Bill Gaines' Two Secret Ingredients

Besides a unique message, excellent writers, and terrific artists, Gaines had two secret ingredients:

One was that the magazine carried no advertising, beyond that for reprints of its own material.  

Consider the point. That was nothing in Mad to suggest that the editors had more on their minds than the content itself, such as delivering its readers into the hands of the commercial  world. Mad’s message was subversion, but nothing in Mad subverted Mad itself, beyond the assurance by the editors that those who read it were, obviously, dolts.

This encouraged trust, and trust amplified force. It is not a small thing for a publication.

This powerful absence was matched by another. In this classic period of which we speak, the satire, while often silly (almost always silly) and often pointed, was notably free of rage, contempt, or obscenity. Mad’s adherence to the basic tao of human morality was total. Someone remarked that under the mask of Alfred E. Neuman was the heart of a rabbi, and there is some truth to this.

By contrast, we may glance at two other publications of the time. Punch also took on the whole of society. But the message underlying Punch was that while many things were amusing, nothing was quite as amusing as the lower and middle classes–not people like us, you know. As Punch revelled in contempt, so National Lampoon took obscenity as its main tool, though it also had a strong line in hate. Mad accepted no ads. Punch advertised high class hotels and National Lampoon sex aids.

“They was a fine crew, only I ask you, where are they now?” as Mr. Silver said.

That was classic Mad. Times moved on of course. The magazine was sold to Time Warner in the sixties, although Gaines remained in control. After his death, the editors began to accept advertisements, and the editorial content became considerably coarser–but of course society had become considerably coarser. The Mad continues, but the spirit (at least for this reader) has departed.

Gaines is worth recollection and praise as a figure on the cultural

Alfred E. Newman

landscape and for pointing out, in an amusing and wholesome way to young people, that their society deserved some careful scepticism. “Don’t believe the advertising,” is a good message now, and it was especially important at the height of the Madison Avenue age when commerce, sociology and perverted psychology made league together against the man in the street.

Gaines was no literary figure himself, of course, or as grand as Twain or Karl Kraus. But he was  an antidote to his time. "Sir, if  a man be moral without pride and popular without vulgarity, trust me, he may claim merit." So might Johnson have replied to the sneers of Boswell. I am sure Chesterton would have enjoyed him, I  think Karl Kraus would have smiled, and I suspect Voegelin would have found him interesting, perhaps as a response to the tensions of the time.        

Max Arnott is an independent scholar living in Toronto and has been a reader of Voegelin for many years. He is also a devotee of the writings of G.K. Chesterton. In addition to contributing his regular column, Mr. Arnott is an editor at VoegelinView. He may be contacted by email from the Contact Us link found at the bottom of any page.