When I was a lad, I used to collect superhero comic books, baseball cards, and my two favorite humor magazines, MAD and National Lampoon. Unfortunately, neither of those magazines is around in print anymore.
MAD was an American humor magazine founded in 1952 by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, It was launched as a comic book before it became a magazine. MAD was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century. It reached its peak circulation in 1973, after which it steadily lost readers and relevance. The last issue of MAD was published in 2018.
National Lampoon was an American “adult humor” magazine which ran from 1970 to 1998. The magazine started out as a spinoff from the Harvard Lampoon. National Lampoon magazine reached its height of popularity and critical acclaim during the 1970s, when it had a far-reaching effect on American humor and comedy.
I remember going to a National Lampoon Live road show in the early 70s and among the members of the cast was a pre-Saturday Night Live Chevy Chase. I really enjoyed it.
This bit of reflection on days past was written for Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (lampoon).
This, That, and the Other 
I loved reading MAD as well
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It was great!
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Who couldn’t love Fester Bestertester 😀
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Don Martin was the best!
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😁👍
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I never actually read an issue of National Lampoon, but I loved Mad. Cracked was probably the best of the Mad imitators that I can remember, and was the comedy magazine that most of the crowd I was around was into. I showed one of my friends an issue of Mad, and they were unimpressed, calling it a “Cracked rip-off“, at which time I informed them that Mad came first, and they just kind of looked at me as though I had started speaking in tongues or had a strange growth sticking out of my ears.
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I used to get Cracked, too. It was good, but I was partial to MAD.
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I never went to a National Lampoon show, nor did I read MAD or CRACKED. But I liked Saturday Night Live before Chevy Chase left.
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I remember Mad!
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