Original Content will be Published on Snapchat Seven Days a Week
MAD Staff Not Thrilled — Thinks It Will Be Too Much Work!
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Snap Inc. and DC Entertainment announced today a content collaboration that will bring the iconic and irreverent humor of MAD Magazine to the Snapchat platform. This collaboration, which falls under a global partnership forged by Time Warner Inc. (now WarnerMedia) and Snap last year, will bring MAD content to Snapchatters seven days a week. It will launch on September 1, 2018.
This effort will bring MAD’s satirical content of contemporary politics and other topical issues to Snapchat, along with classic and nostalgic MAD material, reimagined for Snapchat’s mobile-first audience. The project is being overseen by the creative duo of John Ficarra, the former MAD senior vice president and executive editor who serves as a creative advisor for DC Entertainment, and Peter Girardi, executive vice president of Blue Ribbon Content, the digital content studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group.
“We’ll be taking on sports, celebrities, politics, pop culture and anything else in the zeitgeist. Nothing is off the table because nothing has ever been off the table with MAD,” Ficarra said. “This is a reinvention of the MAD brand with relevant, mobile-first storytelling that will allow us to reach new audiences that are consuming this type of social satire on their devices every day.”
Ficarra and Girardi are longtime creative partners – most notably teaming on the “Mad” animated series for Cartoon Network from 2010-2013 – and Girardi studied in college under inaugural MAD editor-in-chief Harvey Kurtzman.
“MAD Magazine had a big impact on me growing up and definitely formed my sense of humor,” said Girardi. “We are now bringing MAD’s unapologetic humor to new audiences by going directly to the consumers on new platforms and in innovative ways, and we are very excited that the deal with Snap enables us to deploy timely and topical content in real-time and in tandem with breaking news cycles.”
Their content will include an array of features, including GIFs, memes, slide shows, interactive lists and dynamic cinemagraphs. Some concepts will be curated by MAD writers and illustrators, drawing from MAD’s decades of magazine archives. Other concepts will be brand new, built around breaking news and timely issues with the biting satire that has defined MAD for generations of fans.
In preparation for this launch, Snap’s content team has worked closely with the Blue Ribbon team to ensure that the MAD content is optimized for Snapchat’s vertical, fast-paced format and presented in the most relevant way to Snapchatters.
“We can’t wait to see the classic work of iconic artists like Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragones and beloved franchises like Spy vs Spy reimagined for Snapchat,” said Sean Mills, Head of Original Content for Snap Inc. “The creative possibilities of combining the singular MAD sensibility with our mobile-native format are really exciting.”
