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Thread: Mad magazine has left the building

  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Lopez View Post
    Years ago I read a biography of Bill Gaines. All the money made was through subscription and rack sales. Subscribers got something like 25¢ off the total cover price for a year's subscription, so there was almost no incentive to subscribe other than not missing an issue. He had very few staff members. Most of the writers and artists were freelance contractors; therefore, there was little in the way of benefits to pay. Bill was generous to his writers and artists though with Christmas gifts and a yearly trip (no wives) to somewhere. One year they went to Haiti because Bill found that the only subscriber from there had not re-upped. So they found out where he lived and they all showed up unannounced at his house to convince him to resubscribe. He did.
    According to Wikipedia, Gaines also wasn't one to hand out pay raises very often, if ever. Reputedly, one of the writers went to ask for a pay raise. Gaines refused, but instead treated the writer to an expensive dinner. He said he was fond of food and conversation, but not so much of giving out raises.

  2. #52
    Progdog ThomasKDye's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    According to Wikipedia, Gaines also wasn't one to hand out pay raises very often, if ever. Reputedly, one of the writers went to ask for a pay raise. Gaines refused, but instead treated the writer to an expensive dinner. He said he was fond of food and conversation, but not so much of giving out raises.
    Which probably was why one of the magazine's main writers -- Dick DeBartolo -- supplemented his income by writing questions for Match Game.
    "Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)

  3. #53
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    My brother and I had a well worn copy of Mad's Al Jaffee Spews out Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. We memorized it. If I remember correctly some of the answers got us in a bit of trouble.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  4. #54
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    My brother and I had a well worn copy of Mad's Al Jaffee Spews out Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. We memorized it. If I remember correctly some of the answers got us in a bit of trouble.
    The one I remember: in a train station, there a train on the tracks with several large signs pointing to it saying "This train to Altoona". A passenger asks the conductor, "Can I take this train to Altoona." One of the snappy answers: "No, you can't. It belongs to the railroad." That, and we had never heard of such a funny-sounding name for a city as "Altoona," kept my brothers and me in stitches.
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  5. #55
    Member progholio's Avatar
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    I'm fixing to move into a new house very soon, hoping to unearth my old stash of MAD's and National Lampoons in the process, guaranteed to be a "poopsidedown adventure".

  6. #56
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by progholio View Post
    I'm fixing to move into a new house very soon, hoping to unearth my old stash of MAD's and National Lampoons in the process, guaranteed to be a "poopsidedown adventure".
    Speaking of National Lampoon and Mad, the Lampoon did a satire of Mad once. Their parody of Horrifying Cliches was brilliant. Just imagine "Blowing a joke." They also did "The Lighter Side of Dave Berg."
    Berg-2.jpg
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  7. #57
    A few more "Lighter Side Of..." bits I remember:

    A family is traveling in the car. The wife yells at the husband to slow down, "You're reaching the maximum speed limit". Next panel, the teenage son encourages dad to speed up, "You're reaching the minimum speed limit". This goes back and forth a couple times, then finally the husband stops the car and gets out, declaring he's "reached my limit!".

    A woman freaks out when she loses sight of her toddler daughter at the beach. She's running around, in a complete state of panic, screaming for help. Finally, the child appears, screaming, "MOMMY!". The mother runs up to the child and screams, "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!!!!".

    A guy gets pulled over by a cop, who tells him his trailer hitch is dragging. The cop says, "I'll let you off with a warning, as I'm sure you didn't know it was dragging". The motorist freaks out, "Where the hell is the trailer I was towing?!", as the last panel shows the road behind them, with the trailer nowhere in sight!

    Another one had a sequence of panels showing first a stock boy who says something like "I'm just a lowly stock boy now, but some day, I'm gonna work my way up to being supervisor". Then the next one is the supervisor saying basically the same thing, only he wants to move up to assistant manager. And it goes that way across two pages, with each panel showing a person in successive stages of seniority in a company, each promising that he's gonna level up to the next stage. Finally, the last panel shows the company president, who complains abou tall the deadlines, bottom lines, headaches and heartaches, etc, and declares "I wish I was just a lowly stock boy again.

    Then there was the operator at Kaputnik Enterprises, who's talking to a friend on the phone (apparently using a company line to do it, ya know, this was before cellphones). Anyway, she's telling this story about her date the previous night, which keeps getting interrupted by people calling into the company. She has to stop, connect the caller to whichever office, etc. Finally, after about five or six panels of this, Mr. Kaputnik himself (who apparently has a desk close by) finally tells her to hold all phone calls. Then in the last panel, Mr. Kaputnik says to someone else, "OK, now maybe we can finally hear how her date went!".

    Another good was a guy debating about moving his station to the empty desk on the other side of the room. This sets of a chain of office innuendo, which eventually leads to the floor manager or whatever being told there's a rumor that they're moving the operation to a vacant floor upstairs or some such. The manager says he hadn't thought about it, but "it does sound like a good idea". So it's announced to the entire floor that they're moving upstairs, and we see the guy from the first panel complaining that "I just moved my desk across the room!".

  8. #58
    Member FrippWire's Avatar
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    An essential building block to the sense of humor I have today. My childhood would have been a little less interesting without it.

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