A Mad Bash

Norman Rockwell’s art was tinged with nostalgia and gentle humor as he depicted a world that existed in the imagination of thousands of 20th-century Americans—a world of adolescent boys fleeing from forbidden swimming holes, families on joyful Sunday rides, a young boy’s apprehensive visit to the doctor’s office and a grinning tomboy sporting a black eye, sitting outside the principal’s office.

How different his world view was from the edgy, sardonic humor of MAD Magazine, which stabbed its finger in the eye of the establishment, mocking politicians, movies, cultural icons and societal norms. Where Rockwell celebrated the world he inhabited, MAD skewered it.

This summer, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge will examine the treatment of humor by both Rockwell and the “Usual Gang of Idiots” who created MAD. In thematically linked exhibitions, Norman Rockwell: Illustrating Humor and What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine, curators examine two strikingly different world views, both reliant, albeit in different ways, on adolescents.

Rockwell, born into the optimism of an expanding America at the turn of the last century, looked to the antics of young boys and girls for many of his funniest illustrations, focusing his keen eye on the foibles and follies of family, friends and community.

But MAD was created in a world that had seen the Great Depression, suffered two world wars and that was anxiously enduring a Cold War. Its target audience, young adolescents, could well appreciate the irony of the magazine’s icon, the hopelessly complacent Alfred E. Neuman, who queried, “What, Me Worry?”

“Both Norman Rockwell and the satirists of MAD Magazine had a gift for visual storytelling and an eye for comic detail. Their art memorably captures the comedy of human nature and the variety of human situations,” said Norman Rockwell Museum Chief Curator Stephanie Plunkett.

From its birth in 1952 through its final publication of original material in 2018, the magazine’s outrageously satirical staff poked fun at everything and everyone. MAD, an equal-opportunity offender, was controversial from the start. Ostensibly geared to kids, the publication touched on the big social, political and cultural issues of the day: from McCarthyism and the Cold War to political corruption and consumerism.

Not even Rockwell was spared MAD’s attentions as it parodied Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations and advertising art. The exhibition features several of these parodies. A highlight is Richard Williams’ 2002 painting, Alfred E. Neuman’s Triple Self-Portrait After Norman Rockwell created for the cover of the book, Mad Art: A Visual Celebration of the Art of MAD Magazine and the Idiots Who Create It by Mark Evanier.

The painting is a satirical redo of Rockwell’s humorous 1960 portrait of himself painting himself; in Williams’ rendering, it is Alfred E. Neuman who sits in the artist’s chair, peers into the mirror and paints the back of his head.

This summer’s paired exhibitions reveal how humor can create social change, whether by capturing common experiences with comic undertones, tracking shifting societal norms or critiquing cultural and political realities. “Rockwell’s influence on a century of American humor comes sharply into focus alongside MAD’s ‘Usual Gang of Idiots,’” said Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt.

MAD’s irreverence shaped the comic sensibilities and aspirations of generations of artists, writers, filmmakers, comedians and other cultural figures. Comedy productions as diverse asLaugh In, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, South Park, The Onion and The Daily Show all reflect MAD’s influence, and Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and many others have paid public tribute to MAD.

MAD’s influence and cultural impact will be explored through 150 original illustrations and cartoons created by the magazine’s many artists and writers including Sergio Aragonés, David Berg, Paul Coker, Jack Davis, Dick DeBartolo, Mort Drucker, Will Elder, John Ficarra, Kelly Freas, Al Jaffee, Harvey Kurtzman, Don Martin, Nick Meglin, Norman Mingo, Antonio Prohías, Marie Severin, John Severin, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano, Richard Williams and Wally Wood.

The exhibition has been co-curated by illustrator and art journalist Steve Brodner and Plunkett, in collaboration with an 11-member advisory group led by Viviano, former MAD art director.

First published in 1952, MAD originally launched as an EC comic book series founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, with its inaugural issue titled Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad. In 1955, with MAD No. 24, the comic became an illustrated magazine, releasing it from the censorship of the Comics Code Authority. The publication’s groundbreaking parodies of Superduperman and Starchie—takeoffs on the classic DC superhero and Archie comics—launched MAD into the stratosphere. Special features such as Spy vs. Spy, MAD Fold-Ins, MAD’s Maddest Artists and MAD’s Marginals, were longtime favorites.

What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine opens June 8th with a MAD Bash from 6 to 10:30PM. There is a 5PM early entry for sponsors and Alfred’s VIP ticket buyers. Participants will mingle with MAD artists, illustrators, comic creators, writers, collectors and co-curator/satirical illustrator Steve Brodner. The event will include dancing and attendees are encouraged to wear their most outrageous MAD inspired apparel.

Entertainment will be provided by comedian Kevin Bartini, who has appeared as “Billy Jones” on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as well as on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Bartini served as a comedy writer for HBO and Comedy Central.

Ticket prices range from $150 to $10,000. For tickets click here, call 413-931-2265 or mail a check to Norman Rockwell Museum, PO Box 308, Stockbridge, MA 0126

A summer “MAD Fest” weekend with events and activities occurring across the Norman Rockwell Museum’s campus is also planned, as well as workshops, children’s programming and a program featuring scholars, artists, and writers through the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies.
What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine opens June 8th and continues through October 27th. Norman Rockwell: Illustrating Humor opens June 22nd. Norman Rockwell Museum is located at 9 Glendale Road., Stockbridge, MA; 413-298-4100.