I don’t know how I missed this news, but evidently it was announced a couple of weeks ago that MAD Magazine will now be published quarterly beginning with issue number 500.

Sounds to me like an intermediate step on the way to cancellation, and it’s a shame. MAD began in 1954 and taught a couple of generations how to view the world through a satirical eye.

I suppose we can blame the Internet for the death of MAD, but at a time when it feels like we’re living in something a golden age of comedy — from The Onion to The Daily Show to  The Colbert Report to 23/6 and so many others — it feels like MAD should be thriving more than it is. Maybe the Usual Gang of Idiots simply couldn’t shake the stigma of being part of the pre-Web era.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 8:31 am and is filed under This 'n' That.