Humor Magazine Quotes

I was a huge fan of 'Mad' magazine when I was 11, 12, 13 years old. I'd scour used bookstores trying to find back issues, and I'd wait at the newsstand for a new issue to come out. My life revolved around it.

As an undergrad, I was the editor of the Yale humor magazine, and since then, I've published humor in the 'New York Times' and 'Atlantic,' among other places.

The Lampoon started in 1970, and I began writing freelance for them around the end of 1971, and then all through '72. They hired me in '73, and I left early in '81. I did everything from low puns to being editor-in-chief.

Well I've made no secret of my life long love of MAD Magazine, it's probably my first and greatest influence in terms of my comic sensibilities. I've known John [Ficarra] for many years, and we've been friends. About four or five months ago, at a dinner in New York, John made the very nice offer of my being guest editor for an issue of MAD and I thought about it for about half a nanosecond and decided that was a pretty good idea.

Before I went to a meeting at the 'Harvard Lampoon,' I had no idea that there was even a comedy magazine at Harvard, let alone that you could write comedy potentially for a living.

The only reason I wanted to do 'MADtv' was because I grew up reading 'Mad Magazine' because I'm a comic-book nerd.

Most of my exposure to American pop culture was through this weird prism of 'Mad' magazine.

Lampoon was a very collegial operation, though "collegial" usually means "friendly" and it wasn't that friendly. But we were tight, like a family.