Yes, I know they’re still doing new Beavis and Butthead.

So I’ve been a MAD Magazine fan for a long time…since my uncle gave me a bag of his old, mostly coverless copies, dating from the early ’70s, and when I started getting them new off the stands with the January ’76 issue.

I was All In (® DC Comics) on MAD for quite a while, buying the mag, the specials, the paperbacks (actually mail-ordering directly from MAD itself books I couldn’t find locally). Eventually I stopped in the early ’80s, first dropping the specials once they started reprinting material I already read, then sorta falling out of the habit of getting the main series. I still had fond feelings for it, and I’d poke through an issue on occasion after that…but my MAD collection went to the wayside.

I would still dip in and out over the years, especially appreciating that series of specials where they reprint, complete and in order, all of the original comic book sized MADs (as opposed to the comic book inserts in the specials from the ’70s).

I mean, if I really wanted to get back into the MAD game, I do buy and sell old (and new!) copies at my shop, but I try hard to not get high off my own supply and leave ’em for the customers. But, of late, my grocery store occasional racks on their increasingly shrinking magazine displays themed MAD reprint volumes (not available through my comic distributors) filled with classic material. And just this week, I picked up the newest one, MAD: The Best of the Worst.

And flipping through it, I saw some familiar strips I no longer had in my possession, like “Star Blecch” and the infamous “43-Man Squamish.” But I also saw the All in the Family parody, “Gall in the Family Fare,” which really surprised me, given on how it leans pretty hard on the use of various slurs for particular groups. In particular, it used a specific term aimed at gay folks:

…that, if you may recall, I discussed the usage of the shortened version of this term in a previous MAD reprint book, and the editing thereof.

In the case of the Star Wars parody there, the term was (possibly) used as a comment on the perception of C3P0’s effeminacy. And given that one of the writers of that parody is, in fact, gay himself, there may have been a little joshing of his own community as well. Not so much punching down as punching sideways. Regardless, as I noted in that past post, just dropping said term as a punchline is not something that would likely be seen as acceptable now, necessitating the change.

But in this latest reprint of “Gall in the Family Fare,” that term, and many others, are just laid out there. In context, it’s understandable, as MAD is commenting on the show’s, and by extension television in general, use of shock value for attention. Personally, I don’t think that’s what All in the Family did, but MAD‘s not here for reasoned debate, it’s here to make jokes and satirize culture. And, like the show itself, the parody makes it clear that Archie Bunker’s (or rather, Starchie Bunkerhill’s) behavior is reprehensible. Especially once you get to the punchline.

Thus, editing the jokes in this parody (like I did in that scan I made above) would undermine the eventual point. But I can certainly see someone pulling this off the shelf, flipping to this parody, and just seeing The Words and being shocked, context be damned. By and large we associate casual racism and bigotry like this with Bad People, regardless of purpose, and just throwing them out there in jokes may be too much for some nowadays. If anyone notices at all.

Which leads me to the next question here, which was brought up to me when I broached this subject on Bluesky: who is this for?

Well, the simple answer is “me,” I want a periodic dose of selected pieces from MAD offered to me in a semi-sturdy format from which I may enjoy some nostalgic pleasure. For its occasional faults, MAD was a gathering of several fine cartoonists at the peak of their game. The writing did a good job teaching kids the important lessons that advertisers lie to you, movies and TV shows think you’re dumb, and the world as a whole is filled with stupid things humans just gotta deal with. I like being reminded that there once was someone out there looking out for us.

So, it’s there for nostalgic adults, sure. But are kids buying this? It would be easy to say “no,” but remember when I said my shop carried old MADs? I sell a lot of them to kids. Kids I’m not sure were old enough to buy and read the magazines when last the all-new issues were still coming out. I’m not sure what they’d get out of an All in the Family parody, unless they’re heavy watchers of the reruns. I’m not even sure if they’d appreciate the Beavis and Butthead joke in here, or if that’s too archaic a reference. (But there is an article about “Unconscious Racists” to balance the “Gall in the Family Fare” story.)

But there are still kids out there who want MAD. Who buy the 1970s issues and wonder about the Watergate and hippie jokes, much like I did when I got my copies when I was about six years old. And you know, I read all those and aside from owning a comic shop and writing a comic book blog, I turned out okay. So those kids new to reading MAD will be too.. Maybe one of them will be responsible for someday returning MAD to its eventual glory.

Well, if you read all that, here’s a video adapted from the “Gall in the Family Fare” flexidisc MAD produced. …Um, don’t listen to this in public. (NOTE: they call Edith “Meathead” in the comic, but change it in the recording.)