Before Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, before Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, before "The Simpsons," before David Letterman, before "Saturday Night Live," before The National Lampoon… before all the great subversive American satirists that we’ve all grown… used to — before all that, there was MAD magazine.
Yep. MAD magazine. That goofy kids’ comic book with the gap-toothed idiot on the cover. That dumb mag with the groan-inducing puns and the booger jokes and the silly movie parodies and the ridiculous caricatures.
This hour, we look at MAD magazine as just maybe the genesis of the American sense of humor. We look at where MAD came from 63 (63!) years ago. And we look at the future of "humor in a jugular vein."
GUESTS:
- John Ficarra – Executive Editor of MAD
- Bill Oakley – Television writer and producer
- Bill Schelly – Author of Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created MAD and Revolutionized Humor in America
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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.