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Jake Rossen<\/strong> and Mental_Floss<\/strong><\/a> present 12 Things You May Not Know About Mad.<\/strong><\/a> Here are three of my favorites…<\/p>\n 1. No One Knows Who Came Up with Alfred E. Neuman. 3. They Predicted John F. Kennedy\u2019s Election in 1960.<\/strong> 5. They Didn\u2019t Run Any (Real) Ads for 44 Years.<\/strong> \n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jake Rossen and Mental_Floss present 12 Things You May Not Know About Mad. Here are three of my favorites… 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,56,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","category-humor","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12963,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960\/revisions\/12963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n<\/strong>Mad<\/em> creator Harvey Kurtzman was in the offices of a Ballantine Books editor discussing reprints for the fledging publication when he noticed a grinning, gap-toothed imbecile staring back at him from a bulletin board. The unnamed figure was ubiquitous in the early 20th<\/sup> century, appearing in everything from dentistry ads to depictions of diseases. A charmed Kurtzman adopted him as Mad<\/em>\u2019s mascot beginning in 1954. Neuman later become so recognizable that a letter was delivered from New Zealand to Mad<\/em>\u2019s New York offices without an address: the envelope simply had a drawing of Alfred.<\/p>\n
\nBut it was a cheat. In the run-up to the 1960 Presidential election, Mad<\/em> printed a cover that featured Neuman congratulating Kennedy on his victory with a caption that read, \u201cWe were with you all the way, Jack!\u201d But the issue was shipped long before votes had been tabulated. The secret? It was a dual cover. Flip it over and Neuman is celebrating Richard Nixon\u2019s appointment to office. Stores were told to display the \u201cright\u201d side of the magazine depending on the outcome.<\/p>\n
\nFrom the beginning, Gaines felt that printing actual advertisements next to the products they were lampooning would not only dilute their edge but seem more than a little hypocritical. After some back-and-forth, Mad<\/em> cut ads starting in 1957. The decision was a costly one\u2014most print publications survive on such revenue\u2014but led to the magazine\u2019s keeping a sharp knife against the throat of seductive advertising, including cigarettes. Faced with dwindling circulation in 2001, Mad<\/em> finally relented and began taking ads to help pay for a switch to color printing.<\/p>\n