The carefree décor extends right in to the office of co-editor John Ficarra, which houses a set of drums alongside a large-as-life shaggy-haired rag doll sporting overalls and a Neuman shirt. He's been lounging in the same chair for a dozen years — Neuman, not Ficarra — and is, confides Ficarra, "my alter ego."
 

But other things have changed. Editors Ficarra and Nick Meglin decided that the legendary humor magazine should abandon its longstanding black-and-white tradition and as a result, beginning this past February, Mad has been printed in living color. What is more, the magazine is now accepting advertising.

What? Color and ads? "Yep, it's right there in black and white," admits Mad's always straight-faced editor Meglin. "We introduced color so we could better compete in the world of 3D videos and computer and MTV graphics, and we also decided to shake Mad up a bit and make it less predictable." "We fully expect other magazines to follow our lead and go the color/ads route," adds Ficarra with a grin.
 

A Fun House Mirror
The ever-youthful Meglin and Ficarra have been at Mad for 69 years — between them, that is. "I was older when I started than I am now," says Meglin, who actually joined Mad 45 years ago, when he was 19. They both began as writers, becoming co-editors in 1984. Often finishing one another's thoughts, the two are friendly, casual and funny — although very serious about what they do.
 

One thing that hasn't changed is the magazine's mission: to function as "a funhouse mirror image of society," say the editors. But these days, satirizing society has its challenges. "Reality is our point of departure, and reality now has a Madness to it that started when films like Airplane began satirizing their own genre," says Meglin. "Then there's politics. We could never have created what happened after the election." ("What happened?" asks Ficarra.)

The Greatest Coup
Mad's transformation began when founder and publisher Bill Gaines died in 1992 and the magazine became a unit of Warner Bros. (It was previously under the aegis of Warner Publishing.) At Warner Bros., Mad fell under the administration of DC Comics and began publishing 12 issues a year (up from eight), expanded its freelance talent pool and opened up opportunities for more diverse voices and different art styles. At the same time, Jenette Kahn, DC Comics and Mad president and editor-in-chief, wanted the magazine to be sharper edged and less whimsical, so special features — printed in color and on better paper — were added to the mix.

One of them, "The Mad 20 — The Dumbest People, Events and Things of the Year," is generally the best-selling issue of the year, and recently led to the magazine's greatest coup: the photo on the May 2001 cover of George W. Bush holding up the January, 2000 issue of Mad in which then-Governor Bush was "honored" in "The Dumbest People" satire. "It was life imitating art imitating life," Meglin says with relish.
 

Recently, to make the ongoing use of color more financially feasible, the magazine was faced with the choice of either accepting ads or raising the cover price substantially. Ads carried the day. Explaining the importance of color, the editors point out that a feature like "A Day in the Life of the AOL Man" in the June issue wouldn't work nearly as well if the character was drawn in black and white.

You've Got Mad!
As always, Mad readers remain 80% male, average age 24, median age 16. After age 16, readers are generally lost to other interests, but return when they leave college. What's different these days is that not only do parents generally approve of Mad, most Regents exams even include a Mad-related question, and teachers actually use the magazine in their lessons. For example, the editors learned that a social studies teacher brought Mad's April 2001 issue to class to discuss the feature "The Ballot Hymn of the Republic," which comments on the absurd aftermath of the last presidential election. ("What happened?" asks Meglin.)

The magazine has also added a robust Web site, www.Madmag.com, updated twice a week. When Ficarra and Meglin heard that Puffy Combs wanted to change his name to P Diddy, for example, they wrote a piece about it that was posted the next day. "In print we would have had to wait three months," they explain. With the recent AOLTW merger, the editors hope Mad's Web presence will be even greater. "We'd love to have Alfred's face pop up and say, 'You've Got Mad!'"
 

A Mad, Mad World
The CD-Rom project, Totally Mad, a compilation of every issue from 1952-98, has also been Mad successful. The magazine has a thriving book licensing program, too. Mad Cover to Cover (published by art book publisher Watson Guptil) is in its third printing and this year there'll be a book celebrating the 40th birthday of the magazine's long-running feature Spy vs. Spy. In 2002, Mad commemorates its 50th anniversary with the publication of The Art of Mad. And Mad TV (another licensing deal) has been picked up for two more years and will go into syndication. And this summer, the Warped tour will be dispensing Mad stickers from airplanes, and the Toyota Comedy Festival will feature an Alfred E. Neuman look-alike contest.

"We like to think we promote healthy awareness by using satire to show people the underside of life," say Meglin and Ficarra, who see Mad as an important rite of passage. Meanwhile, readers remain energized and engaged. In fact, a fan in Europe once sent a letter to Mad with Alfred's face on the envelope in lieu of a mailing address. The post office knew exactly where to deliver it. "Now that," say the editors, "is consumer confidence."