38 | NOVEMBER 7 • 2024 J
N
L
ike many kids growing up in
the ’70s, Jewish director and
producer Alan Bernstein was
hooked on MAD magazine. The
wildly popular magazine made
a splash with its crude humor,
cynicism and irreverence that
transformed it into one of pop
culture’s biggest phenomena of all
time.
Yet no matter how long he
waited, Bernstein noticed no
mainstream filmmaker was making
a documentary on MAD magazine.
Finally, the director and producer
— who works in freelance sports
broadcasting by day — decided to
take matters into his own hands.
It took Bernstein a staggering 16
years of filming, interviewing and
editing, but When We Went MAD!
The Unauthorized Story of MAD
Magazine is finally ready for its
world debut.
The documentary covering
anything and everything MAD
magazine will debut for a one-night
screening at the historic Redford
Theatre in Detroit on Nov. 14 at
7:30 p.m.
A LABOR OF LOVE
For Bernstein, who discovered
MAD at age 6 and quickly became
an avid collector of the magazine
and memorabilia, the film was truly
a labor of love.
“I kept waiting for [documentary
filmmaker] Ken Burns to tell
the MAD story and it just wasn’t
happening,” he recalls. “I kept
reading newspaper articles about
MAD artists or writers who were
passing away. I finally said, ‘All
right, well, looks like I’m going to
do it.’”
Bernstein, who calls himself
a MAD magazine “fanboy and
diehard collector,” began the
process of creating When We Went
MAD! in January 2008. Slowly but
surely, he collected interviews,
stories and firsthand accounts of
how MAD magazine shaped pop
culture as we know it today.
“It never crossed my mind to
walk away from it,” Bernstein, 55,
of Pleasant Ridge, recalls.
He was passionate about the
subject matter, of course, but even
more compelling was the passion
that MAD writers, artists and
editors had for the magazine itself.
It was the
main reason why he kept going.
“People loved working for MAD,”
he says. “It wasn’t the highest-
paying job. Over time, it started to
lose its cache.
“Fewer people were reading it,
but these people always came back
and submitted material for MAD.
I don’t know that many other
publications have that loyalty and
that general understanding of what
it meant to them.”
THE MAD LEGACY
Bernstein, in his own way, had that
same loyalty as well.
The director and producer
traveled across the country
interviewing everyone from Judd
Apatow and Quentin Tarantino
ARTS&LIFE
DOCUMENTARY
The story of America’s most influential
The story of America’s most influential
humor magazine debuts in Detroit.
humor magazine debuts in Detroit.
Mad for
MAD MAGAZINE
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Alan
Bernstein