Goodbye Alfred E. Neuman

The publishers of MAD announced this week that the magazine is toast. It will still be published but will contain nothing original, only recycled material taken from its archives which must be pretty extensive because, like me, it has been around for 67 years.

MAD is — was — a humor magazine. Humor is no longer relevant in a nation where everyone seems to have lost theirs.

According to DC Comics, MAD’s publisher, the magazine topped out at 2.8 million subscribers in 1973. It has less than 150,000 today. 

In the late 1960s, when I was in high school, MAD was considered the gold standard for irreverent adolescent humor. Nothing was sacred. Its writers made fun of anyone and everything, from JFK to Castro to Batman-ia to Woodstock to Nixon. My buddy Craig, who moved to my tiny Missouri hometown from LA our freshman year, introduced me to MAD. We inhaled every issue and laughed our asses off. I emailed him the sad news about MAD today and he wrote back, reminding me he once owned the first 100 issues.

Magazines are folding right and left and those that remain are disturbingly thin, but MAD wasn’t your typical magazine. It didn’t accept advertising. And because it didn’t, its creators didn’t have to kow-tow to advertisers or pander to any group. MAD was an equal opportunity offender, taking on subjects some folks held sacrosanct and finding the humor in them. 

The primary reason MAD folded, the reason comedy clubs nationwide have gone out of business, the reason you no longer see comedians on late night TV who make you laugh out loud, the reason situation comedies on TV no longer make you smile much less laugh, is because comedy writers are scared shitless of offending so they are writing material that is, literally, witless. With the exception of self-deprecation, humor is almost always at the expense of someone or something else, who becomes the butt of the joke. Humor writers are no longer able to joke about women, Democrats, Republicans, socialists, liberals, conservatives, Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Latinas, Asians, gays, straights, transgenders, politicians, entertainers, athletes, Italians, Poles, rich, poor, Christians, Muslims, Jews or people who are fat, thin, bald, young or old, without offending someone. 

We have become a nation of thin-skinned, humorless snowflakes who take offense at anything that makes fun of us or our beliefs, refusing to concede the possibility that humor can be found in almost anything we take seriously or hold dear.

College kids seem particularly sensitive and, as a result, joyless. Jerry Seinfeld has returned to stand-up comedy, but refuses to play college campuses, claiming political correctness has robbed students of their ability to see humor. But getting back to MAD.

A month or so ago Trump sent a tweet comparing Democratic presidential aspirant Pete Buttigieg to Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed mascot who has appeared on the cover of every MAD issue since 1956. When you look at their pictures side by side, there is definitely a resemblance.

Buttigieg responded that he had to google Alfred E. Neuman, he hadn’t heard of him.

There is, I readily admit, no reason someone Buttigieg’s age (37)  should be familiar with a cartoon character who was at the height of his fame 45 years ago but this old fart found Trump’s observation hilarious. Say what you will about him but Trump does have a sense of humor. I still laugh at his contention during the 2016 primaries that former Texas Governor Rick Perry started wearing glasses to make him look smart. But I probably shouldn’t have put that in writing. Some of you will write me off because I just said something positive about Trump. 

Did I say I voted for him or agree with his policies? Nope. The mere fact that I mentioned Trump's sense of humor will be enough to convince some snowflake readers that I must like him and so, because they hate him and everything he stands for, they will no longer like me, in which case all I can say in response is (scroll down even though you know what's coming) ...