Parody Of: Mad. Title: “Mad.” Parody In: National Lampoon.
Date: October 1971. Length: 15 pages. Contributors: John Boni, Sean Kelly, Henry Beard (writers); John Romita, Joe Orlando, Ernie Colon, Al Weiss, Babi Jeri, John Lewis, Stuart Schwartzberg, Ralph Reese. Availability: Online here. Reprinted in National Lampoon Comics (1974) and National Lampoon’s Magazine Rack (2006).

“Mad” is one of National Lampoon’s best and best remembered parodies. Like Mad itself, it goes after its target with very little subtlety and a great deal of skill, piling up visual and verbal gags to drive home the message that even iconoclasts can have clay feet. You’ll find the whole thing on John Glenn Taylor’s blog “Easily Mused.” where it’s been sitting since 2009. I only discovered it the other day, by way of an essay by Matt Keeley at Kittysneezes.com.

Keeley’s “What, Me Funny?” is such a thorough, page-by-page examination of “Mad” that there’s little to add, but I want to echo his observation that it “seems to come from a place of love.” Disappointed love, of course. NatLamp’s fiercest parodies were of magazines its writers’ younger selves had considered the height of sophistication and then outgrown, or at least come to see as formulaic: Playboy, Esquire, The New Yorker. Mad was the NatLamp gang’s first crush and first disillusionment, and the combination of hurt feelings and intimate knowledge in articles like “Citizen Gaines” and “You Know You’ve Really Outgrown Mad When…” is so intense it’s almost painful. Too many magazine parodies aren’t actually about the publications they resemble; they’re just random jokes stuffed into a conveniently familiar format. “Mad” is about Mad and nothing but Mad, and its narrow focus is what gives it such a sharp point.  — VCR

Jack Rickard aped by John Lewis.