Well, This Is Cool

From Dangerous Minds:

MAD magazine was at the absolute height of its circulation in the mid 1970s—north of two million of each issue hit the newsstands then—so it was no surprise that television executives wanted in on the action. ABC ordered a pilot for an animated MAD series, but shelved it due to the “adult” humor and apparently because they didn’t want to piss off their bread and butter. Dick DeBartolo (“MAD’s maddest writer!”) said of the ill-fated pilot (eventually aired as a one-off “special” apparently) “Nobody wanted to sponsor a show that made fun of products that were advertised on TV, like car manufacturers.”