Holy Crap! Remember…’Cracked’ Magazine?
Holy Crap! Remember…Cracked Magazine
Ah, nostalgia! Be it that old cartoon, a favorite toy, or a comic book from days gone by, isn’t it great, when out of the blue, the memories come flooding back, and you’ve no choice but to exclaim “Holy Crap! Remember…?”
Cracked Magazine (or ‘Mazagine’, as the cover read) began in 1958 as an unapologetic rip-off of Mad Magazine, complete with tone, layout, and butt-fugly mascot (Mad had Alfred E. Neuman, Cracked had janitor Sylvester P. Smythe). The art was often times crude, as was the infantile humor, which spoke to my pre-teen sensibilities. I was very much into Cracked
I always felt like I was getting away with something while reading Cracked. The covers seemed innocent enough that my parents would purchase the rag for me at such a young age, but at the time, I felt the humor was dangerously cutting edge and grown-up. It wasn’t. The formula was simple: Grab the nearest blockbuster movie, hit TV show, or chart-topping musical act, give them a ‘spoofy’ name, include a bunch of recurring segments such as Spys vs. Saboteurs and Shut Up!, lather, rinse, and repeat.
I’m not quite sure what ever happened to my Cracked collection. Could I have unceremoniously dumped them out with the trash? Only FSM knows. I do wish I still had some old ishes to thumb through, because the World Wide Web is severely deficient on actual in-magazine content, however, the cover images I’ve been able to find from my era of reading the mag caused a tidal wave of nostalgia (which you are hopefully now drowning in). Funny enough, Cracked
In 2006, Cracked was rebooted as a spoofy mens-magazine, but only lasted 3 issues. However, Cracked.com is alive and well, and while not holding to any of the old mag’s structure, has featured some hilariously-awful articles, including, but not limited to ‘The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World‘, ‘5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped‘, and ’15 Images You Won’t Believe Aren’t Photoshopped’. While I appreciate Cracked.com, I can’t help but mourn the loss of the cruddy-old mag that made a pasty fat-kid giggle.
–Knize
Filed Under: Holy Crap! Remember...
Ah, the wonderful memories of my youth that even the electroshock treatment can’t zap away.
My first and only run-in with the magazine was when the first X-Men movie was released. I was out of town and got into a book store, where I saw Cracked, an obvious Mad rip-off, but it had great parodies of X-Men and its characters. I didn’t have enough money and planned to buy it when I get back to town. when I got back the next month, the issue was already gone. And that’s it.
Nowadays I’m only familiar with the website and its wacky articles.
BTW, what do you say about Mad #500 and the changes in schedule (bi-monthly) it brings with it? The beginning of an end of an era?
Mad has been on a ‘every six weeks’ schedule for as long as I can remember, so going bi-monthly isn’t a huge deal. I ALWAYS preferred Cracked over Mad. Cracked seemed much more hip, IMHO.
My mistake: It goes thrice-monthly.
I haven’t picked one up in a long time , but around here somewhere I should still have a few issues of MAD and Cracked – most from the 80′s. (meaning my wife stashed the plastic tubs under something when we moved hehe) … but we used to have TONS – where the hell DID they go ?
My uncle is only a couple yrs older than I and we used to buy and trade them all the time as kids. I do remember though , at times , Cracked seemed to be just a little edgier – was not afraid to push it a bit farther.
I liked to follow Don Martin and when he went Cracked , that just set it ahead.
Great , now I am going to have to go in to the storage room and start digging around !
Let us know if you find anything, Doc!
I never read Cracked during it’s heydey (was more of a Mad fan) but Cracked.com is awesome if only because MST3K’s Michael J. Nelson contributes articles for them.
Growing up I didn’t bother wasting my money on any crappy magazines save for the occasionaly Wizard or the Aliens UK mag (but those were always in the dollar bin and full of AWESOME). But I do read the website thanks to whomever was posting links to the awesome as fuck articles!
I don’t think this made it to the uk but I do read the website a lot and thats pretty funny
Ah, MAD’s slightly more retarded brother. We hardly knew ye.
I’m with Debaser77. And, anything connected with MST3K is good enuf’ for me!
Will do Jason !
It’s weird typing Jason when your name is Jason … anyway …
I most likely will not go in to the “storage room” until this weekend ( I work at night ) – but I will let you know if I find anything at all , just for the hell of it. I know I have lots of different mags and such in there , so I will just have to get off my ass and do it.
Wife says she saw a long box and some Dragon magazines too – (insert g33k snort) … I just may have a day of reminiscence coming up. My wife will find me several hours later, curled in a ball, sobbing on the floor in the basement , dice bag emptied all over the place – covered in 1980′s comics , old wizard pull-out posters, chewing on a coverless Cracked magazine and mumbling something about being a true believer…
Sounds sweet! heheh