Mad Magazine vs.
Political Correctness

When I was a kid we moved around the country a lot. Every other year or so, we would get used to new people, new streets, new schools and new newspapers. Our favorite television news anchors, sportscasters and weather girls would be replaced by new ones with different accents.

If there was one constant in all of these places, it would have to be the national magazines. Growing up, I had a distinct fascination for magazines. Waiting to see the doctor or dentist, I would pore over Field & Stream with its tales of outdoor adventure or gape at mean street machines depicted in Car & Driver.

Of course doctors’ offices always had a wealth of magazines directed at kids such Jack & Jill, Highlights, and Boy’s Life. From my waiting room days I can still remember some Highlights features such as “Gallant & Goofus,” where we kids were supposed to learn the dos and don’ts of social behavior through the adventures of a nerdy do-gooder and a clumsy misanthrope. I always found my own behavior to fall somewhere in between Gallant and Goofus…just where I wanted to be.

I even remember some of the jokes from Highlights. One particular riddle from the magazine I got only years later—when I was in college—making it the ultimate “way homer.” The riddle went, “How do you get down off an elephant?” The answer was, “You don’t, you get down off a duck.” As a kid, I thought this to be the worst joke ever, not even worth a half a chuckle, lamer even than most of the “What’s black and white and red all over” riddles. It was only later, one winter when I was wearing a down vest, that I finally got the joke. “Down off a duck! Of course!”

15 years between hearing a punch line and getting it must be some kind of record.

Of all the magazines from my childhood, the one that probably made the biggest impact on me was Mad. Its irreverent style of humor and willingness to make fun of politicians, sports heroes and celebrities helped make me the man I am today.

Mad was a phenomenon among kids my age, and you could actually get in trouble if you took a copy to school…but that didn’t stop us young wiseacres from reading the comic-style spoofs of our favorite television shows and movies within its pages. Of course Mad had plenty of imitators such as Cracked, Sick and Crazy. There was even a Christian-based born-again imitation known as Glad. Some of these knock-offs hired Mad writers and illustrators such as Dave DeBerg, Al Jaffee and Jack Davis in an attempt to tap into the Mad formula for success. But none of these imitators hit the funny bone quite the way Mad did.

I honestly believe that without Mad magazine paving the irreverent way, there would have been no National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons. Mad helped shape my generation’s sense of humor while we were young and impressionable. Before the creeping crud of political correctness had a chance to get into our brains.

We writers at newspapers are always attuned to the latest trends in political correctness. Can we still call lawbreakers “criminals” or are they now known as “ethically challenged” individuals? Transient people once described by newspapers as hoboes, tramps or bums, can now no longer even be referred to as “homeless” lest someone get their feelings hurt. Now we have to call them “outdoorsmen” and “domicile-challenged.”

Political correctness has even become a part of the school curriculum in many places. A Charlotte Observer feature article on Tuesday, April 18, described a Sensitivity Workshop given to students at South Mecklenburg High School taught by the Centralina Area Agency on Aging. The workshop was designed to help kids become more empathetic to the plight of older people and instructed the students to avoid using words loaded with negative stereotypes such as “deaf,” “lonely” or “bedsores.”

You know, sometimes it seems to me that if Charlotte Mecklenburg schools spent less time with sensitivity and self-esteem workshops and spent more time on math, science, art, music, history, foreign languages and English, they wouldn’t have such a problem with parents pulling their kids from the public school system.

The other big politically correct news story of the month had to do with golfer Tiger Woods, who lost by three strokes at the Masters to rival Phil Mickelson. When asked about his performance in the final round, Woods stated, “I putted atrociously today. Once I got on the greens, I was a spaz.”

Evidently, the term “spaz” is considered grossly offensive to many people who think that it is strictly the domain of epileptics and sufferers of spastic paralysis, a form of cerebral palsy.

Woods later apologized for his comments but the retraction came too late as the Politically Correct Police had already charged Tiger with being more “Goofus” than “Gallant.”

A British disability organization known as Scope, formerly The Spastics Society, took extreme umbrage to Woods’ remarks and stated “Although in the US the term “spaz” may not be as offensive as it is here in the UK, many disabled people here will have taken exception to his likening a golf stroke to that of ‘a spaz.’

“Once again, Tiger Woods demonstrates that we are two nations divided by a common language.”

These scathing words to Tiger were brought to you by the same country that spawned the wonderfully un-politically correct comedy of Monty Python, Benny Hill and The Bonzo Dog Band.

Maybe Tiger should enroll in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System for some sensitivity training.

Or maybe he read too many Mad magazines as a child to become politically correct as an adult. One can only hope.