CD-ROM
A little boy goes into a fireworks store with a nickel. Disappointed, he walks out with only one tiny firecracker. Then a lightbulb clicks on above his head, and he tosses his small lit munition through the door. As the whole shop explodes, the kid sits on the curb across the street, watching with a gentle grin. The end - and just another flash of wicked brilliance from the pen of Mad cartoonist Al Jaffe.
Long before the creators of South Park could even say, "They killed Kenny!" Mad was blamed for rotting kids' minds. But the magazine's jug-eared, half-witted mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, never stopped smiling, and neither did juvenile delinquents of all ages, who knew that such casually amoral bomb throwing beat the hell out of Ranger Rick and Highlights combined. From its birth, Mad was a "10¢ CHEAP" way to see what life was really like underneath the varnish usually applied to media for kids.
Now, you can share in that completely Mad vision without keeping a stack of all 566 issues in your garage. (Ahem.) The secret is the Totally Mad CD-ROM collection, seven discs containing the entire body of work produced by Mad magazine's "usual gang of idiots" from 1952 to 1998, along with sound clips from flexidiscs and video interviews with Mad contributors.
To navigate Totally Mad, click on a thumbnail of a cover. Most of the pages are black and white, since only the first few issues were printed in color. The pages are scanned from old magazines, not the original art, so sometimes you get the bonus of an unknown reader's drool stain on a page. The reproductions are good, but they don't print out very nicely - the grayscale tones are messed up - and the discs don't provide a true keyword search, because the text is scanned in as an image. Some poor sap had to index the entire run by hand, which means there are some gaps.
The set does have some special features, but they really don't add much to the experience. You can search for subjects, which is kind of nice, and animated cartoons from the Mad TV show are included, as are interactive fold-ins (those picture puzzles on the inside back cover), but there is only one truly great thing about the CD-ROM collection (and it is a great thing): You have every single back issue of Mad for 70 bucks - and it's all small enough to fit inside one of Alfred E. Neuman's floppy ears.
Totally Mad: $70. Broderbund: (888) 829 3343, www.broderbund.com.
STREET CRED
Hedgehog Bliss
Gone Postal
Get Back to Work
The Law of the Code
Speakers, Medium Rare
Monster Rumble
Email Made Easy
ReadMe
Music
Drag and Drop
Mad as Hell
Van vs. Pea
Amphibious Assault
Just Outta Beta
Tunes From the Crypt
Rediscovered Rants
Contributors
