AP-
Al Jaffee, Mad magazine’s award-winning cartoonist and ageless wise guy who delighted millions of kids with the sneaky fun of the Fold-In and the snark of “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” has died. He was 102.
Jaffee died Monday in Manhattan from multiple organ failure, according to his granddaughter, Fani Thomson. He had retired at the age of 99.
Mad magazine, with its wry, sometimes pointed send-ups of politics and culture, was essential reading for teens and preteens during the baby-boom era and inspiration for countless future comedians. Few of the magazine’s self-billed “Usual Gang of Idiots” contributed as much — and as dependably — as the impish, bearded cartoonist. For decades, virtually every issue featured new material by Jaffee. His collected “Fold-Ins,” taking on everyone in his unmistakably broad visual style from the Beatles to TMZ, was enough for a four-volume box set published in 2011.
ht/ illustr8r
Mad Magazine and Wacky Packs
My childhood keeps walking over that hill…….
R.I P.
So that’s one of the guys that I surrendered a fair portion of my childhood earnings to.
Kept me entertained in the days when we had 4 channels on the tv and they signed off at midnight.
Bought MAD every month, it tainted my humor. Always got the paper backs when available. Did any one else notice the word “mind” in very small print in the middle of the word MAD????
102 is a pretty good run…. RIP Al.
FJB
I loved the fold ins. Very clever.
A lot of the humor was above my head when I first started reading Mad.
Even so, I loved the cartoons.
Don Martin was my favorite but Al Jaffe & Sergio Aragones were awesome as well.
The Movie & TV show lampoons were worth the price of the magazine alone.
I was a National Lampoon fan, those guys were very clever.
Dad loved it. MAD was on the coffee table from 1960 to 1979.
I know William Gaines came out as a big lefty and Cracked Magazine went woke years before woke was even a thing. Weird how things change.
That said, The Babylon Bee REALLY should produce a Mad style magazine.
I would buy that!
My dad also got a kick out of reading my Mad Magazines back in the day. He’d usually read them after I read them first. Don Martin, Mad’s maddest artist was his favorite especially the Festerbestertester books, he laughed his ass off reading those.
I loved the little cartoons drawn in the margins. Dad thought Mad was subversive garbage and banned it from the house. Gram would buy a copy and sneak it in for me.
Agreed Geoff. Don Martin’s adventures of Captain Klutz was my personal favorite.
Oh, Wild Bill, I forgot about the mini cartoons drawn in the margins.
I’ll always remember the Mad covers for Jaws, Planet of the Apes, Poseiden Adventure, The Sting, etc.
“Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,”
Was a literary master piece. I’m not joking. I have a fresh seal copy laying around here someplace.
😔
P.S. Hey Brad!
ht ps://bit.ly/Jaffe_-_Snappy_Answers
Thanks for the tip!
If King Charles or Pete Buttigieg had been around back in the day, they both would’ve been perfect doppleganger’s for Alfred E Neuman. “What me Worry.”
Jaffee died Monday in Manhattan from multiple organ failure.
He shoulda stuck with the pianos!
Mad was a big part of my youth. It’s where the smart-ass in me came from.
Mad’s original subtitle in the older Mad Magazines from the mid 50’s, Mad #24 on was Humor in the jugular vein. I still have my old Mad’s from #25 (1955) on thru the mid 70’s. And they’re still all in very good to mint condition.
I love Al Jaffe.
Spy vs Spy
Margin cartoons
Fold-in
Scenes We’d Like to See
All great, still I loved the illustrated buxom women.
High art.
Al Jaffa had a guest “appearance” in Dave Berg’s Lighter Side once. He was walking down the street and a wanna-be artist saw him and asked him to critique the artist’s work.
When Jaffa was very critical, the man said “What does he know” after Jaffa left.
I did like Dave Berg’s work, too. I often find myself recalling his panels.
There was a post here recently about humor as a test of IQ. Mad Magazine was kind of like that when I was a kid/teen. If you didn’t get it, we couldn’t be friends.
Cracked and Plop were cheap imitations. I think maybe IOTW is the rightful heir. BTW: Weekly World News is still available online! (Not sure if it’s new or re-runs of old fake news, but still a hoot…)
| TRF at 9:25 pm
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| Jaffee died Monday in Manhattan from multiple
| organ failure. He shoulda stuck with the pianos!
Hmmm. My dad didn’t have a feeding tube either,
so his body metabolized itself. Guess my dad
shoulda stuck with the pianos, too.
Little Morphin’ Annie, is Bat Boy still alive? I wonder if he’s visited joey yet at the White House. I used to embarrass the hell out of my wife in the grocery store checkout line reading The Weekly World Mew’s headlines. They always made me laugh out loud and it drove her nuts, so she quit letting me go grocery shop with her.
I didn’t know that the Weekly World News (Mews) was about cats. It’s 12:30 AM and I got up to pee and look at IOTW, oh well, back to sleep.
By the way Mad used to lampoon the National Enquirer as the Irrational Perspirer.
How about “Little Annie Fanny” in Playboy, Geoff?
Man, we grew up in the best of times!
Yep, we did, back in the day when good humor and parody were a free for all and nearly everyone (except for uptight squares who just didn’t get it) could laugh without worrying about offending everybody and everything. It was equal opportunity humor at its best lampooning and making fun of everything in our crazy, upside down topsy turvy world. And it’s the main reason besides watching old Looney Tunes cartoons, Rocky and Bullwinkle and reading Mad as a kid back in the 50’s and 60’s that I have such a twisted sense of humor.