Alfred E. Neuman
Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot of EC Publications' Mad magazine. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed by MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman.
Neuman's likeness, distinguished by jug ears, a missing front tooth, and one eye eerily higher than the other, has graced the cover of most monthly issues. He first appeared in November 1954 on the cover of Ballantine's The Mad Reader, a collection of reprints from earlier issues. In 1956, his identity became fixed and his finetuned image was first rendered in iconic form by Norman Mingo. Mingo would become the magazine's signature cover artist through the 1960s and 1970s. Several 1950s Neuman covers were also painted by the "dean of Science Fiction artists," Kelly Freas.
Neuman has appeared as Santa Claus, Darth Vader, George Washington, King Kong and Uncle Sam ("WHO NEEDS YOU"), to name a few. He is periodically offered as a candidate for President with the slogan, "You could do worse, and always have!"
Along with his face, Mad also features a humorous quotation by him in every issue. His catch phrase is "What, me worry?" This was changed for one issue after a nuclear explosion in 1993.
Neuman's origins are shrouded in mystery and may never be fully known. One theory is that the likeness of Neuman may have derived from a late 19th century popular newspaper comic strip, The Yellow Kid. Many advertisements from that era included the likeness and his famous slogan, which was likewise, "What, me worry?" When Mad was sued for copyright infringement, one defense it used was that it had copied the picture from materials dating back to 1911. His image has also been used negatively, as a "supporter" of rival political candidates (with the idea that only an idiot would vote for them), and even by the Nazis for racial propaganda as an example of a Jew. An almost-identical image appeared as "nose art" on an American World War II bomber, where it was sometimes referred to as "The Jolly Boy".
Since the EC editors had grown up listening to radio, this was reflected in their stories, names and references. The name "Alfred E. Neuman" derived from comedian Henry Morgan's radio series. Morgan began with Meet Mr. Morgan on WOR in 1940, continuing until 1950 with Here's Morgan on Mutual, ABC and NBC. One character on his show had a name that was an obvious reference to Alfred Newman (1901-70), who scored many films and also composed the 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.
The definitive research on Alfred E. Neuman can be found in Maria Reidelbach's comprehensive Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine (Little Brown, 1991).
Trivia
- In Daffy Duck's Quackbusters episode "The Night of the Living Duck" among the freakish nightclub "patrons" {such as Dracula} is Alfred E. Neuman.
External links
- A collection of Neuman quotes
- Origins of Alfred E. Neuman
- New York Daily News: Senator Hillary Clinton compares President Bush with Alfred E. Neuman
- The Quest for Alfred E. Neuman by Carl Djerassi, his encounters with the Nazis' use of his image.