MAD magazine was at the absolute height of its circulation in the mid 1970s—north of two million of each issue hit the newsstands then—so it was no surprise that television executives wanted in on the action. ABC ordered a pilot for an animated MAD series, but shelved it due to the “adult” humor and apparently because they didn’t want to piss off their bread and butter. Dick DeBartolo (“MAD’s maddest writer!”) said of the ill-fated pilot (eventually aired as a one-off “special” apparently) “Nobody wanted to sponsor a show that made fun of products that were advertised on TV, like car manufacturers.”

In the MAD TV special, the viewer is treated to on-screen adaptations of the work of Don Martin, Al Jafee, Antonio Prohias, Dave Berg and Mort Drucker. I’d rate this as “good” not “great” but it is interesting to see how MAD translated to the small screen and given a chance to develop, it could’ve been a classic of the era. Certainly it’s a fuck of a lot better than their terrible 1980 film, MAD Magazine’s Up The Academy, which is SO EGREGIOUSLY AWFUL that MAD publisher William Gaines actually paid $30,000 to have the MAD name taken off it (a bargain) before it started airing on cable!