The Mad Cow is Williams' premier humor magazine, and its second oldest student publication (Lit Review being the oldest). It puts out issues once a semester, hopefully before finals, and can be picked up for free at a dining hall near you!
History: IT STARTED IN 1907 WITH A GROUP OF literary gents and that infamous poem. The Purple Cow, the original Williams humor magazine with the harlequin and holstein cover, was loved proudly for half a century. Somewhere in the 40s, it paused for WWII, and somewhere in the 50s picked up a few colors of ink beyond the original purple. In 1960, all vestiges of a humor magazine at Williams mysteriously went extinct. They stayed that way into the early 90s, which priefly served up the spoof magazine Beeph. Jump ahead a few years to Winter Study of 1998. Inspired by Paul Park's parody class, an intrepid band of idealistic young whippersnappers with time on their hands decided to try and bring back the glory days of old. Sure enough, later that spring, an elite cadre Scotch-taped their idea of a humor magazine over the depths of cyberspace. And there was much rejoicing, among the three people who read it. These words come to us from the ancestors who lived through the historical days of the inception and birth of the first Mad Cow. The winter 1998 issue was printed, and the spring issue published only on the internets. After that, there has been an issue published on nice shiny paper every semester, save one. We can’t really figure out which semester went Cow-less, because some issues have the unfortunate tendency to print years on the cover that don’t necessarily match those on the title page.
It was for the Mad Cow that the word “derecognize†was coined in 2001. In the Spring of that year, the magazine published a list of departmental pick-up lines that were of questionable taste. The staff worried that campus would not take kindly to this crude humor. However, nobody batted an eye at the pick-up lines, instead concentrating on ‘Hans Oji’s’ article mocking the then-new post of CC MinCo representative. For this, CC threatened to derecognize the whole organization, realizing student government could not really do anything more menacing. Nevertheless, the editors realized the need to be more sensitive to the feelings of the campus community. From that issue forth, the Mad Cow has asked volunteers to ‘test-read’ its articles for things that may be hurtful, and publishes a disclaimer in the front of each issue. If you think you may be offended by the upcoming issue, please volunteer to test-read by emailing madcow@wso.williams.edu.
The Mad Cow has gone through several editorial dynasties, beginning with the reign of Seth Brown and Art Munson (both ’01), followed by Josh Ain, Rachelle Hassan, and Jenny McElroy (‘03s). In 2003/2004, control was placed on the ’04 triumvirate of Neil Anderson, Al Gordon, and Dan Bahls. Upon their graduation, responsibility passed to Amanda R. Van Rhyn ‘06 and Katherine L. Dieber ‘07, who will soon add some names to their administration.
Stay tuned for exciting Mad Cow editorial developments! And please contribute anything original and funny to madcow@wso.