Customer Reviews

Totally MAD: Every Issue of MAD Magazine 1952-1998

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Several caveats to be aware of before purchasing:
- This product is no longer supported by anyone! Very typical of entertainment grade software.
- This product was designed to work under Windows 9x and Windows NT (!). It will install under Windows 2000 and presumably Windows XP.
- The format of the content is proprietary and unique to this product. You MUST use the supplied viewer software.
- The content seems to be stored in a reasonably high resolution. The viewer lets you zoom in, select, copy and print.
- Reportedly there is now a DVD version that provides the content in PDF format. For further details see For further details see [...]

I'm a life-long fan of Mad magazine. I've had a subscription going continuously since the mid 1980s. So when this CD-ROM set first came out in 1998, I knew I had to have it. Back then I was running Windows 95 and upgraded soon after to 98. Right now I'm still running XP at home, but never had any problems.

All you have to do is install the "Totally Mad" program from the discs, then launch it from your desktop any time you want. The rest of the discs have all the content, arranged chronologically. So you'll have to swap discs when you want to, say, go from viewing issue #13 to issue #300. Obviously this isn't a problem with the newer single-disc DVD-ROM collection, though I don't know if that has all of the features you find here. By the way, this box set only covers issues of the MAGAZINE itself. It does NOT include any of the hundreds of Mad paperbacks released over the years. Still, there's plenty here, including the numbered issues and the bonus pages that showed up in the seasonal "Worst of Mad" specials.

You can tell that they REALLY put a lot of work into this CD-ROM set. One of the other reviewers here complained "You MUST use the supplied viewer software", but really, the viewer is what makes this set so incredible. This is isn't like some other collections that throw all of the files together in bunch of directories you have to sift through (the Dilbert set comes to mind). The "search" feature is incredible. You can search all of the past issues by author, column, or any subject. I've used this countless times to get clip-art for my own fliers, CD covers for friends, etc. What do you want to find some drawings of? A certain celebrity? A dragon? A doughnut shop? A hippie? Just do a search for it! Even if it's just something in the background of one panel, it will come up. Then use the mouse to drag a box around the part you want to copy, click "Copy", and paste it to your favorite graphics editing program. Or, save it right from the program.

The interface also makes it very easy to read any issue. Aside from dragging and pulling with the mouse, you can click the left/right buttons to advance from one panel to the next. This is especially helpful when you're reading something laid out left to right across two pages. You can also zoom in and out, and rotate any page.

As far as the content goes, what can I say? You have almost 50 years of Mad magazine here, which means 50 years of their brilliant humor, movie satires, and funny social commentaries from the past decades. I'd go so far as to say that this is a true documentary of pop-culture and world events from those times, because quite often satire gives us a more accurate and honest picture of past Zeitgeists than editorials do. It's very interesting to see Mad's response to different past pop icons, subcultures, fads, politicians, etc. At the same time, the humor is not completed dated either; some universal humor never changes.

Amazing salvage job of my childhood.
The only problem is it was set up for older Windows and as there were a few problems on XP it may be incompatible with Vista as so many other programs and CD's are.

I feel in love with MAD at an early age. Actually my local Air Force base library carried it so i read every issue in the early 90's. MAD got me interested in politics actually, hahah.

Anyway, this is great CD rom. It's got everything until 1998 which is fine with me, I reckon MAD jumped the shark shortly after.

So many memories. Great buy.

This set requires that you install only the basic program (contained on disc 1) on your computer hard drive in order to use or view the rest of the set. You then must insert the disc containing the issues you want to view in your CD ROM drive as needed. This does not take up much space at all by today's standards. I just did so on my computer equipped with windows Vista. I have not tried every feature, but for simply viewing all content, it works perfectly. The only problem I have had is that the "help" section is not compatible with Vista. This is a very minor inconvenience considering how easy it is to maneuver through all of the magazine covers and issues.