Visits Mad Magazine
by Joey Harrison
[Reprinted from Joey’s cool zine Oop. $2/$8 for 4. JH, 4454 Pennfield Rd., Toledo OH 43612.]
1967 was a big year for me. A blizzard to top all blizzards arrived on my13th birthday, a run for class president (Vote for Harrison, there’s nocomparison). And the event most bragworthy, a visit to MAD magazine. Thetrip to New York wasn’t exactly meant as a pilgrimage to my shrine- at leastnot as my mother planned it. But from my perspective, shopping could bedone anywhere. Only in Manhattan could an acolyte find the MAD temple, andI was determined to seek it out.
We showed up uninvited on a Saturday afternoon, which wasn’t a very goodchoice of days to come calling, and sure enough, no one answered the door.We knocked and knocked and knocked. As we stood in the hallway waiting foreither divine intervention or the onset of surrender, a man from a neighboringoffice poked his head out and asked if he could help. My mother explainedthat we had hoped for a tour of MAD’s office. He told us he’d give thema call to see if anyone were there. A moment later the door opened–MAD’sdoor.
We were greeted by a very familiar face. In fact, the only face–apart fromAlfred E. Neuman himself–that I could possibly have recognized. It wasLeonard Brenner.
While the names of the entire masthead were as familiar to me as my ownfamily, Mr. Brenner was the only face I had seen before. It had appearedin scores of the ad parodies that adorn MAD’s back cover. So when his bearded,bespectacled mug welcomed us in, I couldn’t have been more excited. Thiswas no office flunky showing us around; we were being escorted by the oneperson who personified the magazine for me.
Although the office disappointed me with its bland modernity– I had hopedfor something gothic, cobwebbed, and labyrinthine–the wonderful clutterof toys, office supplies, and artwork made up for it.
Leonard was extremely kind to me, pressing a MAD badge and one of the MADpaperbacks into my eager hands. And he was glad to pose for a photo, placinga spiked military helmet on my head while my mother focused. He showed usthe original color drawing that would be the cover for the upcoming issue.I looked it over carefully and thought deviously how I could parlay this³secret² information to my advantage back home among the membersof my MAD club.
Our visit was over sooner than I wanted, though my mother’s recollectionis that we were given a complete and leisurely tour. I couldn’t bear toleave so soon. I lingered in front of their bland steel door for a momentor two just to hold on to my experience a little longer. The antiseptichallway, the linoleum floor, the shiny drabness–it was all reduced to insignificanceby the proximity of the MAD logo on the door–the very emblem of rebellion,antic energy, and irony.
I was going to end this by reflecting on how the present-day MAD is notwhat it used to be. And then I thought I’d better take a look at the currentissue before I dismissed it so cavalierly.
So I went to the newstand and had a look–the first close examination I’dhad of it since I ³graduated² to The National Lampoon in 1970.I’d long ago noticed the absence of Norman Mingo’s classic covers, and intheir place, the wordy, silly covers of today. They’ve been enough of aturn-off to keep me away these past 25 years.
But looking inside now I see that MAD is much the same as it’s always been.Some of the artists whose work I had grown up with are no longer there,but the tone and the style are little changed.
The easy conclusion to draw would be that I’ve changed–and of course Ihave–but what brought about my apostasy back in 1970 had more to do withMAD’s influence on my life than a decline in its quality. I had become theconverted, and MAD no longer had anything to teach me. I realize now thatI had become completely and utterly indoctrinated. The MAD outlook had becomemy own. I didn’t need the magazine any longer, because its message was withinme.
I had learned to question all icons, to look skeptically at every institutionof American society; from Hollywood to Greenwich Village, from religionto psychoanalysis, from military intelligence to Madison Avenue. And I learnedto find humor in unlikely places. In the lies that politicians tell. Inthe conceits of the Organization Man and the beatnik alike. In the eveningnews and Sunday’s sermon.
So I thank you, MAD, for being such a good influence, and I thank you, LeonardBrenner, for being at work on a Saturday afternoon 28 years ago.
