Just mentally add the word “Cheap!” after every cover price mention.

So one of these came into the shop the other day via a collection someone was trying to sell, and I passed on it:

…mostly because it was a little too beat up, and also didn’t include the flexidisc. But it did bring back some memories.

It was 1980, and was 10 or 11 years old, depending on far into 1980 we were. I spotted a new MAD special on the stands, but it wasn’t one of the usual MAD Super Specials, but some new, standalone thing. It was MAD Disco, making fun of the musical fad of the times.

When I picked it up, the first thing I noticed was just how thin it felt. It had kind of a stiff paper cover, a little higher quality than your usual MAD, but otherwise felt like a slim pamphlet compared to the other members of the MAD family.

But what I remember that especially shocked me was the price. This thinner MAD was a whole two dollars. Yes, the magazine did contain a flexidisc, which I presumed then was the primary impetus for the higher cost.

It was still a new MAD thing, and given this was 1980, and I was still in my prime MAD readership phase (starting about ’76, ending about ’82), I somehow either scraped together the money, or bugged one of parents to buy it, and I took it home.

And I enjoyed the mag, and the record, quite a bit. The record was quite the elaborate enterprise, with full silly disco arrangements for funny songs, and you could kinda see why MAD needed that full $2 for their publication. As for the comics, I think the coin-operated disco gag drawn by Sergio Aragones amused my friends and I the most.

Alas, all these years later, that MAD, along with many other childhood magazines, were disposed of during a spring cleaning. I had hoped the disco flexidisc survived the purge by being kept with my record collection, but I have not yet found it. (In fact, I just now checked again, and nope, still not there, but I do still have my original “Pac-Man Fever” single, received when we preordered “Pac-Man” for the Atari 2600, and my “Young Fresh Fellows Vs. Scruffy the Cat” split 7 inch.)

But, regarding the mag’s apparenbt thinness: checking the Grand Comics Database, the page count is given as 36 pages, including covers presumably. And remember, this was for $2, including the record.

I thought I’d compare it to other MADs from the period, like this standard monthly issue here, #215:

…containing my all-time favorite title for a MAD movie parody, “A Crock O’ [Blip] Now!” Anyhow, this page count is given as 52 pages, with a cover price of $0.75. No inserts, no nuttin’, but color covers and black and white interiors.

Also from 1980 is MAD Super Special #30:

…which is 100 pages for $1.25. Extra sized yes, special inserts no.

More of a point of comparison is the next special, #31:

…which also contains a record, albeit a one-sided dsic versus the two-sided disco record. 84 pages, all reprints, for $1.50.

And the next couple of specials follow sort of the same pattern…if there’s an insert, the page count drops a little and the price stays at $1.50. If there is no insert, you get more pages for $1.50. Then in ’81 you get the special that includes a giant fold-out U.S. map with illustrations by Aragones, and that’s 80-something pages for $2.

But looking back, I was right to be surprised at the higher price point on that MAD Disco mag. It is significantly higher than the other available MAD publications, though looking back at it now I can see why.

The mag was all new material, and the production costs on a double-sided flexidisc was certainly much higher than the standard one-sider. Plus, there was the actual production of the songs themselves…they had to be written, they had to be performed, produced, mixed, other terms I’m not quite sure about.

To the best of my knowledge there wasn’t a full rerelease of all these songs on CD, but three of them can be found on MAD Grooves, a CD released in the mid-1990s. In fact, there are a lot of MAD albums that could stand some kind of new release…maybe not on CD, which would be my preference, but digital at least. Well, maybe the All in the Family parody may be a bit rough on today’s ears, but there’s a lot of funny stuff just languishing, out of print.

Though…shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but you might something of interest at this link. (Warning: may autoplay on you.)