A Little Humor: It Says So In The Constitution

I have a friend named Barry who is a likeable guy but not very bright.

Barry, who resembles Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, often says the most ridiculous things.  

When I saw him at the bar on the coldest day in December wearing a short-sleeved shirt, I asked him why. Wasn’t he cold?

No, Barry replied.

“I can wear a short-sleeved shirt anytime of the year. It says so in the Constitution,”

“What?”

“The Constitution says we have the right to bare arms.”

Another friend at the bar said he hopes that Santa brings Barry a brain.     

How Mad Magazine's Humor Created A Revolution

David Pogue at CBS News offers a piece on a Mad Magazine exhibit.

Nestled in the rolling hills of rural Massachusetts. swathed by manicured grounds, sits the Norman Rockwell Museum. And there, side-by-side with the wholesome works of America's most beloved illustrator, is the world's dumbest cover boy: Alfred E. Neuman.

"It's sacrilegious! It's an outrage!" laughed political cartoonist Steve Brodner. "But I do think if Norman Rockwell were here, he'd laugh his head off. He'd think this was fantastic."

These hallowed halls are now home to the world's largest exhibit of artwork from Mad Magazine, co-curated by Brodner. "I was formed by Mad," he said. "My idea of comedy, humor, irreverent drawing comes from this."

Mad began in 1952 as a comic book that made fun of other comic books. But if you came of age during Mad's peak - the sixties, seventies and eighties – you know what it became: A hilarious guide to the hypocrisy of the authority figures in your life, whom Mad kept characterizing as idiots. "I know! Isn't that marvelous?" said Brodner.

Mad made fun of dumb ads, and dumb politicians, and dumb trends and dumb movies.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch the news video via the below link:

How Mad Magazine's humor created a revolution (msn.com)

Wishing Everyone a MAD 2024

Note: As a life-long fan of MAD magazine, I was amused to see the above cover from the MAD Magazine Fan Club.  

It's A MAD World

In my previous post, I offered an old MAD magazine joke.  

I noted in the post that I grew up reading the humor magazine and MAD’s clever, funny and irreverent humor was a big influence on me. 

I wrote about MAD magazine (and Malcome Muggeridge and Mark Twain) in 1997 in my column in the South Philadelphia American.

 You can read the column below:

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge.

You can also read my previous post via the below link:     

Paul Davis On Crime: A Little Humor: MAD Magazine's Class Clown Replies To Teacher 

A Little Humor: MAD Magazine's Class Clown Replies To Teacher

Note: I grew up reading the funny, clever and irreverent MAD magazine.

As a former class clown who often offered sarcastic asides and jokes that irritated the teachers and amused most of the students, and spent more than a few hours in detention myself, I laughed out loud at the above.

You can read my post on a seasoned class clown via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: A Little Humor: Pi R Squared 

Happy New Year From MAD

 

A Little Humor: MAD Magazine's Scenes We'd Like To See

 

A Little Humor: The Off-Kilter Wisdom Of Alfred E. Neuman

I've always enjoyed the off-kilter wisdom of MAD magazine's gap-toothed and goofy spokesman, Alfred E. Neuman.

"Most people don't act stupid, it's the real thing." 

Cigars, Health Care, Che Guevara And Other Myths About Cuba

I'm a cigar smoker. I've been smoking cigars since I was a very young man.

I recall smoking a fine cigar when I was in my early 20s on the fantail of a U.S. Navy tugboat at the nuclear submarine base in Holy Loch, Scotland. Another young sailor approached me and asked, "Don't you feel old smoking a cigar?"

"No," I replied. "I feel... prosperous."

At a recent gathering of serious cigar smokers, I was bold enough to state that I thought Cuban cigars were overrated. I prefer a Dominican Republic Cohiba to a Cuban one. It seems to me that the Communist Cubans don't quite grasp the concept of quality assurance.

I was surprised to discover that a good number of my fellow cigar aficionados felt the same.

So I pleased to read that Christopher Sabatini offered a piece on five Cuban myths in the Washington Post, and he included Cuban cigars as one of the myths. Cuban health care and Che Guevara are two other myths Mr. Sabatini pokes holes in.

President Obama’s historic trip to Cuba this past week returned U.S. and world attention to the small Caribbean island of 11 million people and the long, curious history between it and the United States. It’s hard to think of a similarly sized country that has had such a memorable, tumultuous, often romantic hold on U.S. history and imagination. That narrative encapsulates a welter of assumptions — some propagated by the 1959 revolution, others by the Cuban diaspora and the rest by Americans who haven’t seen Cuba up close in more than half a century. Here are some of those myths.

You can read about the five myths via the below link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-cuba/2016/03/25/44f0b3e2-f21e-11e5-89c3-a647fcce95e0_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_popns

Coughing Up Fleming: A Look Back At Mad Magazine's Take On Daniel Craig's James Bond And The Film 'Skyfall'

The web site 007dossier.com offers a look at Mad magazine's take on Daniel Craig's James Bond and the Bond film Skyfall. 

You can check out the clever satire via the below link:

http://www.the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2014/12/01/Casebook-Spyfail

Mad Magazine Celebrates 70th Anniversary Of V-J Day 'Kiss'

Obama: What Me Worry About Approval Ratings? Mad Magazine Cover Says It All

Noel Sheppard wrote an interesting piece at NewsBusters about the clever Mad magazine cover (seen above) that notes Obama's growing public disapproval.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/03/24/shocking-mad-magazine-cover-i-loved-obama

I grew up with Mad magazine and I love their irreverent sense of humor.

Mad magazine also had a clever cover that mocked Obama's "Yes, we can" slogan (see below).


I also enjoyed the Mad magazine that mocked Che t-shirts (see below).