Alfred E. Neuman

For other uses, see Alfred Newman (disambiguation).

Alfred E. Neuman on Mad 30

Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot of Mad magazine. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed and named by Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman.

History

Since his debut in Mad, Neuman's likeness, distinguished by jug ears, a missing front tooth, and one eye disquietingly lower than the other, has graced the cover of all but a handful of the magazine's 500 issues. His face does not translate well to profile, and thus he has virtually always been shown in full frontal view, directly from behind, or in silhouette.

Harvey Kurtzman first spotted the image on a postcard pinned to the office bulletin board of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff. "It was a face that didn't have a care in the world, except mischief," recalled Kurtzman. Shir-Cliff was later a contributor to various magazines created by Kurtzman.

In November 1954, Neuman made his Mad debut on the front cover of Ballantine's The Mad Reader, a paperback collection of reprints from the first two years of Mad. The character's first appearance in the comic book was on the cover of Mad 21 (March 1955), as a tiny image as part of a mock ad. A rubber mask bearing his likeness with "idiot" written underneath was offered for $1.29.

First cover appearance of Alfred E. Neuman, on Mad #21

Neuman's third appearance was in the illustrated border of the first magazine version of Mad #24 (July 1955) with his now-familiar signature phrase "What, me worry?" written underneath. Initially, the phrase was rendered "What? Me worry?". This border would be used for five more issues, through Mad #30 (December 1956).

The character was also briefly known as Mel Haney. In Mad #25, the face and name were shown together, on separate pages, as both Alfred E. Neuman and Mel Haney. The crowded cover shot on Mad #27 marked Neuman's first color appearance.

In late 1956, Neuman's identity became fixed, when he appeared on the cover of Mad #30 as a supposed write-in candidate for the Presidency. His features, which had first been rendered in black-and-white by Will Elder, were fine-tuned and recreated in color by Norman Mingo. It was this image which became the character's defining portrait. In November 2008, Mingo's original cover art featuring the first "official" portrait of Neuman sold at auction for $203,150.

Beginning with issue 30, and continuing to the present day, Neuman has appeared on the cover of every issue of Mad and its spinoffs, in one form or another, with a small handful of exceptions. One such departure was Mad #233 (September 1982) which replaced Neuman's image with that of Pac-Man. Mad routinely combines Neuman with another character or inanimate object for its cover images.

Mingo painted seven more Neuman covers through 1957 and later became the magazine's signature cover artist throughout the 1960s and 1970s, although Kelly Freas rendered Neuman for Mad from 1958 to 1962. A female version of Alfred, named Moxie Cowznofski and occasionally described in editorial text as Alfred's "girlfriend," appeared briefly during the late 1950s. Alfred and Moxie were sometimes depicted side-by-side, defeating any speculation that Moxie was possibly Alfred in female guise. Her name was inspired by Moxie, a soft drink manufactured in Portland, Maine, which was sold nationwide in the 1950s and whose logo appeared in many early issues of Mad.

Since his initial unsuccessful run in 1956, Neuman has periodically been re-offered as a candidate for President with the slogan, "You could do worse... and always have!"

Early image of the "Me Worry?" kid, possibly from the 1920s.

Despite Neuman's ubiquity as a grinning cover boy as the magazine's circulation quadrupled, the single highest-selling issue of Mad depicted only his feet. The cover image of issue #161, spoofing the 1973 film The Poseidon Adventure, showed Neuman floating upside-down inside a life preserver. The original art for this cover was purchased at auction in 1992 for $2,200 by Annie Gaines, the widow of MAD founder and publisher William Gaines, and subsequently given on permanent loan to MAD writer Dick DeBartolo.

To date, only a dozen Mad covers have not depicted Alfred E. Neuman since his appearance on issue #30, the most notorious being the controversial cover to #166. It declared Mad to be "The Number One Ecch Magazine," illustrating the claim with a human hand giving the profane "middle finger" gesture. Some newsstands that normally carried Mad chose not to display or sell this issue.

Along with his face, Mad also includes a short humorous quotation credited to Neuman with every issue's table of contents. (Example: "It takes one to know one... and vice versa!") Some of these quotations were collected in the 1997 book Mad: The Half-Wit and Wisdom of Alfred E. Neuman, which was illustrated by Sergio Aragonés.

Neuman is now used exclusively as a mascot and iconic symbol of the magazine, but before this status was codified, he was referenced in several early articles. In one, Neuman answered a letter from a suicidal reader by giving "expert advice" on the best technique for tying a hangman's knot. Other articles featured the school newspaper of "Neuman High School," and a bulletin from "Alfred E. Neuman University." An article entitled "Alfred E. Neuman's Family Tree" depicted historical versions of Neuman from various eras. Since then, Neuman has appeared only occasionally inside the magazine's articles. A recurring article titled "Poor Alfred's Almanac" showed his face atop the page, but otherwise the character had no role in the text. In a 1968 article, Alfred's face was assembled, feature by feature, from parts of photographs of well-known politicos, including then-President Lyndon B. Johnson (left ear), Richard Nixon (nose), Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield (eyes), and Ronald Reagan (hair). The gap in his teeth (which was otherwise the grin of Dwight D. Eisenhower) came from "The 'Credibility Gap' Created by Practically All Politicians."

Neuman's famous motto is the intellectually uncurious "What, me worry?" This was changed for one issue to "Yes, me worry!" after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in 1979. On the cover of current printings of the paperback The Ides of Mad, as rendered by long-time cover artist Norman Mingo, Alfred is portrayed as a Roman bust with his catch phrase engraved on the base, translated into Latin-- Quid, Me Vexari?

Over the decades, Neuman has often appeared in political cartoons as a shorthand for unquestioning stupidity. During the administration of United States President George W. Bush, Alfred E. Neuman's features were frequently merged with those of Bush by editorial cartoonists such as Mike Luckovich and Tom Tomorrow. The image has also appeared on magazine covers, notably The Nation. A large Bush/Neuman poster was part of the Washington protests that accompanied Bush's 2001 inauguration. The alleged resemblance between the two has been noted more than once by Hillary Clinton. On July 10, 2005, speaking at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival, she said, "I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," referring to Bush's purported "What, me worry?" attitude.

Neuman's features have also been compared to others in the public eye, including Prince Charles, Ted Koppel, Oliver North and David Letterman. In his October 2008 speech at the Al Smith dinner, Presidential candidate Barack Obama observed, "It's often been said that I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith and the ears of Alfred E. Neuman."

The missing tooth restored

Alfred E. Neuman's most prominent feature is his gap-toothed grin, which has appeared on nearly every issue of Mad, with some notable exceptions. On the cover of issue #236 (January 1983), Neuman was featured with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The cover showed E.T. using his famous "healing finger" to touch Alfred E. Neuman's mouth and cause the missing tooth to appear. The cover of issue #411 (November 2001), the first to be produced following the 9/11 attacks in the United States, showed a close-up of Neuman's face, but his gap was now filled with an American flag. A text gag on the cover of issue #263 (June 1986) claimed that the UPC code was really a "Close-up Photograph of Alfred E. Neuman's Missing Tooth."

Neuman also appeared as himself in a political cartoon, after Newsweek had been criticized for using computer graphics to retouch the teeth of Bobbi McCaughey. The cartoon was rendered in the form of a split-screen comparison, in which Alfred E. Neuman was featured on the cover of Mad with his usual gap-toothed grin, then also featured on the cover of Newsweek, but with a perfect smile.

Genesis

1908 Antikamnia Tablet Calendar

The Yellow Kid, 1897

Neuman's precise origin is shrouded in mystery and may never be fully known. Printed likenesses can be traced back to the 19th century, such as The Yellow Kid, the 1890s character from Richard F. Outcault's strip, Hogan's Alley.

Nineteenth-century publications such as Punch and Puck featured illustrated caricatures which were based on pseudo-scientific physiognomy of the time, and which depicted the typical Irish immigrant as a bomb-throwing cretin barely distinguishable from the adult ape. Bigoted and humorous, these drawings soon supplanted the previous pictoral stereotype of the Irish bumpkin, and share similarities with the Neuman face. Prominent illustrators such as Thomas Keppler and Frederick Opper developed a carefree Irish couple who lived in squalor, yet were oblivious and content. These less threatening caricatures were soon adopted by advertisers to promote a variety of products.

Versions of the face were used as medical pictures of people with deficiency diseases or hormone imbalances. Many medical doctors describe a striking similarity to the face of patients with Williams syndrome. Similar faces turned up in advertising for "painless" dentistry. A face virtually identical to Neuman's appears in the 1923 issue of the University of Minnesota humor magazine The Guffer above the caption "Medic After Passing Con Exam in P. Chem." Another identical face shows up in the logo for Happy Jack Beverages, a soda drink produced by the A. B. Cook company in 1939. An almost-identical image appeared as "nose art" on an American World War II bomber, over the motto "Who, Me Worry?" (this painted face was sometimes referred to as "The Jolly Boy").

Neuman's image was also used negatively, as a "supporter" of rival political candidates, with the idea that only an idiot would vote for them. In 1940, those opposing Franklin Delano Roosevelt's third-term reelection bid distributed postcards with a similar caricature. In some instances, there was also the implication that the "idiot" was in fact a Jewish caricature. Carl Djerassi's autobiography claims that in Vienna after the Anschluss, he saw posters with a similar face and the caption Tod den Juden ("Death to the Jews").

Since the EC editors had grown up listening to radio, this was frequently reflected in their stories, names and references. The name "Alfred E. Neuman" derived from comedian Henry Morgan's "Here's Morgan" radio series on Mutual, ABC and NBC. One character on his show had a name that was an obvious reference to composer Alfred Newman (1901-70), who scored many films and also composed the familiar fanfare that accompanies 20th Century Fox's opening film logo. The possible inspiration for Henry Morgan was that Laird Cregar portrayed Sir Henry Morgan in The Black Swan (1942) with Tyrone Power, and the Oscar-nominated score for that film was by Newman. Listening to the sarcastic Morgan's brash broadcasts, the Mad staff took note and reworked the name into Alfred E. Neuman, as later recalled by Kurtzman:

"The name Alfred E. Neuman was picked up from Alfred Newman, the music arranger from back in the 1950s and 1940s. Actually, we borrowed the name indirectly through The Henry Morgan Show. He was using the name Alfred Newman for an innocuous character that you'd forget in five minutes. So we started using the name Alfred Neuman. The readers insisted on putting the name and the face together, and they would call the "What, Me Worry?" face Alfred Neuman."

Morgan later became a Mad contributor, with "The Truth about Cowboys" in issue #33.

When Mad was sued for copyright infringement by a woman claiming to hold the rights to the image, the magazine argued that it had copied the picture from various materials dating back to 1911 (which pre-dated the plaintiff's own claim). The lawsuit was unsuccessful, and the boy's face is now permanently associated with Mad.

In 1958, Mad published letters from several readers noting the resemblance between Neuman and England's Prince Charles, then nine years old. Shortly thereafter, an angry letter under a Buckingham Palace letterhead arrived at the Mad offices: "Dear Sirs No it isn't a bit – not the least little bit like me. So jolly well stow it! See! Charles. P." The letter was authenticated as having been written on triple-cream laid royal stationery bearing an official copper-engraved crest. The postmark indicated it had been mailed from a post office within a short walking distance of Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, the original disappeared years ago while on loan to another magazine and has never been recovered.

For many years, Mad sold prints of the "official portrait" of Alfred E. Neuman through a small house ad on the letters page of the magazine (claiming that these prints were also useful for wrapping fish). In the early years the price was one for 25 cents; three for 50 cents; nine for a dollar; or 27 for two dollars.

The definitive research on Alfred E. Neuman can be found in Maria Reidelbach's comprehensive bestseller, Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine (Little, Brown, 1991). Mad publisher Bill Gaines gave Reidelbach total access to the magazine's own files, including the collection of Neuman-related images that had been assembled for legal purposes at the time of the Neuman lawsuit. In 2008, Eastern Michigan University held an exhibit and symposium on the evolution of Neuman images, dating back to 1877.

Neuman references outside of Mad

• In an extended sequence of the comic strip Peanuts from 1973 (and later recreated in the TV special It's An Adventure, Charlie Brown in 1983), Charlie Brown becomes so obsessed with baseball that everything round starts looking like a baseball to him. Soon his own round head develops a rash that makes the back of his skull look like a baseball, and he starts wearing a paper bag on his head to hide it. Ironically, while hidden from view, his popularity and respect increase. (In the TV special, he is referred to by the other campers as Mr. Sack, but is also voted camp president and is widely admired.) The rash eventually fades from his head, but Charlie Brown still fears that the next round thing he expects to see—a sunrise—may continue to look like a baseball. When the sun does rise, it instead looks like Alfred E. Neuman, with a halo reading: "What! Me Worry?"!
• In animated series The Simpsons, Homer Simpson is a fan of Mad magazine and many references to Alfred E. Neuman have been made. In the episode Marge in Chains, Marge is arrested and in prison she meets an inmate called Tattoo Annie who has a fold-in tattoo that reveals Alfred E. Neuman with the text: "What me Worry?". The original phrase was "What kind of slime would I marry?". In the episode The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, Bart comes into contact with Alfred E. Neuman during a visit to the Mad offices. Neuman demands to see "Kaputnik and Fonebone" (which are references to late long-time Mad artists Dave Berg and Don Martin, respectively) for their work on 'New Kids on the Blecch' (which would later become the title of another episode), and requests some "fershlugginer pastrami sandwiches". An awestruck Bart announces that he'll "never wash these eyes again". In the episode New Kids on the Blecch, Bart's boy band is booked to play a gig on an aircraft carrier, but their band manager plots to use the craft's weaponry to destroy the Mad offices when he discovers the magazine plans to publish a defaming article about the band. Mad's New York headquarters were depicted as a skyscraper similar to the Chrysler Building with a giant three-dimensional replica of Alfred's head mounted on the roof.
• Alfred E. Neuman appears briefly, in clay animated form, in Jimmy Picker's 1983 stop motion animated film, Sundae in New York.
• In a segment of his 1958 television special, Fred Astaire danced while wearing a rubber Neuman mask.
• In Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam film Platoon, a doodle of Alfred along with the catchphrase, "What, me worry?", can be seen on the helmet of Lt. Wolfe, played by actor Mark Moses.
• The August 1971 cover of National Lampoon merged Neuman's features with those of the court-martialed Vietnam War murderer William Calley, complete with the catch phrase, 'What, My Lai?"
• He appeared briefly as an inspector general in the comic strip Beetle Bailey on March 27, 1967.
• Episode #602 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 features Invasion U.S.A., which was directed by Alfred E. Green. Upon seeing Green's name in the film's opening credits, Crow T. Robot, in a slightly idiotic tone, riffs "What? Me direct?" In Episode #818 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, featuring Devil Doll, Tom Servo remarks that the living ventriloquist dummy Hugo looks like "Alfalfa E. Neuman."
• Alfred E. Neuman is referenced by the Beastie Boys on their song "Shadrach," featured on their second studio album, Paul's Boutique.
• A live-action version of Alfred E. Neuman -- an uncredited actor wearing a mask -- appears briefly in the 1980 film Up the Academy which was originally released to theaters as Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Mad later pulled its support from the film and all footage of the Neuman character was excised from North American home video and television releases, alhough it was reinstated for the 2006 DVD release.
• "Al Freddy Newham" was depicted on the cover of the April, 1967 issue of the amateur radio enthusiast's 73 Magazine, preparing to solder the frayed cord of a soldering gun with the same damaged gun.
• In the 1988 Daffy Duck cartoon Night of the Living Duck, while Daffy sings, Alfred E. Neuman briefly pops up holding drinks.
• Alfred E. Neuman (wearing glasses) can be spotted in The Amazing Spider-Man #300 helping Peter Parker and Mary Jane move in their new house, while saying: "Darn! I'm missing the Nets game! That makes me Mad!".

Listen to

• "It's a Gas" (Mad Grooves), originally a flexi-record in The Worst from Mad 9 and credited to Alfred E. Neuman
• "It's a Gas" on NoFear.com

See also

• Mad (magazine)
• List of Mad Magazine issues

External links

• Alfred E. Neuman quotes
• Alfred's MySpace page
• New York Daily News: Senator Hillary Clinton compares President Bush with Alfred E. Neuman
• Origins of Alfred E. Neuman
• Further information on 19th-century Neuman images