"Saturday Night Live would be unthinkable without Mad; so would Home Alone and Tim Burton. Even such diverse and serious types as Gloria Steinem and Art Spiegelman acknowledge the stunning impact of Mad on their life and work. Gaines’ little comic book has quite possibly been the most subversive magazine of modern times, simply because it taught readers-kid readers-to giggle at the pomposities and contradictions of mainstream culture. Mad exposed the lighter side of everything young people were taught was heavy. Starting out in a decade fanatically devoted to the status quo and worshipful of grown-ups, Gaines dared to muse, ”I think that 13 just may be the age of reason.” From today’s vantage point, in an age awash with irony, it’s hard to grasp how astounding the first Mads must have seemed when America was liking Ike and loving Lucy. Yet the most popular modern pastimes-the twisted celebration of the distasteful, the obsessive satirical reshuffling of the pop-culture deck- derive from that willfully juvenile revolution."