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