The Sneeze - Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.

September 30, 2003

Madness

When I was a kid I remember reading a tiny ad in an issue of Mad Magazine. It was offering all these 8 x 10 pictures of Alfred E. Neuman for very little money. I also remember there was something about the way it was written that made it hard to tell if it was a fake or not, but I asked my mom for some money and sent it to the address anyway.

A few months went by and I forgot about it. Then one day a big envelope arrived from Mad Magazine. It was filled with dozens and dozens of portraits of Alfred E. Neuman! The ad was real! This was like the Idiot Lottery, and I just hit it BIG.

So, a few weeks ago my parents sent me all this incredible stuff out of storage. Included in all the boxes were the Alfred E. Neuman pictures! I couldn't believe they still had them.

Madness

The best part is, after I started writing this I remembered that I had "Totally Mad" lying around somewhere. It is a 7 CD-ROM box set that contains every page of every issue of Mad Magazine from 1952-1998. I went on a little mission to to try and locate the ad I had read as a kid, and I somehow managed to find it!

Here is the actual ad li'l Stevie responded to from the Oct. '78 issue of Mad:

Madness

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Posted by Steven | Archive

Comments

[massive tantrum]Where is the ad? No link! I wanna see! I wanna see! [/massive tantrum]

Posted by: Iki at September 27, 2003 01:20 AM

Wow. I was the kid who was always gettting in trouble at the grocery store for folding up the back cover of Mad to see what the secret picture was. The guy who worked there got kind of crabby with me for folding up all his magazines.

So, If I sent you seven blank CD's. . . . . ;)

Posted by: Dave at September 27, 2003 06:04 AM

Iki,
The ad is right there at the bottom of the entry. How come you didn't see it?

Posted by: Steve at September 27, 2003 07:07 AM

Did you say how many you bought? I'm guessing it was more than three. You had cool parents. My mother would have never given me money for something on the back of a magazine. I didn't get those Sea Monkeys 'til I was well into my 20s and could buy them myself.

P.S. I'm lovin your blog...

Posted by: Elaine at September 27, 2003 10:55 AM

I can't remember how many it was, but you can see the pile there. It had to have been either 27 or 81. $6.31 would have been a lot for me back then so it was probably the 27.

Posted by: Steve at September 27, 2003 02:36 PM

Where did you get the cd set of "Totally Mad"?

I've been reading mad for more years than I care to remember and would love to relive some of the great memories they gave me.

Thanks for the cool article.

Jerry

Posted by: Jerry at September 29, 2003 01:40 PM

Are you selling any of the Alfred E. Neuman portraits? Would like to buy some. Please let me know. Thanks.

Bruce
e-mail: bimfaa@rit.edu

Posted by: Bruce Meader at November 5, 2003 05:16 PM

Could you e-mail a scan of one of the portraits to me? -RYK-

Posted by: ryk at November 11, 2003 06:02 PM

Updated Dec. 27, 2009

Raisins for Christmas 2009 coming soon!

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