MAD Magazine & The Law; a pair of True Stories
True Story #1: During one of the 4 MAD Trips I went on (1987-93), a group of us were engaged in our favorite MAD Trip activity, sitting around drinking and talking - there was me; longtime writer Frank Jacobs; Jack Albert, MAD’s attorney for most of the Bill Gaines era; and several others. Somehow the topic of being sued by targets of satire came up, and Frank, who at this point had been writing for the magazine for about 30 years, proudly said, “Well, at least MAD has never been sued over something I wrote.”
To which Jack Albert countered, in all seriousness: “What makes you think we’ve never been sued over something of yours?”
Leaving Frank wearing the only look of total surprise I ever saw on his face. I left before he was able to pry out of Jack the full list of “legal encounters” that, thanks to Bill, he’d been completely insulated from — oblivious to — over the previous 3 decades.
True Story #2: (a story, by the way, that Lives in Infamy among the entire MAD creative community today!). A few years ago, a lawyer for MAD’s new parent company, DC Comics, happened to hear about a certain MAD article script, which had already been completely written and bought, and was in the pipeline for future publication. This lawyer had the article “killed” — not over an actual lawsuit or a pending lawsuit or even a letter threatening a lawsuit, but for the mere reason that they thought it “might” (MIGHT!) get MAD/DC Comics sued. (!!!)