Does anyone else remember when MAD magazine was actually funny? When it was cutting-edge? Back before it was a division of AOL-TimeWarner? I do. My dad had a huge collection of the books on his shelf, and I devoured them all - "Hopping MAD", "MAD's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions", "Spy vs. Spy", "Good'n'MAD", "MAD's Dave Berg Looks At The Lighter Side Of ...", "The Kama Sutra" ... well, never mind what I read.

The point is, I learned a great deal about American culture and everyday life from reading those books. And though I didn't understand all the references to Nixon, or Watergate, or Vietnam (I was, what, seven or eight at the time), I found a lot of it genuinely funny, and I credit those MAD books every bit as much as I do Monty Python for my love of subversive, parodic humo(u)r today.

Incidentally, seems this guy gets it, too.

So it came as a mostly-pleasant surprise today when I came across this affectionate tribute to the genius of MAD magazine in the Onion, perhaps MAD's spiritual heir and successor to the idiot-king throne of biting satire and dead-on parody.

I say "mostly" because I found it just a tad uncomfortable that the article's content so unflinchingly references, some might even say mocks, the recent brutal killing of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl. But, hey, the Onion may be accused of many things, but, just like its quintessential comedic ancestor MAD, shying away from controversy isn't one of them.