SDCC 2014: Geekscape Interviews MAD Editor-in-Chief John Ficarra
As a kid growing up reading MAD while hiding it from my parents at home and teachers at school, it was a thrill to speak with MAD magazine’s editor-in-chief John Ficarra at San Diego Comic-Con.
Geekscape: “How has it been like to see MAD Magazine evolve during the 40-plus years you’ve served as editor?”
John Ficarra: “That’s a good thing. It’s like that great line Woody Allan had: ‘Marriage is like a shark; its got to keep moving or else it dies.‘ I think that’s true of magazines as well. I think we always have to keep evolving so that we’re catering to the tastes because comedy changes, you know? What was funny then isn’t necessarily funny now, although a good fart joke is timeless. I think we have to reflect what’s going on in society, and certainly language has been ramped up in society. Things that you hear on television now you could never have heard years ago.”
Geekscape: “I’m sure a few decades ago, even MAD had a line they wouldn’t cross, but it seems now every other television program is crossing it by leaps and bounds.”
John Ficarra: “You can’t even find that line anymore. That line has been erased.”
Geekscape: “What have been some of the challenges you’ve had serving as editor of MAD over the years?”
John Ficarra: “One of the challenges we’ve had that we have now conquered was the timeliness issue because MAD would come out, and we’d be working on issues that were six, eight, and sometimes twelve weeks down the road, so it was very difficult for us to be topical, and it was very difficult for us to react to something whereas it would be easy for television. When George Bush choked on a potato chip, that same night, Letterman is doing the ‘Top 10 Reasons Why Bush Choked on a Potato Chip.’ We can’t do a joke that’s going to come out in twelve weeks about that. No one is going to care about it.
“So we now have a blog that we update daily–and sometimes even hourly if something were to happen–so we are much more timely. That’s really been extremely gratifying for us, and then we put the best of that into the magazine.”
Geekscape: “Is it surreal to see MAD grow to this level of success–with it’s own television show on FOX and Cartoon Network and still being in publication since 1952?”
John Ficarra: “It’s great! There are a couple things I can’t talk about yet that are going to push MAD beyond what most people may normally think about. It’s really good to see the brand survive and prosper–and I mean–I’m not breaking any news here when I say it’s been a very difficult time for magazines in general, and the weird thing is we’re a part of Time Warner, and Time Warner just spun off the entire Time Magazine side of their business, so MAD is now the only magazine published by Time Warner. I wonder what kind of odds I would’ve gotten in Vegas if I were to bet that 10 years ago!”
Geekscape: “What kind of memorable responses and feedback have you received from parents or educators concerning MAD?”
Joh Ficarra: “It’s a lot of both. We get a lot of ‘I grew up reading MAD and I couldn’t wait for my son or daughter to get old enough so we can share it, and now we sit and read it together’ to ‘I read MAD growing up, and what you guys are doing today is nothing like what I read, and as a parent, I will never let [my kids] read it again.’ I think both responses are good. I think MAD, if it’s doing its job, should make parents a little bit uncomfortable because a big part of the gestalt of MAD is ‘Don’t trust authority. Question everything that someone in authority is telling you ’cause chances are they’re wrong’, and parents fall into the ‘authority’ category. It’s good that we’re not beloved by all parents, you know? Sometimes we get thrown out of libraries and sometimes we get wonderful letters from librarians.
“One of my favorite stories goes back to ’84 or ’85–and Bill Gaines was still alive at that point–and I picked a thing up from the fax machine and it was a newspaper account about a teacher in Canada, who for years, always clipped Sergio Aragones’ little drawings in the corner and put them on kids’ test papers before he reproduced them so this way if the kids are nervous about something, it would be a fun way to break the ice. Well, some fundamentalist saw this and thought it was going to lead our kids towards mayhem, death, and destruction, and he filed a complaint to the school board demanding the teacher be fired. Now the teacher–poor guy, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong–all of a sudden his job is in jeopardy and now he figures the story is in the papers and MAD is going to come after him for copyright infringement ’cause he’s reproducing all this stuff out of the magazine.
“Well, he didn’t know Bill Gaines.
“I bring the article to Bill and within half an hour, Bill is on the phone with the guy and paid all his legal bills to fight [the fundamentalist] and he wound up saving his job. That was one of many great Bill Gaines moments.”
Geekscape: “Growing up, which shows or comedians did you watch that you feel led you to this path to become the editor of MAD?”
John Ficarra: “Certainly Woody Allen, The Marx Brothers, and Johnny Carson–those are my big three that I point to–Oh! And going back earlier? Soupy Sales. And even earlier? The Looney Tunes. I think it’s like Marvel and DC. It’s either Looney Tunes or Disney. Disney was always too saccharine-sweet for me. I like the subversiveness of Bugs Bunny; I liked the fact that it worked on many levels. I liked the fact that [Bugs] would look at the camera and give you that look that ‘I know what’s going on and you know what’s goin’ on, kids.’ It just works. To this day, I can watch Looney Tunes and be entertained.”
Geekscape: “Looking back on all those Looney Tunes cartoons, I didn’t realize that as a kid, I was being taught ‘pale face and red nose’ comedy through Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. I watch those cartoons now and am just blown away in how brilliant they are.”
John Ficarra: “Also classical music! You learn all the classical music. ‘Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!'”
Geekscape: “Lastly, what is one of your goals for MAD Magazine heading into 2015?”
John Ficarra: We have a couple really big projects that are percolating that hopefully you’ll hear about. If one or more of these get going, it would be a true wonder, but my biggest goal, first and foremost, is the magazine. ‘How can I make it better? How can I make it funnier? How can I get it in more people’s hands? How can I get more people to subscribe?’ We are doing an app for the iPad now, so if you subscribe to the print edition you automatically get a free digital subscription. Next year, maybe hopefully by the end of this year, we will get to Android devices, too. And that’s a very good experience where you can do a fold-in on the iPad with a finger swipe, and you can also do it by folding your iPad but it only works once. Then you’re pretty much done. There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming, and to get the word out that MAD is still funny and still around.”
You can check out the MAD Magazine blog, as well as subscribe to the magazine here.
Source: Interview held at SDCC on July 25, 2014.
