Token Mad

Nope, I don’t think you’d get away with that cover today. But in 1973 (this is a first edition!) you could. It’s meant as a send-up of tokenism (think wokeness, but fifty years ago). The back cover declares: “Is Mad guilty of tokenism? You bet we are! We’ve always offered our readers token humor, token satire, token good taste! And this book is no different . . . just another token attempt at courageous publishing! So even though the price is only a token of what a good book would cost, you’ll be taken . . . with . . . The Token Mad.”

That token price, by the way, was $1.50. Wouldn’t see that on many covers today either.

This is another grab-bag Mad collection, full of bits and pieces mostly from the 1960s. The movie and TV satires, both illustrated by the great Mort Drucker, are for The Professionals (1966) and I Spy (1965-1968) respectively. For years I didn’t know anything about either of these shows, and by the time I finally saw them it was through the lens of the Mad versions that I knew practically by heart. Alongside recurring features like David Berg’s Lighter Side of . . ., the Don Martin Dept., and Spy vs. Spy (they each win one) there are some great one-offs like “Vanishing Human Types and Their Modern Replacements” (do you remember “the inexpensive handyman”? or are you more familiar with “the specialized service technician”?), “Historical Events as Covered by Modern News Feature Writers” (the Battle of Bunker Hill written up by the sports editor) and “Obituaries for Comic Strip Characters.” I got a real laugh out of this last one, and the obit for “noted man about town Donald Duck,” who was killed in a hunting accident after being mistaken for a wild canvasback. I loved this paragraph especially: “A spirited eccentric, Duck was known for his clever wit, all of which was unintelligible. He countered this, however, with savage bursts of temper which accomplished nothing.” That’s our Donald! And that was Mad!

Graphicalex