In 1996 I interviewed the two editors of Mad Magazine, Nick Meglin and John Ficarra at the Mad offices in midtown Manhattan. Also in the room were Mad staff writers, David Shayne and Joe Raiola. It was a pretty free-form interview with all of them turning it into kind of an improv free-for-all and one of the most fun interviews I ever conducted! Some of the topics we talked about included how they got their jobs writing for Mad, thoughts on Mad’s founding publisher, William Gaines, how Detroit and Peoria are interchangeable, Nick Meglin’s guest-starring role on “thirtysomething” and nacho cheese Combo’s.

Related links out there on the interwebs: Mad magazine website, Mad on Twitter and Mad on facecrack.

The MP3 files for the interview were digitized from the original cassette tapes by The MP3 files for the interview were digitized from the original cassette tapes by MEDIAHOUSE. Find out more about them by clicking here.