For The Love of Lennon in New York City
I’m not one given to transcendent awakenings per se, however I could sense the spirit of Dr. Winston O’Boogie sitting beside me in the mad, mad, mad world of Joe Raiola’s MAD Magazine office in mid-town Manhattan ... Read More >
Tribute to John Lennon Endures in 35th Year
Tuned to “Monday Night Football” on his transistor radio, Joe Raiola nearly wrecked his taxi on Queens Boulevard ... Read More >
Interview with a MAD Man
Joe Raiola is not like most major magazine editors; that much became evident when I tried to call him and reached his voicemail ... Read More >
Monastery to Premier “Still Ignorant After All These Years”
Comedian Joe Raiola will perform a new piece created exclusively for Zen Mountain Monastery ay the Sangha House Performance Hall ... Read More >
So What Do You Do, Joe Raiola, MAD Senior Editor and John Lennon Tribute Executive Producer?
In addition to having the good fortune of goofing off for a living in an office on Broadway across from David Letterman, MAD Magazine senior editor Joe Raiola is also responsible for the only sanctioned annual John Lennon tribute in North America ... Read More >
MAD Man in Alaska
The Valley Arts Alliance and Friends of the Wasilla Public Library were proud to co-host an appearance by Joe Raiola, Senior Editor of MAD Magazine ... Read More >
John Lennon, Remembered on his Birthday, Through 30 Years of Tributes
Joe Raiola can remember the day John Lennon died "like it was yesterdary" ... Read More >
MAD Magazine Editor to Perform at Englert
American Heretic a show full of edgy, outspoken material, will leave an Iowa City audience questioning the roots of their religions ... Read More >
MAD Man Speaks About First Amendment
Ragging on politicians, religion and the media, MAD Magazine senior editor Joe Raiola took a humorous approach to First Amendment issues ... Read More >
MAD Man Gets Mad About Gag Mentality
MAD Magazine Senior Editor Joe Raiola riffs on various assaults on the first Amendment in his one-man show "The Joy of Censorship," ... Read More >
Oh, yeah? Zip this!
A MAD Magazine editor brings his one-man show about free speech to Eugene ... Read More >
A Tribute to John Lennon Keeps to its Quixotic Path
It’s a rabbit-hole kind of question born of today’s surreal economy: If your annual charity fund-raiser looks as if it might actually lose money, do you stage it anyway? ... Read More >
MAD Editor’s Finger Censored in Yearbook Photo
An photograph of Joe Raiola is censored in a story about his anti-censorship show ... Read More >
MAD Editor Speaks on Censorship, First Amendment Rights
As a young boy, using the f-word saved and changed the life of comedian Joe Raiola ... Read More >
Repeat Offender: Joe Raiola Laughs at Attacks on Free Speech
Joe Raiola laughs at attacks on free speech in The Joy of Censorship ... Read More >
Raiola Unleashed and Outrageous
Woodstock Fringe has come up with another winner this season: Joe Raiola’s controversial one-man show, Almost Obscene. MAD Magazine’s Senior Editor, Raiola is a very funny man ... Read More >
Comedian Will Let It "All Hang Out" in 'Almost Obscene'
Who says there are no new frontiers? Joe Raiola is a pioneer if ever there was one — taking risks and following paths others wouldn’t dare to ... Read More >
Keeping Lennon's Primal Legacy: Entertainer is Force Behind Ex-Beatle Tribute Since 1981
Joe Raiola remembers driving his cab on Dec. 8, 1980, a typical night for the actor as he headed west on Queens Blvd. cruising for fares. But as every Baby Boomer knows by broken heart, that night was anything but normal ... Read More >
Satirical Comic Misunderstood, Claims Supplier
This article is about the response to the depiction of "Muhammad in a Pancake," which appeared in a satirical piece in MAD Magazine written by Joe Raiola in response to the sighting of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich ... Read More >
Raving MAD Man: Blasphemy and Humor in the Berkshires
In his one-man satire, Almost Obscene, Joe Raiola, Senior Editor of Mad Magazine, is mad enough to step, repeatedly, on the third rail of American culture: religion ... Read More >
A MAD Sensibility
Joe Raiola works hard at pissing people off—but he also tries to make them think and laugh in the process ... Read More >
Alteractive Opens with MAD Man Spewing Opinions
Joe Raiola has a bone to pick with God ... Read More >
O.K., You've Rejected Everything. Now What?
At the end of “Almost Obscene,” Joe Raiola, having fallen off a chair he had been straddling backward, and raising himself hesitantly from his sprawl, says, “I’m in a mess, and honestly I don’t know the way out…” ... Read More >
Joe Raiola's Divine Comedy, The Censor Within
“Our God is a totally neurotic, evil, codependent, sick, fucked-up god,” says Joe Raiola in clipped cadences ... Read More >