MAD Magazine

Mad is an American humor magazine founded by publisher William Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman in 1952. Offering satires on all aspects of American pop culture, the monthly publication deflates stuffed shirts and pokes fun at common foibles. It is the last surviving title from the notorious and critically acclaimed EC Comics line. Publisher Gaines had suffered greatly from censorship, which had literally driven his prior line of EC horror comics from the stands.

Recurring Images and References

Regular Mad readers have been treated to a large number of recurring in-jokes, including Neuman's catch phrase "What? Me worry?", as well as such words as potrzebie, axolotl and Cowznofski.

Related Topics:
In-joke - Catch phrase - What? Me worry? - Words - Potrzebie - Axolotl - Cowznofski

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In the 1950s, the magazine received a fee to promote the soft drink Moxie, and that product's logo would occasionally appear in illustrations. This experiment was an attempt by Feldstein to convince Gaines that the magazine could profit by carrying legitimate advertising.

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Other visual elements are sheer whimsy and frequently appear in the artwork without context or explanation. Among these are a potted plant labelled Arthur; a domed trashcan wearing an overcoat, the Mad Zeppelin (which more closely resembles an elongated hot air balloon); and an emaciated long-beaked creature who went unidentified for decades before being dubbed "Flip the Bird." The mysterious name "Max Korn" has popped up for years; reader requests to clarify the reference have been greeted with increasingly outlandish "explanations." In late 1964, Mad was tricked into purchasing the "rights" to an optical illusion in the public domain, featuring a sort of three-pronged tuning fork whose appearance defies physics. The magazine dubbed it the Mad poiuyt after the six rightmost letter keys on a QWERTY keyboard in reverse order, not realizing that the existing image was already known to engineers and usually called a blivet.

Related Topics:
Arthur - Zeppelin - Poiuyt - QWERTY - Blivet

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The word "hoohah" was a running gag in-joke in the early years of Mad, often exclaimed by characters in the comic book issues written and edited by Harvey Kurtzman. Its somewhat Eastern European feel was a perfect fit for the New York Jewish style of the magazine. Kurtzman liked to use Yiddish expressions and nonsense words for a humorous effect, and the very first story in the first issue of Mad was "Hoohah!", illustrated by Jack Davis. According to some sources, the word "hoohah" has been traced to the early 20th Century, although the actual origin is unknown.

Related Topics:
Running gag - In-joke - Harvey Kurtzman - New York - Jewish - Jack Davis

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"It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide" was a non sequitur-ish phrase that found its way into Mad on several occasions, though it has been suggested that this is slang meaning "it is foolhardy to bribe a policeman with counterfeit money."

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Mad cartoonists have often drawn caricatures of themselves, other contributors and the editors into the articles. Meanwhile, the magazine's photos have typically featured the same Mad staffers.

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