THE ALFRED E. NEUMAN SHOW

THE ALFRED E. NEUMAN SHOW
MAD UK #270, October 1984
w: Dave Robinson
a: Harry North

Now a celebration of the 25th anniversary of MAD in 1984 celebrating how Alfred E. Neuman graced the cover of the very first issue in 1959... or at least that's how MAD began in Great Britain. I don't think most of their readers knew it was an American magazine. They had dozens of foreign editions, many of the covers of which I've posted before, some of which had all-original content based on TV shows and movies only shown there. I'll be putting some of that content up here as I get it, but only when it's in English.

Harry North was drawing for the British and American editions at the same time. The numbering was way ahead over there because even though they started much later, they came out more frequently.

Michael Parkinson was the most famous TV host in Britain then. Not much to describe about him.

Russell Harty is another TV personality there's not much to say about. The artist they're referring to, Kelly Freas, has done a few covers that are also on this blog, and indeed did win a Hugo Award for his covers for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction.

MAD publisher Bill Gaines took his entire staff on a vacation abroad every year.

Norman Mingo was 60 when he did his first MAD cover. He didn't “go on” to do movie posters, he had already done several such as for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Artists Jack Rickard and Jack Davis were already doing movie posters at the same time.