Review of
The Rip Off Mad,
edited by Albert B. Feldstein
Five out of five stars
Nobody does social parody better than Mad
One of the
long-term weaknesses of the humor that appears in Mad Magazine is that it
becomes dated. Political humor that is extremely funny at the time is lost on
most people reading it fifty years later. For example, biting humor about
President Richard Nixon and Watergate is generally not understood by the modern
reader. There is little to none of that in this book.
It contains the
usual Spy vs Spy segments and parody of the American social mores. Nearly all
of that is timeless and just as relevant now as it was in the late sixties. My
favorite was the section on phone harassment. Landlines are now largely a thing
of the past; the mobile cell phone has replaced them. Yet, the annoying phone
calls are just as persistent and frustrating as they were fifty years ago.
American
society has changed a great deal, but the interactive components have not.
People still are people with emotions, petty annoyances and common ways of
interacting with each other. For those reasons, this remains a solid book of
humor.
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