Man I was 8 but still remember it clearly, the cousins I hung around with were 4-6 years older than me so I loved this kind of satire. Must have been super cool at 14 in 74’, dirt bikes were how all the pre driving age/ too old for bicycles age kids got around in my area. Most muscle cars were still less than 10 years old and still everywhere, CB’s were our cellphones and always had service be it only 10 miles lol I’d go back in a heartbeat damn all the new conveniences. Sorry I ramble I just miss it.
@Zolar Czakl Born in '53 - I remember "25¢ Cheap" in the 60s; also when Sgt Fury was a white cigar chompin' Nazi killin' WWII guy & his Howling Commandos were multi-ethnic bad asses; I have no CLUE what and why Sgt Fury is what he is today-but I digress. These Mort Drucker characters in the car bit (Walter Cronkite) and Oddfather are genius. 📺
That's the thing, this special is really neat because it never actually aired officially; no network would take it. You can see this in the special actually because there's a couple seconds of silence in the opening where they would've mentioned the sponsors, had there been any. Though I'm not sure how it ended up online. Maybe someone involved still had a copy laying around? Regardless, I think it's super cool that we have lost media like this that we never could've known about otherwise.
I was 14 in 1974 and would have killed for this! Now I'm watching it here and seeing all the greats. Geo Woodbridge, right off the bat! Remember Mad's "Cradle to Grave Primer" ? This goes straight into favs!
Since this was never picked up nor aired anywhere it's kind of remarkable that a copy of it still even exists at all. Would love to know the backstory of how this old tape was re-discovered.
Really a historic treasure. A lot of fun and the animation is a lot better than average for 1974 television. PLUS: Full Satire of Godfather I and II ! Good one
"This was a pilot that never aired. Network executives deemed the humor too crude and adult to air on television." -My, how much changes in two decades.
But that was the MAD humor everyone grew up since the 1940s. Are the exectives dumber? What did they expect? That's why the CN version sucked, they had to tone down the humor, making it lame to amuse the kids
It was pulled mainly because of the “MAD’s Auto Manufacturer Of The Year” segment which was a blatant parody of Ford who was one of the main sponsors. Anyone remember the Edsel and the Pinto?
Mad's first attempt at TV crashed and burned yet one year later, the rival National Lampoon magazine would spawn Saturday Night Live which was pretty much Mad magazine on TV.
Being from Panama in Latin America, I just want to say that I learned English so fast as I wanted to understand the reading of Mad Magazines. That movie is a treasure today. Thanks for sharing it.
Well, Madtv ran from 1995-2009 (they revived it for one season in 2016 but it wasn't very good) although it drifted more and more from the magazine after about the 3rd season. They also made the animated show Mad following that. Also, if ti weren't for Madtv we might not know who Key and Peele are.
I discovered Mad magazine in 1973. My mom wouldn't let me get it, so I would read it in the magazine aisle while she did her grocery shopping. Mad magazine was THE SHIZNIT back then! When I got older and started making my own money, I bought it for myself.
Mad Magazine & Cracked were my babysitters when I was growing up. I even saw Mad Magazines’ Up The Academy, in theaters. It was the greatest time to be a kid ….😂
My dad use to work on a trash truck in the 70's and use to find Mad madazines and other comic books and some was scary like the comic book ''The Witching Hour'' and other scary comics and comics like Casper and other great comic book and me and my dad use to read comics books after he worked all day and me and my dad went fishing on Sundays and my dad with God now and I miss him so much we was poor but he had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and todays comics books sucks and maybe that why everyone after the older comic that was better then todays comics!!
Ed Camp I know it's been three years since you wrote this but what a wonderful comment, you were a lucky boy to have a dad like that. Sorry for your loss.
This is cool. That's where I could be found as a kid, at the grocery store magazine rack while mom shopped. Love me some Mad. Was a different Era. Before smart phones and web. There were dozens of magazines. I never saw this show. Was a real treat. Thank you.
What a treasure! Thanks so much for sharing! (This is one of many aspects that makes TH-cam so great! - - for us to be able to see this, finally! I was 9 in 1974, but my whole family would have laughed our asses off if we had seen this at that time! (It's too late for my mom and dad, but I'll make sure my brothers see this!) And the animation is superb!
5 years old ik, but in the "reboot" called MAD that aired on Cartoon Network, they used many of the sketches or animated segments from this adaptation. Heck even some scenes of Spy vs Spy were re-used and even slightly rewritten. A scene like the Duck was used in Cartoon Network's MAD
The "Now wake him up and give him his sleeping pills" part at 12:55 is uncanny as it was only last night when I said a similar thing to my elderly mother who dozed off before I gave her sleeping pill! Also cool to see Don Martin's style come alive in animation form. I'm at the UK and love Martin's work.
Maybe WB would immediately greenlight a new long-form 2d animated series for Cartoon Network, HBO max and TBS that brings some of the lamest MAD movie spoofs to life.
0:53 - One reason this didn't air is 'cause Mad could NOT find anyone willing to sponsor it! Hence "Brought-to-you-by..............................(dead silence!)"
According to Maria Reidelbach's 1991 book, "Completely Mad," a major American automobile manufacturer agreed to sponsor "The Mad Magazine Special" but unsurprisingly declined just prior to its premiere date due to the tastelessness of many of the vignettes in the special, particularly the "Automobile Manufacturer Of The Year" sketch.
This is the first time I'm seeing this. I absolutely loved MAD and was 11 years old when this was made. I was always drawn to (pun intended) Al Jaffe's work. It was just so "out there" and disregarded realism in a way that made it cool 😎.
The TV CEO Edsel Lemon is a reference to the Ford Edsel, a car from the '30s or '40s that was an enormous financial failure, and the term lemon, which means a broken car.
+Mrpastry909 : Edsels were manufactured for all of 3 years: 1958, '59, and '60 They were much ballyhooed by Ford, but they were just fugly window dressing (that iconic front grille was compared to a toilet seat) tacked onto old crap. Edsels were dumped and became a laughingstock of car manufacturers and the public for years. Edsels are very rare and very expensive as a collector car. They still are ugly crap, IMO.
I heard that the main reason this great show never aired was because of the MAD’s Auto Manufacturer Of The Year parody which directly satirizes Ford, who was one of the show’s sponsors. Seems they were a little afraid that Ford would not be pleased with the parody!
I recognize the names of five of the animators -- John Gentilella, Frank Endres, Jim Logan, Gerry Dvorak and Gordon Whittier all did animation work for Paramount.
Do you know Mark Kausler? He was a freelancing animator who did the Spy Vs. Spy sequence in this special, and there's also Dale Case, who worked with DePatie-Freleng and WB in the 60s and such.
Man I love this Mad cartoon and Magazines bring this back on TV no BS wow the memories just know by just watching this one episode OMG thank you so much for this really forgot all bout MAD love it ❤❤
I was that one oddball kid who always preferred Sick to Mad, but nonetheless this may be the single greatest gift TH-cam has ever bestowed upon humanity.
I'm pretty sure the networks rejected it, not because the humour was crude & adult, but because it would have caused sponsors, particularly car companies, to pull their advertising. Back then, sponsors had much more control over content, and the networks were terrified of offending them. Back then, MAD Magazine could get away with anything in print, because it very proudly refused to carry ads.
I can truly say that two publications had some influence on me as I was growing up, Mad magazine and the furry freak brothers, I ended up as an engineer for my sins, but thinking outside of the box has been my greatest ability.
![MADTV - Spy vs Spy - Season 1 [1995]](/img/n.gif)
I was 14 in 1974, I've never seen this. In 2022, I still collect MAD Mags from the 70s.
Man I was 8 but still remember it clearly, the cousins I hung around with were 4-6 years older than me so I loved this kind of satire. Must have been super cool at 14 in 74’, dirt bikes were how all the pre driving age/ too old for bicycles age kids got around in my area. Most muscle cars were still less than 10 years old and still everywhere, CB’s were our cellphones and always had service be it only 10 miles lol I’d go back in a heartbeat damn all the new conveniences. Sorry I ramble I just miss it.
@Zolar Czakl Born in '53 - I remember "25¢ Cheap" in the 60s; also when Sgt Fury was a white cigar chompin' Nazi killin' WWII guy & his Howling Commandos were multi-ethnic bad asses; I have no CLUE what and why Sgt Fury is what he is today-but I digress. These Mort Drucker characters in the car bit (Walter Cronkite) and Oddfather are genius. 📺
no one ever saw it...the description says that it was never aired.
That's the thing, this special is really neat because it never actually aired officially; no network would take it. You can see this in the special actually because there's a couple seconds of silence in the opening where they would've mentioned the sponsors, had there been any. Though I'm not sure how it ended up online. Maybe someone involved still had a copy laying around? Regardless, I think it's super cool that we have lost media like this that we never could've known about otherwise.
I was 14 in 1974 and would have killed for this! Now I'm watching it here and seeing all the greats. Geo Woodbridge, right off the bat! Remember Mad's "Cradle to Grave Primer" ? This goes straight into favs!
This aired on the East Coast. I watched it when I was 9.
Since this was never picked up nor aired anywhere it's kind of remarkable that a copy of it still even exists at all. Would love to know the backstory of how this old tape was re-discovered.
ABC originally going to air the special but the network decided not to do it due to adult themes
I saw this on tv in the 80s so whachew talkin' bout Willis
I hope the backstory involves smuggling.
@@animemangafan1987 I think it was aired on prime time
@@animemangafan1987 Ford execs probably screamed bloody murder and threatened to pull all of its ads if ABC aired this show.
Really a historic treasure. A lot of fun and the animation is a lot better than average for 1974 television.
PLUS: Full Satire of Godfather I and II !
Good one
"This was a pilot that never aired. Network executives deemed the humor too crude and adult to air on television."
-My, how much changes in two decades.
But that was the MAD humor everyone grew up since the 1940s. Are the exectives dumber? What did they expect? That's why the CN version sucked, they had to tone down the humor, making it lame to amuse the kids
It was pulled mainly because of the “MAD’s Auto Manufacturer Of The Year” segment which was a blatant parody of Ford who was one of the main sponsors. Anyone remember the Edsel and the Pinto?
Italians didnt like the take off on THE GODFATHER
14:24
my oh my...how time have RE-changed since your comment
Mad's first attempt at TV crashed and burned yet one year later, the rival National Lampoon magazine would spawn Saturday Night Live which was pretty much Mad magazine on TV.
No, SNL isn't anything like MAD. MADTV is VERY close to the humor of the magazine, and so superior to SNL
@@linjicakonikon7666superior because you say so and it must be the absolute and total truth.
Being from Panama in Latin America, I just want to say that I learned English so fast as I wanted to understand the reading of Mad Magazines. That movie is a treasure today. Thanks for sharing it.
BART SIMPSON: "Wow! I'll never wash these eyes again!"
Jeannie Lindley th-cam.com/video/qjlDDZkGONs/w-d-xo.html
they've GOT to make this show happen! i mean, who doesnt wanna see a magazine practically come to life!?
Well, Madtv ran from 1995-2009 (they revived it for one season in 2016 but it wasn't very good) although it drifted more and more from the magazine after about the 3rd season. They also made the animated show Mad following that. Also, if ti weren't for Madtv we might not know who Key and Peele are.
Mad Magazine was a staple for me, I had a huge collection.
Thanks for posting this!
Damn I never heard of this till right now (2021) I read Mad constantly in 1974, I would've loved this show.
Same here.
I discovered Mad magazine in 1973. My mom wouldn't let me get it, so I would read it in the magazine aisle while she did her grocery shopping. Mad magazine was THE SHIZNIT back then! When I got older and started making my own money, I bought it for myself.
this show would have been huge!
Wow, I was 14 in 1974,,, I would have loved this.
Mad Magazine & Cracked were my babysitters when I was growing up. I even saw Mad Magazines’ Up The Academy, in theaters. It was the greatest time to be a kid ….😂
My dad use to work on a trash truck in the 70's and use to find Mad madazines and other comic books and some was scary like the comic book ''The Witching Hour'' and other scary comics and comics like Casper and other great comic book and me and my dad use to read comics books after he worked all day and me and my dad went fishing on Sundays and my dad with God now and I miss him so much we was poor but he had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and todays comics books sucks and maybe that why everyone after the older comic that was better then todays comics!!
Sorry for your loss
+ Chayson_Dam LOL, it seems that the uploader, +experson , lost the hearing in his right ear; so I'm sorry for *his* loss!!!
I saw a recent American trash truck recently - it said " TRUMP - Make America great again " on its side!!!
Ed Camp I know it's been three years since you wrote this but what a wonderful comment, you were a lucky boy to have a dad like that. Sorry for your loss.
Ed Camp In my opinion, comics are still good these days. I'm sorry for your loss. 😭
This is cool. That's where I could be found as a kid, at the grocery store magazine rack while mom shopped. Love me some Mad. Was a different Era. Before smart phones and web. There were dozens of magazines. I never saw this show. Was a real treat. Thank you.
Incidentally, the 'Oddfather' bit was taken virtually line for line from the magazine parody.
xaenon Well,an edited version,anyway....and the Gene Hackman and Steve McQueen cameos,amazingly,weren't in the original article.
@@snarkus63 All of these were from the magazine.
Interesting
Ahhh, the good old days- 8 years ago. When no one abused the word _literally_
thank you for putting this up i'd never heard of this before
Mort Drucker's caricatures are the best!
What a treasure! Thanks so much for sharing!
(This is one of many aspects that makes TH-cam so great! - - for us to be able to see this, finally!
I was 9 in 1974, but my whole family would have laughed our asses off if we had seen this at that time! (It's too late for my mom and dad, but I'll make sure my brothers see this!)
And the animation is superb!
A treasure of lost media
If this had been picked up,it would've predated Saturday Night Live by a year.
Yeah, its pretty much all material taken from the magazine instead of original stuff but still....its awesome!!!! What MADtv should've been!!
5 years old ik, but in the "reboot" called MAD that aired on Cartoon Network, they used many of the sketches or animated segments from this adaptation. Heck even some scenes of Spy vs Spy were re-used and even slightly rewritten. A scene like the Duck was used in Cartoon Network's MAD
The auto manufacturers parody is spot on for the time 😆 🤣 😂
Three Years before I was Born.
I would've loved this as a kid.
That is one beautiful 😻
Yeah I did
This is a great find.
The "Now wake him up and give him his sleeping pills" part at 12:55 is uncanny as it was only last night when I said a similar thing to my elderly mother who dozed off before I gave her sleeping pill! Also cool to see Don Martin's style come alive in animation form. I'm at the UK and love Martin's work.
Actually, that happened to me, in the hospital.
The nursing home staff did that to my great-aunt too.
It's great I love it. Too bad you didn't make more... 😊
Needed a 'fold-in' at the end!
this is how mad tv should of been
Or the MAD sketch show that Cartoon Network aired in the early 2010s. They almost got it right.
Canais Young it really didn’t this feels more natural
*should have
@@michaelhull1813 thank you
From the days when MAD magazine was FUNNY!
And it didn't need advertisements.
Yet years later, we have a cartoon of it airing on Cartoon Network which has reached 100 episodes... life is funny that way!
But there is MADtv and Mountain Dew before Cartoon Network
Not anymore, and even the mad magazines ended as a whole.
Maybe WB would immediately greenlight a new long-form 2d animated series for Cartoon Network, HBO max and TBS that brings some of the lamest MAD movie spoofs to life.
@10:00 cordless phone in '74 ?!? I believe the patent was a few years away, I never saw one till '83.
Amazing to see Mort Drucker's style in animation, he was such a master
2:28 And there it is, the first Spiro Agnew reference.
Boy, they really socked it to that guy.
MAD is fantastic at misdirectional humor. Sometimes it seems that's all they do, but they do it so well.
This is exciting! 😄
I love Mad Magazine, and I was born in '74.
Ditto lmao
this brings me back!
0:53 - One reason this didn't air is 'cause Mad could NOT find anyone willing to sponsor it! Hence "Brought-to-you-by..............................(dead silence!)"
I'm sure that was placed there so that actual advertisers could have a plug in the beginning, should it air.
sponsors didn't want to be spoofed
According to Maria Reidelbach's 1991 book, "Completely Mad," a major American automobile manufacturer agreed to sponsor "The Mad Magazine Special" but unsurprisingly declined just prior to its premiere date due to the tastelessness of many of the vignettes in the special, particularly the "Automobile Manufacturer Of The Year" sketch.
R.I.P. Mad Magazine!
This is the first time I'm seeing this. I absolutely loved MAD and was 11 years old when this was made. I was always drawn to (pun intended) Al Jaffe's work. It was just so "out there" and disregarded realism in a way that made it cool 😎.
This show should have been ongoing like the magazine.
Lol the hospital scene is hysterical
Wow! I never knew this even existed. Pretty cool, since I grew up reading the magazine.
What makes this pilot so rich for me is how it reflects the artists and writers from Mad Magazine's heyday.
Looks real good and humorous just like the magazine,fun and satire thanks for posting.
GOLD !! still valid and real today ... 35 years on
Too bad your math skills are not.
In Brooklyn I remember on the magazine stand they where right next to the dirty mags..
mr edsel lemon, when i was a kid i never got the jokes because i hadn't been around long enough to know anything, this is really for adults.
Go to 14:08 for the very first animated Spy VS. Spy.
wow they have skin colot
The TV CEO Edsel Lemon is a reference to the Ford Edsel, a car from the '30s or '40s that was an enormous financial failure, and the term lemon, which means a broken car.
+Mrpastry909 : Edsels were manufactured for all of 3 years: 1958, '59, and '60 They were much ballyhooed by Ford, but they were just fugly window dressing (that iconic front grille was compared to a toilet seat) tacked onto old crap. Edsels were dumped and became a laughingstock of car manufacturers and the public for years. Edsels are very rare and very expensive as a collector car. They still are ugly crap, IMO.
Adam Roth yeah and poor Henry name the Edsel after his son that died, though the car was failure.
Try the fifties, idiot!
The quality of the animation and music is fantastic.
That was gold! It's a shame it never got picked up by any station
I grew up with the 2010’s Cartoon Network series, but this is honestly a lot more funnier. 😂
I heard that the main reason this great show never aired was because of the MAD’s Auto Manufacturer Of The Year parody which directly satirizes Ford, who was one of the show’s sponsors. Seems they were a little afraid that Ford would not be pleased with the parody!
Awesome 😎 thanks brother !!🙏
I recognize the names of five of the animators -- John Gentilella, Frank Endres, Jim Logan, Gerry Dvorak and Gordon Whittier all did animation work for Paramount.
A lot of East Coast talent on this as well as West Coast.
Do you know Mark Kausler? He was a freelancing animator who did the Spy Vs. Spy sequence in this special, and there's also Dale Case, who worked with DePatie-Freleng and WB in the 60s and such.
"It never aired" Now I know why I never saw it. I remember reading the Oddfather in the magazine.
Mort Drucker Artwork. He was great at Actor Likenesses.
saw this on tv not sure the year but mid seventies for sure
Really grateful to be able to see this. That said, a far cry from the magazine. Thank you for the opportunity!
The Mad Magazine TV Special is brought to you by... Kellogg's! Your best choice in cereals, the best to you each morning!
Awesome , classic old school Mad.
Wow I like this. I would’ve liked this better than the sketch show in the 90’s.
Man I love this Mad cartoon and Magazines bring this back on TV no BS wow the memories just know by just watching this one episode OMG thank you so much for this really forgot all bout MAD love it ❤❤
I was that one oddball kid who always preferred Sick to Mad, but nonetheless this may be the single greatest gift TH-cam has ever bestowed upon humanity.
I'm pretty sure the networks rejected it, not because the humour was crude & adult, but because it would have caused sponsors, particularly car companies, to pull their advertising. Back then, sponsors had much more control over content, and the networks were terrified of offending them. Back then, MAD Magazine could get away with anything in print, because it very proudly refused to carry ads.
I remember when Mad Magazine would sometimes be on television. We never missed watching it. I miss this kind of stuff !
They should actually do this show... What I thought MAD TV was going to be I was pretty disappointed it wasn't more of this
0:55 "...is brought to you by THIS GUYS CROTCH SHOT" bwwwwaaaaaahahahaha!!!!!! I miss you Mad Magazine 😭😭😭
Mad Magazine were OBSESSED with Spiro Agnew
Futurama seemed pretty interested in him also
I can truly say that two publications had some influence on me as I was growing up, Mad magazine and the furry freak brothers, I ended up as an engineer for my sins, but thinking outside of the box has been my greatest ability.
I still have a few of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Zap Comix!
This is what the mad magazine show on cn should have been like
Mad magazine, especially in this form seems like a prime influence on the Simpsons
Never hear about this . Wow
The cartoon graphics remind me of those cheesy but unforgettable 70's K-Tel commercials.
totally 70's vibe here!
Today, this would go down as family programming.
It wouldn't make it to air today for simply not being funny enough. Put this next to modern animated comedies and it's just shit by comparison.
@@richsackett3423 Well, it does have a certain quaint charm.
@@earlsmith7428 without doubt.
Used to walk to King Kwik to get new copies of Mad Magazine:)
19:23 - Me, no, no, no?… I'm not Plazzo, Mr Nervous!!
Growing up, the magazine was treasured. Relative to the quality of the magazine, I can't see how the people at MAD would have allowed this to air.
yes, the show is crap and not really funny. Shelving it protected Mad's reputation.
Utter crap you two, this show is great
DON MARTIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THX !!!!
And this just in... Ralph Nader crashes into a tree while test driving The 1975 Ford Pinto, and blows up on impact.
This is interesting, never heard of it before.
the burns in this are REAL
And then years later, it finally became the show MAD TV.
wow! never knew this existed.
*¡enjoyed at 5:47 am Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, 9 November 2022! - 38 years ago i graduated from Fort Benning Georgia 31905*
THIS IS FABULOUS, I MEAN MAGNIFICENT THANKS FOR THE UPLOAD!!!
WoW so this was the only REAL MAD MAGAZINE SHOW ? Wish they did more the Artists were Absolutely Brilliant! 🍻 🐨
I love this shit.
Wow. Fantastic quality. Ha! Did Tarzan just do a bit of White Flight after seeing a Black Man in the jungle?
Thanks for uploading
And in Africa of all places, makes you wonder where Tarzan was living all this time.
It’s possible I’m missing some cultural context, but that’s what it looked like to me… 🧐
Would be hard to imagine any other interpretation of the bit.
Great that this video got out. I have the promo photo they created for the oddfather. I have a review video that I will release it in a few weeks.
I remember when a junior high classmate brought "It 's A Gas" to music class!! Boy, did we laugh ourselves silly!!
Its kinda cool seeing one of their movie parodies set to animation. I always wished Mad created a TV series centered on that.
This is Fantastic! Well Done :)
absolutely
I never knew this existed. This is great!
“Boy, they’re really socking it to that Spiro Agnew guy…he must work there or something.”
He was vice president.
It was way ahead of it's time and maybe too risque for television.
Damn they sure had the concept accurate to today's standards when it comes to automobile's
Made to fail
The artist/animator MUST be the same person who did the DONT ANSWER ME video by Alan Parsons.