Dick De’s MAD Tour

MAD has a Myspace page where Alfred posts announcements and info about the latest MAD stuff. On it Dick Debartolo, MAD’s Maddest Writer, posts comments and other stuff, including installments of a “Backstage Tour” of the MAD offices that are now on YouTube:

Part One

Part Two

There is supposed to be a part three done but I have no idea when it will be posted.

There isn’t much to the MAD offices, except for some awesome original cover art on the walls. They moved from the 5th floor to the 4th floor of the building that also houses DC Comics, and they lost some space as a result. They do have a full hallway wall set up like a museum with enlargements of a number of the MAD spoofs of famous paintings like “The Mona Lisa”, etc., all in fancy frames. There is also a wall right outside John Ficcara‘s office that is designated for MAD artists to do doodles on.

MAD‘s security is pretty tight these days, but you can still get an office tour if you e-mail ahead of time and make arrangements. It’s worth a stop in just for the original Jack Davis, Norman Mingo, Kelly Freas and Richard Williams (not to mention J. Fred Muggs) cover art. If you come in on a Wednesday Dick De will probably be in. Bring him cookies… he loves that.

A shout out to Mark Evanier for reminding me about these videos.

UPDATE: Opsman comments to say that part 3 and part 5 (as well as the parts above) are on MAD’s myspace page. It’s hard to see, but right under the user picture on the upper left (usually the current issue’s cover) are two links, one called “Video”. Click on that to see parts 3 and 5 (if you have nothing better to do, like watch paint dry). Part 4 is missing, but I suspect that is a gag.