Mad 1952 #56 - reader copy - $7.00

Politicians from both major parties endorse Alfred.

Parody of ad for a coffee growers organization.

table of contents

House ad for china bust of Alfred.

House ad for kit containing poster, sticker, button, and hat.

Letters of comment, many about issue #54, and a mention of the recent TV show "Four For Tonight" which featured a comedy sketch based on Don Martin's "Hair Tonic Commercial" cartoon. Letters by: Mike Cunningham; Robert Raymond; Gardner McKay; Linda Fertig; Sam Wohl; Gary Wolfersberger; Joyce Aldrich; Bob Rothstein; Joe Szymanski; Alan Silverman; Ronnie Perlman; Terry Bird; Terry Reed; Robert Higgins; Ives McCoy; Edna Thompson

House ad for subscriptions.

House ad for pinups suitable for framing.

Parodies of consumer product ads used as political ads.

Olympic style events based on the skills of living modern city life.

A chiropractor loosens up his patient a little too much.

Explores what bubble gum card statistics might look like if the cards featured people from professions other than sports.

A woman who has been counseling cannibals gets unusual results.

Phoney newspaper clippings showing how a good publicity man can get mountains of press from a molehill of an event.

A look at how the population explosion will lead to a garbage explosion and MAD's solution.

A parody of Broadway musicals using comic strip characters. Rex Morgan has kidnapped Annie and intends to remove her unique eyes, but Sandy leads Dick Tracy and Tarzan to a rescue, which is aided by Snuffy Smith.

A Tarzan-like man races through the jungle, swinging on vines, to an unusual destination.

A look at how advertisements might be if they told the truth.

Details the expenses of owning a doll as big as a child, and advises parents to ask Congress to declare such dolls as dependents so the parents can get a tax break.

TV stars receive awards for categories of dubious merit, in a parody of the Emmy Awards show.

A tourist takes a photo of some kids, one of whom has a strange growth.

A phoney instruction book for army officers, showing how they are trained in all the things that annoy enlisted men.

A man on horseback escapes some Indians when the horse leaps a chasm...sort of.

Captions with arrangements of "X"s and "O"s as the art.

House ad for "The Golden Trashery of MAD" and "The Organization MAD."

Parody of a series of Johnny Walker liquor ads, featuring artists.

On-sale date from 1960 Periodicals, Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

• Weak Coffee Sales Gives Us Growers Java Jitters! - Inside front cover. Writer credit from "Totally MAD" CD collection.
• Departments - Art is excerpts from various stories in this issue.
• Random Samplings of Reader Mail - Gardner McKay was the star of TV's "Adventures in Paradise."
• How Publicity Works - Art credit in issue is wrong, as this is clearly Joe Orlando's work, matching that of the "MAD Bubble Gum Cards".
• The MAD "Comic" Opera - Many other comic strip characters that I do not recognize appear in cameos, especially in the big finale song scene. There is also a mid-page decoration featuring head shots of probably every contemporary comic strip character.
• Honest Ads - Writer credit from "Totally MAD" CD collection.
• Patty Play Dolls - One character on the last page looks like a young version of Berg's Roger Kaputnick character.
• The Chase - Noted as a "Scene We'd Like To See", but not listed as that Feature in Department title.
• More MAD "Y'OX" - Appears in the margins of 22 pages.
• Announcing...A Twin Launching From The MAD Pad - Inside back cover. Props courtesy of Polk's Modelcraft Hobbies, Inc.
• Crocked - back cover