Emil Steiner March 23, 2011

Cheap Laughs: Analysis of the American Magazine Humor Niche

Henry Hill: You're a pistol, you're really funny. You're really funny. Tommy DeVito: What do you mean I'm funny?

Henry Hill: It's funny, you know. It's a good story, it's funny, you're a funny guy. [laughs] Tommy DeVito: What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?

Henry Hill: It's just, you know. You're just funny, it's... funny, the way you tell the story and everything. Tommy DeVito: [it becomes quiet] Funny how? What's funny about it?

“Goodfellas” (1990)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Three magazines walk into a bar. The first has

goofy red hair and is missing his left incisor. The second has a blond mop-top, coveralls,

and a mop. The third smells so bad that tears jump to the bartender’s eyes.

“Can I see some ID?” asks the bartender holding his nose.

“What--me worry?” responds the first.

“Shut up!” mouths the second, before transforming into a LadMag and reappearing

online only.

“Tu stulus es!” retorts the third.

Don’t get it? Well most people don’t get their humor from magazines either these days

(so suck it!). Television, film and user-generated Internet content are the current

undisputed kings of comedy. However the three magazines, caricatured above,

represent a significant portion of the contemporary humor magazine niche. Their names

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are MAD, The Onion, and Cracked.com and together they’ve been keeping people

(mostly young men) in stitches for over 125 years.

In the past they competed. Today they represent three contradictory demographics of

the competitive niche. To wit (yuck, yuck), MAD is the oldest, but has the youngest

demographic of readers and is available only in print or PDF form. Cracked.com is the

second oldest, has a mostly college-aged readership, and is only online. (Cracked.com

Media Kit) The Onion is the youngest, but has the oldest readership is available both

online and in print. (Onion 2011 Online Media Kit) Their differences are reflections of

their history and indicators of the current state of the American humor magazine

market.

The Usual Gang of Idiots

Although the Harvard Lampoon may protest, Mad claims it's “America's longest-running

humor magazine, besides Time.” (The Untold History of Mad: 1952-1960) Founded in

1952 as a comic book by Harvey Kurtzman (editor) and William Gains (publisher) the

first issue's cover proffered an ethos that has remained for seven decades: Kids get it,

parents don’t.

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MAD magazine came of age in 1956, when Al Feldstein took over as editor. The identity

shifted from comic book to satire magazine. No longer beholden to rules of the Comic

Code Authority, MAD grew edgier, taking on politics and society with a juvenile

disregard for decorum. (History of MAD, Wikipedia).

That anti-establishment sentiment is reflected in the magazine’s fictional mascot, Alfred

E. Neuman, who first appeared on the front cover as a write-in candidate in the 1956

presidential election, (issue no. 30). Below a comic elephant-donkey stare-down sits the

bust of Neuman, his blasé gaze bordering on lobotomized. “What--Me Worry?” says the

subverted Howdie Doodie without ever moving his lips. That campaign slogan of

youthful insouciance grew into a counter-culture inside joke during the next three

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decades, as MAD’s circulation swelled, peaking at 2,132,655 in 1974.

(http://users.ipfw.edu/slaubau/madcirc.htm).

MAD’s writers, known as the Usual Gang of Idiots (think: Algonquin Round Table with

better cartoons and more toilet jokes) remained on the vanguard of humor throughout

the Cold War. Their self-effacing/self-aggrandizing wit engendered countless imitators --

most notably, Cracked Magazine. As the writers quip: "Soon newsstands are clogged

with competitors such as Wacky, Gaga, Bugnuts, Loco, Bonkers, Clinically Unbalanced,

The Problems of the Mentally Ill, Non Compos Mentis, Medical Candidate for Invasive

Frontal Lobe Surgery and A Danger Both to Himself and to His Community. The sheer

number of MAD imitators is so out of control that there isn't enough paper to print

them all. Soon, publishers are making deals with Brazilian land barons to raze their rain

forests. Scientists estimate that it will take at least 200 years for Earth's ecosystem to

recover fully." (The Untold History of Mad: 1952-1960)

But seriously, MAD's satirical voice has not only influenced three generations of

comedians but also activists, journalists, and musicians. Roger Ebert credits the

magazine with teaching him how to be a movie critic. (Foreword to Mad About the

Movies, Mad Books). National Book Awards winner Joyce Carol Oates called it

"wonderfully inventive, irresistibly irreverent and intermittently ingenious." (GARNER,

Dwight; Collateral Damage; New York Times; July 17, 2007) As MAD boasts in its “Untold

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History” the magazine “has affected our culture and history in such an all-encompassing

and fundamental way that it is sometimes easy to overlook our awesome influence.”

So What If It's Broke?

If “What, me worry?” ever grows stale Mad might consider “if ain’t it broke don’t fix it”

as a backup motto. Since the 1970’s the book has consistently, some might say

dogmatically, clung to the same format. With the exception of more color, a higher price

tag (Cheap?) and four pages of ads, the April 2011 issue is nearly identical to the April

1991 issue that I still own. In fact both have covers with Neuman spoofing the latest

“stupid” haircut.

Don’t let the 1991 concept cover throw you either. It was an exception to the norm of

single image/multiple theme with three skylines as seen in the Bieber 2011 and

hundreds of others.

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Going behind the 2011 cover is a Technicolor stroll down memory lane for an old reader

like me. The FOB starts with the same smart-alecky table of contents on page 1 called

Departments which describes the content on all pages including (ha, ha) page 1 (“It’s the

list we can do Department”).

As they have been for years, pages 2-3 are called the Letters and Tomatoes Department

(letters from readers). The next nine pages are filled with small features that vary issue

to issue and usually are based on reader-submitted humor.

MAD bucks the magazine norm of building to the feature well, jumping to it on page 12,

with what remains my least favorite part of the book – the movie/TV satire. This is

always the longest feature, filled with campy jokes diagramed in comic strip style. Pages

12-13 are always a double-truck in which the main characters, beautifully caricatured,

introduce themselves.

The April, 2011 TV satire feature is titled “Sad Men” and contains such witty lines as:

“I’m Dom Dripper, creative director at Spilling Hooper! I’m a brilliant, smooth talking

hotshot ad man! In the boardroom or the bedroom I get rave reviews. I can sell floor

wax to the public and I can sell myself to women. In either case, I promise no scuff

marks! I don’t know what that means, but I don’t have to. I’m Dom Dripper. I’m a

legend.” Yeeech!

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Thankfully that department is easily skipped on route to more rewarding shorts

(typically two to four pages long) of consistently funny satire. Some departments such

as Serge-In-General (page 24) and Joke and Dagger aka Spy vs. Spy (page 30) have

managed to stay charming after all these years. Dave Berg’s “Lighter Side” unfortunately

died with him in 2002. Other departments rely on pop-culture such as “What we Really

Learned from WikiLeaks” (page 18) and “Mad’s Moronic Outtakes from Sarah Palin’s

Alaska (You Betcha!)” (page 20). Of course no issue of MAD would be complete without

an Al Jaffe fold-in on the inside back cover. SPOILER ALERT! The April issue features a

gag comparing intrusive airport security checks to X-Box Connect.

Although the magazine’s layout and formula have remained virtually unchanged, its

circulation has not. In 2010 MAD’s total paid circulation was 188,825 according to 2010

DC Comics circulation figures (http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/12/29/dc-comics-

month-to-month-sales-november-2010/). It has cut back to six issues per year, and

upped the price to a very “uncheap” $5.99. The subscription price of $19.99 brings the

per issue cost down to a more reasonable $3.33 per issue but a more fundamental

problem remains. Can a humor magazine remain satirically relevant with two-month old

content, particularly in today’s Twitterverse?

Another challenge for its publishers is MAD’s adherence to print-(almost)-only content

that remains woefully out of touch with its audience. According to the media kit its

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primary readership demographics are 10-14 year old and the secondary is 15-18 year

old. 70% are male. (MAD media kit) They are members of a generation born into an

online world and indifferent to the antiquated niceties of holding a paper magazine. As

such, circulation within the primary readership is unlikely to rebound unless it takes on

more of web presence.

If it’s unwilling to take the cyber leap, MAD could potentially increase circulation by

capturing older readers nostalgic for paper cuts and adverse to Kindle Tunnel Syndrome

(sorry, MAD has that effect on me). Baby boomers and Gen Xers have loyalty to the

satirical pioneer and the pass-along effect to their children (and yes grandchildren)

could be significant. There is some evidence that DC Comics, MAD’s current owner, is

aware of this area for growth. A new department called The MAD Vault features articles

from old issues with loose news pegs to current news. April 2011 has a flashback to

issue #326, March 1994, reprinting "It's a Recession… It's a Depression…" feature. This

joke from it is telling: "If you like Sundays because it gives you a break before you have

to start the job hunt again… it's a recession. If you like Sundays because the newspapers

are the thickest and warmest that day… it's a depression."

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

As it brags, MAD's success spawned numerous imitations. The most success was Cracked

Magazine the predecessor to Cracked.com founded in 1958. The writers have no qualms

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admitting that their product was a blatant knockoff. According to its own history,

Cracked "spent nearly half a decade with a fan base primarily comprised of people who

got to the store after MAD sold out. Our latest incarnation of the magazine (a poor

man's version of Maxim) only came about once the old CRACKED offices were closed by

the anthrax attacks of 2001 (the poor man's version of the fall 2001 terrorist attacks)."

(http://www.cracked.com/article_14910_mello-yello-go-bots-top-10-poor-mans-

versions.html)

That LadMag vibe is still present in the current online iteration and is indicative of the

primary readership, students in their 20s. "America's Only Humor & Video Site, Since

1958" as the tagline goes, relies on its "critically acclaimed" lists, caption contests, and

strange-but-true art, rather than classic joke or satire writing. They also toss in occasion

stories that are more surprising that funny, such as the February 28, 2011 "6 Important

Things You Didn't Know We're Running Out Of." Number six is Helium… go figure.

Demand Media, which handles Cracked.com's advertising, touts the upside of the E-

zine's amateurish content: "It’s not produced by a team of Hollywood professionals. The

articles and funny videos are made almost entirely by CRACKED.com's highly talented

editorial team, individual content creators and fans, giving contributors an audience in

the millions and helping them establish a credibility and visibility they wouldn’t have

otherwise."

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The result is inconsistent and, unlike MAD or the Onion, lacks a uniform voice. The

transient appearance and tone are indicative of the Internet itself and of its readership –

85% have attended college (at one point or another) and the core age is 18-34,

according to the media kit. It "has the most intelligent, tech-savvy and sexually

attractive audience in the online humor space (We have Nielsen data to back up 2 of

those claims)," according to its media kit. Cracked.com is read on iPhones, in dorm

rooms, studio apartments, and the office cubicles inhabited by recent graduates happy

to have work. 92% shop online, 59% are male and they live in big cities. The numerous

writers cater to them by "straddle[ing] the line between high and low brow," and

therein lies the problem. Despites being the "fastest growing comedy brand online,"

(media kit), the marketplace for online comedy is illimitable and expanding every

nanosecond.

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Without a clear identity, Cracked.com would be well served diversifying. A push into

television or dynamic social media integration (Apps, Facebook games, a Twitter feed,

TV related content creation contests) could be a step in the right direction. Multi-media

is the name of the game but it takes money something, Cracked.com and its readers

don't have much of these days.

Best of Both Worlds

Founded in 1988, the Onion is technically a news satire organization and, in print,

resembles a newspaper more than a magazine. The youngest of our three players, it is

available in print (weekly), online (24/7), has its own TV news network, a TV sports

network and is distributed for free internationally. It is considered by many to be the

pinnacle of contemporary written satire and it appears quite comfortable in that

position.

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Created by Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, while they were juniors at the University

of Wisconsin–Madison, the Onion took nearly a decade to go mainstream. That lengthy

incubation period allowed "America's Finest News Source" to solidify its deadpan voice,

and its underground cache. It was Daily Show 15 years before the Daily Show and

readers know it. Each issue expertly mimics newspaper headlines in tone, psychopathy

in content, and hotcakes in circulation. This week’s (3/17) headlines include: "Conde

Nast Launches ‘The New Yorker For Black People’" and "Pope To Ease Up On Jesus Talk."

Page 2, my favorite section, features national news briefs: “‘I Make My Own Hours,’

Says Man About To Get Fired.” (Onion, 3/17/2011) Page 3 has the Infographic and the

Statshot – a parody of USA Today polls. The middle of the book always has a fake

horoscope, American Voices (a people on the street feature asking the most banal

questions imaginable), a human interest story, a sports page, and an opinion piece—this

week’s was “penned” by Justin Bieber and titled: “Your Obsessive Love Or Hatred Of Me

Means Nothing In the Grand Scheme Of Geological Time.”

The second half of the print issues are a weekly tabloid on local music and pop culture

called the A.V. Club. The A.V. actually contains real news and reviews and is written by

local writers in the cities where the Onion is distributed. It is this strategy of

diversification that has allowed the Onion to grow when most other print publications

have shrunk. What makes it “arguably the most popular humor publication in world

history," (New Yorker-via Onion media kit) is its local feel and global reach. The Onion is

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the best kept secret that everyone who’s anyone knows about. Not everyone can get

the Onion and not everyone gets the Onion. As Conan O’Brien put it, “the Onion is

laugh-out-loud, go-tell-your-friends, get-angry-you-didn’t-think-of-it funny.” Simpson’s

creator Matt Groening called it “the funniest thing in news since Dan Rather's spooky

stare.” (http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/weekly/aaprtenthcircle.htm)

The humor alone cannot account for the Onion’s success, but it’s a big part of it. While

MAD avoids advertising choosing to mock consumerism, the Onion encourages sponsors

to make fun of themselves and, (having been born in the 80s) has no qualms about

materialism. The New York City edition of the March 17, 2011 issue features a quarter-

page ad from the Union Reform Judaism. The tagline reads “Judaism… more than just a

bagel.” Sponsors get that the readership of the Onion can’t take seriously any business

that takes itself too seriously, and they write copy accordingly. As a result, much like

Vogue, the ads are a part of the reading experience.

Furthermore, the Onion’s humor is perfectly suited to the current state of news

consumption. On all stories the headline is the punch line. In fact, Onion stories usually

lose steam or become redundant after a couple of paragraphs -- the ideal length for

today’s attention spans and handheld readers. People can send a headline like “ACLU

Defends Nazis' Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters” and their friends don’t even

have to open the link to get the joke (but if you want it:

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http://www.theonion.com/articles/aclu-defends-nazis-right-to-burn-down-aclu-

headqua,1648/).

The Onion has a print circulation of over 400,000 with ads more than offsetting its cover

price of $0.00. Online it boasts 15.3 million readers, nearly double that of Cracked.com

with an identical male/female ratio (60-40). The major difference is that 31% of Onion

readers are over 35. This not only increases the average household income of readers,

which sponsors like, but it also gives the Onion credibility. It’s the bawdy humor for

grownups who read the New York Times. But it doesn’t need to brag. Instead it

seamlessly exudes the honest, childish whimsy that adults pay psychoanalysts to get in

touch with. To be seen reading the Onion is a sign that you belong to an elite club whose

only cost of membership is getting it. The Onion is what MAD used to be and what

Cracked.com wished it was, realized it couldn’t be and over-compensated for with low-

brow, gross-out lists.

Nonetheless all three magazines do appeal to unique demographics. Each has its place

in the niche market which they share and each owes something to the others. As Nikolai

Irtenev maintained his core personality throughout Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, and

Youth these humor magazines are similarly illustrative of the maturation process of

humor. Culturally they represent Piaget steps in the growth of American comedy – how

we learn what is funny how. MAD is the elementary school, Cracked.com is the junior

high, and the Onion is high school.

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Sources

http://www.dccomics.com/mad/about/?action=about1

http://mediakit.theonion.com/audience/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracked_%28magazine%29

http://users.ipfw.edu/slaubau/madcirc.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_%28magazine%29#cite_note-slau-3

http://www.demandmedia.com/properties/cracked/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion

http://mediakit.cracked.com/traffic-and-audience.html

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/weekly/aaprtenthcircle.htm

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/12/29/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-november-

2010/