Posted on 01/13/2015 5:33:26 PM PST by a fool in paradise
Where do some of you idiots come from? Are you so uninformed that you know nothing of the jealousy that comes between comedy writers and writers in general? My family and friends had written for Johnny Carson for 35 years and they still fight over what decade was funnier than another and what comedy writers were better than another. The hilarious Pat McCormick always being singled out for abuse. And if I ever quote a great joke from a Carson monologue, one of them screams: “I WROTE THAT!” and another fight breaks out.
If you think that the comments about the underground comics tradition being America’s closest analogy to Charlie Hedo is “jealousy” than you would be wrong.
The NSFW Cracked website of today is unlike the Cracked Mazagine (sic) of the 1950s-80s. It is more in line with the sex and drug humor of National Lampoon or Vice Magazine.
Mad is still Mad. No foul language. No nude bits. No championing drug abuse.
One of the Mohammed cartoons in Charlie Hedo that preceded the deadly assault showed Mohammed being sodomized.
When have you EVER seen anything like that in Mad?
Did they do such humor when Bill Clinton was receiving presidential hummers and being brought before courts to account for it?
Oh, yeah, that’s funny.
Mad Magazine is designed for young people - not adults. It’s humor has always been brilliant and sharp without being disgusting. Adults always secretly read it and I was delighted to be watching “A Hard Day’s Night” this weekend and saw the great John Lennon reading it. And of course they made jokes about Clinton. They make jokes about Obama. Yes, it’s always been left-of-center although, weirdly, I’ve just read that Bill Gaines was a Republican.
You think Crumb is twisted, try Ralph Steadman.
Cracked stunk in the 60s and stinks today. And Mad is nowhere as good as it once was. Even the cartoonists are not as talented.
Awesome!
Mad was designed for adults when it went to the magazine format. Even before (as a comic book) it wasn’t strictly aimed at “young adults”. Harvey modeled it on the college lampoons (which were not exclusively Harvard Lampoon).
As a magazine he had pieces written by Bob & Ray, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, and others.
Harvey left EC when Bill wouldn’t give him 51% ownership (it was not the big powerhouse it became and it was not the sole title being published).
Harvey went to work for Playboy when Hugh Hefner let Harvey publish Trump magazine (using the same creators he had at Mad). The paper was higher end and in color. Hugh was having legal bills on the pornographic front so the magazine was shelved after 2 issues were published (3 were completed).
Harvey then established Humbug magazine which ran for several years before launching Help!.
None of these were geared for kids.
Aline [Mr. Crumb's wife is the cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb]Â saw something on the internet...All the big newspapers and magazines in America had all agreed, mutually agreed, not to print those offensive cartoons that were in that Charlie Hebdo magazine. They all agreed that they were not going to print those, because they were too insulting to the Prophet. Charlie Hebdo, it didn't have a big circulation. A lot of French people said, "Yes, it was tasteless, but I defend their right to freedom of speech." Yeah, it was tasteless, that's what they say. And perhaps it was. I'm not going to make a career out of baiting some ****ing religious fanatics, you know, by insulting their prophet. I wouldn't do that. That seems crazy. But then, after they got killed, I just had to draw that cartoon, you know, showing the Prophet. The cartoon I drew shows me, myself, holding up a cartoon that I've just drawn. A crude drawing of an ass that's labeled "The Hairy Ass of Muhammed."Â [Laughs.]
To quote another dark, twisted character:
You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot...or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up...nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die...well, then, everyone loses their minds. Introduce a little anarchy...upset the established order...and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.
Contractors in hell holes often have terrible things happen... because they're in hellholes. It's expected. They're paid extra for the risk. It's "part of the plan". But on the streets of France, or the US, it is not expected... and thus, senseless acts of murder "over there" do not catch our attention nearly as much as horrible acts in supposedly peaceful modern Western cities.
That looks like a Savage Sword of Conan comic cover.
Nice. Monica is obviously stalking Bubba in this - look at his terrified expression. What rot.
Johnny Carson made obscene jokes going back to his late night tv show in the 1960s as well.
They never made it on the air and you know it unless you’re talking about that Ed Ames hatchet thing that was dragged out once a year. Don’t talk to me about the Carson show - I knew it as a NBC guide in NYC circa 1970. My father and brother wrote for it from 1968 onwards until Carson retired.
There is a bit with Johnny joking on NYE 1965-66 as he introduces Ed as an “authority on 3-way action” and he knows full well what he is saying as Ed has to do the ad pitch for Vicks or some other cold remedy.
This broadcast has been on youtube in the past but pulled for copyright infraction. This edit cuts out most of the Johnny footage and all of the guests. It retained the ads and the vamping from Ed and the band leader as Johnny was running late due to some security concerns at the studio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5NvC2-zQY
Can we please conclude our conversation? It's stretched the limits of both my temper and patience.
And as this thread has become a forum for nostalgia about 1960s alternative comic artists, I would like to mention the editorial cartoons of Ron Cobb.
I like Crumb and his work. He’s a friend of my boss’s and I’ve had some fascinating discussions with him about Christianity, Jesus and God.
I’m a half-assed artist, myself, and love all those great artists from the ‘60’s, as well as greats like Mort Drucker and the Mad Mag crew.
Long live R. Crumb!!
Ed
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