No Mad Magazine?

[Hadley]

Lets say Time's prediction was right and Mad did end up being simply a "short-lived satirical pulp". How would this affect comedy and comics? I know one side effect, dan clowes and peter bagge, both big names in the "alternative comics" genre of the 90s, got their start working for Cracked magazine in the 80s. With no Mad, none of the ripoffs like Cracked would exist, meaning they would have had nowhere to hone their work.

 

[MacCaulay]

National Lampoon is gone. That means that the chances of the National Lampoon's alumni getting to something like the fame they have in OTL is pretty far.

PJ O'Rourke (comedy writer and columnist)
Dan Akroyd
Harold Ramis (Egon from Ghostbusters, and the co-writer of Animal House, Ghostbusters, etc.)

and others would have a much harder time of getting anywhere. They were all either writers or editors for National Lampoon.