Tue Aug 5, 2008 — by Rick Marshall

Circuit City Bans MAD Magazine (Temporarily)

Ban announced, then retracted... and there was much joking around

After the August issue of DC Comics' MAD Magazine featured a spoof on consumer electronics retailer Circuit City titled "Sucker City," the retailer's corporate office had the publication banned from stores, according to a recent report from Associated Press. The ban was lifted a short time later, however, and the store issued an apology to customers and MAD Magazine.

"We apologize for the knee-jerk reaction, and have issued a retraction order; the affected stores are being directed to put the magazines back on sale," spokesman Jim Babb said in an e-mail response. "The parody of our newspaper ad in the August MAD was very clever. Most of us at Circuit City share a rich sense of humor and irony ... but there are occasional temporary lapses."

The spoof features advertisements for items like HDTVs and video games, including the Nintendo Wii "Guaranteed In Stock ... if you're friends with an employee who hid it in the back for you. Otherwise, ooh, sorry, all sold out."

What made this story especially interesting to me, though, was the sense of humor the retailer showed in its response:

"As a gesture of our apology and deep respect for the folks at MAD Magazine, we are creating a cross-departmental task force to study the importance of humor in the corporate workplace and expect the resulting Powerpoint presentation to top out at least 300 pages, chock full of charts, graphs and company action plans."

At least, I think that was a joke. It had to be a joke, right?

Check out the AP story for more on the Circuit City/MAD Magazine hub-bub, including the customary, humorous response from the MAD crew.

Be the first person to comment!