Before there was South Park and The Book of Mormon, there was Mad Magazine, and The Mad Show, a genuinely hysterical revue which innocuously opened at the off-Broadway Theatre de Lys, in New York City, on January 9, 1966. The show was the brainchild of Larry Siegel and Stan Hart, who had conceived it as a series of skits written in the same spirit of zany humor that pervaded the magazine itself; they enlisted Mary Rodgers, daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, to write the music; and they brought in several lyricists to create the words, including famously one Esteban Rio Nido, a nom de plume for Stephen Sondheim, whose sole contribution, “The Boy From…,” was a sly parody of the popular hit “The Girl From Ipanema,” delivered with a straight face by Linda Lavin. Others who had their own solo moments in the hilarious evening included JoAnn Worley, best known for her antics on the TV show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and Paul Sand. The Mad Show had a long run of 871 performances.

First LP release: January 24, 1966