History Magazine / MAD

** "The Mad "Good News - Bad News" Book" from #174 lists many examples.
-->Good News is being thrown a surprise party by your wife.

** Subverted in "[[Franchise/XMen Ecch-Men]]"

For decades a key influence on American {{parod|y}}ists and satirists in all entertainment media, ''[[http://madmagazine.com MAD]]'' began in 1952 as a full-color ComicBook, ''Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD'', published by Creator/ECComics. Creator/HarveyKurtzman, the founding editor and writer, started it when he complained how other artists got more money with more page counts, especially when he was so meticulous with his war comics. His publisher, William Gaines, suggested that he do a humor book on top of his present work since that material came easily for him.

Kurtzman began by satirizing popular comic book genres of the time (horror, crime, SF and adventure), but soon found his niche concentrating on parodies of specific comic books and strips, TV shows, films, and classic literature, as well as broader satire of American pop culture. EC artists, such as Jack Davis, Will Elder, and John Severin, accustomed mostly to drawing in a "serious" style, were encouraged to cut loose for ''MAD'', resulting in panels filled to capacity with outrageous caricatures, physics-defying antics, gross-out humor and innumerable [[FunnyBackgroundEvent background signage gags]].

* ''A MAD Look at...'' Creator/SergioAragones' signature, dialogue-free vignettes all focused on a different central topic in each issue.

* ''Potrzebie Comics/The Potrzebie of __'': Replacing The Strip Club in the 2018 reboot, this section featured serialized series of comics, among them the works of Luke [=McGarry=], Bob Fingerman, and Kerry Callen. Lasted until the 2019 switch to mostly reprints.

* AffectionateParody: Largely averted. Most parodies of films include at least a few jokes overtly saying how bad the film is, the number of which depend on the quality of the film or the author's mood.

** In the early days, nearly every artist seemed to be asked to follow Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman's styles, but found more artistic freedom when those two left the magazine.

-->"I'm a Film/{{Commando}}, not a Film/KindergartenCop! And what's more, I have Film/TotalRecall!"

* ArtifactTitle: The 'departments' listed at the top of each article. This is a leftover from the days when ''MAD'' was a color comic book in the 50's, when it actually had things like "Western Department" or "Horror Department" depending on the article's subject matter. Now (and at least since the 60's) it's little more than a throwaway gag and usually JustForPun.

** The ''Pulp Fiction'' parody had several unrelated characters show up at the splash page opening just to comment how cool and innovative the movie feels. Then Tom Cruise as [[Film/InterviewWithTheVampire Lestat]] ("Le Fotostat") says that he could drink all the blood spilled in the movie and live forever.

* Movie and TV satires: Nearly every issue features a comic satirizing a contemporary popular movie or TV show.

* TurnTheOtherCheek: Parodied in the "L'Osservatore Romano" version of ''ComicStrip/{{Blondie}}''. Dithers gives Dagwood his subordinate in the priesthood, a LiteralAssKicking for a mistake, at which point Dagwood cites the TropeNamer. Dithers enthusiastically approves, then decides to "kick that [[{{Pun}} cheek]] too," as he kicks Dagwood again.

** After a stray line in their ''Film/AnimalHouse'' parody mentioned the Klan as "another bunch of guys [who] put on sheets and go berserk", the MAD offices received an angry letter from the Knights of the KKK's headquarters denouncing their "jew-communist-run" magazine, insisting that the Klan has never been violent, and threatening legal action. While the Letters Page usually featured snide or sarcastic comments from the editors on anything included, the missive -- [[{{Hypocrisy}} complete with elaborate Klan letterhead proclaiming themselves an "Invisible Empire"]] -- was printed verbatim two months later, with no commentary to distract from its obvious absurdity.

* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: In the parody of the first X-Men movie, Storm's infamous "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" line is italicized and in quotations.

In February 2018, ''MAD'' ended its original run with issue #550, and subsequently announced a new revamped version of the magazine to launch with #1 in April of the same year (which more than a few people initially mistook for an AprilFools joke), to coincide with the staff moving operations from New York to Los Angeles.

* TitleDrop: While most parody names are funny-sounding names that sound like the title of the original work, "[[Film/BackToTheFuture Bleak For The Future]]" references the title when Marty, having succeeded at getting his parents together and time-traveling back to the present, sees his future parents buying birth control, and [[OhCrap declares that things look "bleak for the future."]]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, ''MAD'' began to take on its most familiar (and commercially successful) form, with Al Feldstein as editor and a long-lasting team dubbed "The Usual Gang of Idiots", which consisted of core writers (Jerry [=DeFuccio=], Dick [=DeBartolo=], Frank Jacobs, Arnie Kogen, Stan Hart) and artists (Don Martin, Al Jaffee, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Bob Clarke, Paul Coker Jr. Don "Duck" Edwing, Norman Mingo, George Woodbridge, [[ComicStrip/SpyVsSpy Antonio Prohías]], Creator/SergioAragones) [[EqualOpportunityOffender who were all willing to take on]] [[AcceptableTargets any target the magazine felt it could get away with]]. Many other defining artists and writers have joined since, including artists Tom Bunk, Sam Viviano, Rick Tulka, James Warhola, Hermann Mejía, Peter Kuper, Scott Bricher, and Tom Richmond, and writers Desmond Devlin, Michael Gallagher[[note]]the same one known for writing ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''[[/note]], Mike Snider, Charlie Kadau, Joe Raiola, and Dave Croatto.

* SummerSchoolSucks: The magazine has treated people who were held back or sent to summer school as AcceptableTargets in the past, numerous times.

** ''Reel Life vs. Real Life'' was a brief feature in the early 1990s that took several popular movies and asked how they would play out in reality. Similarly, the ending of the ''Film/TopGun'' parody has the hero's actions resulting in WorldWarIII.

* LongTitle: The original title of the comic version was ''Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad: Humor in a Jugular Vein''.
** The title for the parody of the movie ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' started out ''Boob & Carnal & Tad & Alas & '' and continued adding name after name of historical, entertainment, and political people running around the borders of the panels of the 6 page article, finaling ending next to the final panel with ''...& Everyone Else in the World [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg & Alfred]]''.
** The parody of the TV Series ''Room 222'' became ''Room 2222222222ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz''.

** In the parody of ''Film/ANewHope'', the series is titled "Star Roars" rather than "Star Bores." The parody also frequently references real-world dollar amounts and plays fast and loose with the story(not just the alternative ending), such as having Darth Vader kill Obi-Wan, rather than the latter performing a HeroicSacrifice.

** The musical parodies of ''Film/StarWars'' ("The Force and I") and ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' ("The Ring and I") avert this.

** Exaggerated in the ''Film/DogDayAfternoon'' parody; one of the robbers gives the other flowers instead of a gun (originally intended to be concealed in a box of flowers), which he [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments put in a vase of water on the kitchen table.]]

For the page on the animated spin-off see ''WesternAnimation/{{Mad}}''. See also ''Series/MadTV'', the loosely-affiliated SketchComedy show, and ''Literature/PlanetTad'', a regular feature in the magazine that was released as a book in 2012.

** For its first few years on the air ''Series/MadTV'' aired animated bumpers featuring Don Martin characters and "Spy vs. Spy".

* ExcitedShowTitle: Akin to the rest of Creator/ECComics's output, the pre-magazine, comic book format version of MAD always had exclamation points in THE ALL-CAPS TITLE!

* The parody of ''Film/TheRock'' has Vincent from ''Pulp Fiction'' pop up to inject the livesaving drug into Stanley's heart, saying he has experience.
* In the parody of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the wannabe Batmen who Batman ties up himself are Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney in their own Batsuits, with Christian Bale's Batman none too pleased.

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: They once did a parody of the "Army Strong" ads called "[[http://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2014/12/30/madvertising-tuesday-army-stuck Army Stuck]]." "[[JustForFun/ComeForTheXStayForTheY Come for the dough. Stay for the quagmire.]] There's stuck. And there's being stuck in the middle of another country's war with no end in sight."