As a kid in the 1970s media desert that had just four channels to watch, Mad Magazine delivered the culture and R-rated movies I wouldn’t see for year, filtered through its creators, “The Usual Gang of Idiots” who created the black and white magazine. The last survivor of EC Comics, Mad was the introduction for so many people my age to cynicism and questioning everything, while also teaching us to fold the back covers of every issue, ruining their resale value.

For people younger than me, they would know that MADtv and Cartoon Network’s Mad show — as well as a never-faired Hanna-Barbera attempt — took the magazine to the cable airwaves. While the Fox TV show did have its moments, it always felt like a sub-In Living Color versus the strange, well, madness of the magazine. But in 1973, ABC was ready to pay for The Mad Magazine TV Special but there ended up a problem: no advertisers would be part of it.

That was never a problem for the magazine, which unlike National Lampoon never had advertising, but broadcast TV is another tale.

The animation style is closer to an animatic, the way an ad agency would add minor moves to still drawings for pitches. To those who are blessed not to work in the field, think the 60s Marvel comic book cartoons.

Starting with a Jack Davis-drawn takedown of the auto industry — in case you wondered why advertisers weren’t part of this — this is dominated by an adaption of The Oddfather, which was written by Larry Siegel and drawn by Mort Drucker, originally appearing in Mad #155. The joy of these parodies was that it would take you forever to read them, as they were so dense with jokes both in words and buried in the visuals. Having them come to life makes it feel like you’re flying past these jokes at a few hundred miles an hour, yet just seeing Drucker’s work move is a joy.

There’s also “A Mad Peek Behind the Scenes at a Hospital,” which came from Mad #131 by Siegel and artist Al Jaffe, as well as Spy vs. Spy. But at a scant twenty-some minutes, it feels scant compared to the hours I’d spend with each issue.

Directed by animation vets Gordon Bellamy, Chris K. Ishii (who worked on the animation in Annie Hall) and Jimmy T. Murakami (who would go on to direct “Soft Landing” in Heavy Metal, Battle Beyond the Stars and When the Wind Blows, as well as animating the titles for What’s Up, Tiger Lily?), this is the kind of lost media that obsesses me.

Mad had issues when it tried to escape the printed page. Just look at Up the Academy, a movie that they promoted in every issue until it came out, bombed and then they destroyed themselves within the pages of the magazine.

You can watch this on YouTube.