MAD Magazine Letter Pages Recurring Features
Rip-Offs of MAD
(or MAD’s rip-offs of others)
in Order of Appearance in Regular Issues
| Letter Title | Seen On Or In | Rip-Off Description | Issue / Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAD At G.M. Futurama | General Motors Futurama Exhibit | Building looks a lot like Dave Berg’s City Ranch Houses in “The Suburbs Are On Their Way Out!” from #39. | 94 — Apr 1965 |
| Poiuyt-inent Comments | MAD | MAD #93 cover with “The MAD Poiuyt” could have been copied from a variety of sources. | 95 — Jun 1965 |
| A “Timeless” Cover | Time | Magazine has Pac-Man on its October 25, 1982 cover, similar to MAD #233. | 238 — Apr 1983 |
| Double MAD E.S.P.??? | Newsweek | Magazine has the cast of Mash on its February 28, 1983 cover, similar to MAD #234. | 240 — Jul 1983 |
| Ripoff! | Discover | Magazine has an ape with a human mask on its July 1983 cover, similar to MAD #157 “Planet of the Apes” cover. | 242 — Oct 1983 |
| Ripoffs Continued | San Diego Tribune | Newspaper’s June 15, 1983 editorial cartoon has Ronald Reagan transforming into Margaret Thatcher like Dustin Hoffman’s transformation to a woman in the movie “Tootsie,” similar to MAD #240 “Tootsie” cover. | 242 — Oct 1983 |
| MAD Rip-Offs | John Darling — Salt Lake Tribune | Comic from November 1980 congratulates Ronald Reagan on his election as President of the United States on the left side of the strip and (upside-down) congratulates Jimmy Carter on the right side, similar to the MAD #60 Nixon / Kennedy covers. | 246 — Apr 1984 |
| MAD Rip-Offs | Scripps Howard | Newspaper editorial cartoon from November 1983 has Syrian President Hafez al-Assad standing on his head next to a sign while a fire is blazing. The sign reads “In Case of FIRE Turn Upside Down,” similar to MAD #206. | 246 — Apr 1984 |
| MAD Rip-Offs | Cleveland Plain Dealer | Newspaper editorial cartoon from December 1982 has Pac-Man declared “Time Magazine’s Man of the Year,” similar to the MAD #233 Pac-Man cover. | 246 — Apr 1984 |
| Cover Charge | A MAD reader’s enclosed photo | MAD #243, with Superman’s face covered by Alfred E. Neuman’s face from a MAD cover, is similar to a photo a reader sent in 21 years earlier showing the reader covering his own face with Alfred on the “MAD Twists Rock ’N’ Roll” album cover. | 250 — Oct 1984 |
| MAD Rip-Offs — Continued | Chicago Tribune | Newspaper editorial cartoon from December 1984 has the Earth wearing a gas mask, similar to the MAD #157 back cover “The Choke’s On Us!” | 255 — Jun 1985 |
| MAD ESP — In Reverse? | WFYV-FM | MAD #254’s Special Rock Issue cover is similar to the radio station’s 4-year-old logo featuring a rock wearing headphones. | 256 — Jul 1985 |
| Another MAD Rip-Off | The Durham Morning Herald | Newspaper editorial cartoon has Ronald Reagan walking a tightrope while holding one end of the tightrope in his hands, similar to MAD #246. | 268 — Jan 1987 |
| We Stand Corrected | The Durham Morning Herald | Editorial cartoonist for the above mentioned Reagan cartoon notes his cartoon appeared six months before the MAD cover. | 270 — Apr 1987 |
| MAD Vs. Newsweek: The Great Rip-Off Battle Continues | Newsweek | Max Headroom’s layout on its April 20, 1987 cover rips off MAD #269. | 273 — Sep 1987 |
| MAD Vs. Newsweek: The Great Rip-Off Battle Continues | Newsweek | MAD #271 rips off Newsweek’s Dec. 22, 1986 “Star Trek IV” cover. | 273 — Sep 1987 |
| Separated At Mirth? | The New Yorker | UPC Symbol is blown up on its November 14, 1988 cover like MAD #198. | 286 — Apr 1989 |
| Alfred E. Boggs | Sports Illustrated | Magazine has Wade Boggs swinging a bat on its March 6, 1989 cover with the words “What, Me Worry?” similar to MAD #282. | 289 — Sep 1989 |
| What About Sergio? | What About Bob? movie ad | Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss get the same sort of “The Shadow Knows” treatment Aragones is famous for. | 306 — Oct 1991 |
| MAD Ripoffs All New 1992 Edition | Sony ad in Rolling Stone | Ad shows the Moai Face Statues of Easter Island wearing headphones similar to the #254 back cover. | 310 — Apr 1992 |
| Dial-A-MAD Ripoff | Voice Changer Telephone Ad | Ad for new telephone device looks like Disguise-A-Phone from “Future Phone Gimmicks” in #270. | 312 — Jul 1992 |
| Wrestling with a Ripoff | WWF Magazine | World Wrestling Federation creates a character similar to Harold on the back of #272. | 316 — Jan 1993 |
| From One Al To Another | “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Alapalooza” Album | “Weird Al” notes the similarities of his album cover to MAD #323. | 324 — Jan 1994 |
| MAD Ripoff of the Year | Time | Time’s March 9, 1998 cover, made of tiny back-issue covers, looks like what MAD did for its January 1998 Special. | 372 — Aug 1998 |
| That Sinking Feeling | MAD | MAD plans to sue itself for plagiarism because its #369 cover rips off #161. | 373 — Sep 1998 |
| A Rolling Stone Gathers Some Slack | Rolling Stone | Magazine has the lead characters from Smallville on its March 28, 2002 cover, similar to MAD #415 “Smellville” cover. | 418 — Jun 2002 |
| The Fast and the Furious | movie promotions | The fifth installment in “The Fast and the Furious” movie franchise has the same title of a Fundalini feature “The Fast 5” which first started in MAD #438. | 508 — Apr 2011 |
| Blowing Our Cover | The New Yorker | Magazine has a character skiing on its February 4, 2013 cover. Part of the cover is torn away to reveal the inside of the magazine, similar to MAD #293. | 521 — Jun 2013 |
| MAD Sighting | “The Fartist” Comedy Special | Brian Posehn’s poster and title for his comedy special are almost identical to MAD’s blog post from The Idiotical (which is no longer viewable online). | 522 — Sep 2013 |
| America The Disputable | Reader’s Digest | Cover story from July 2013 “Best of America — 50 More Reasons to Love Our Country!” is “an obnoxious rebuttal” to (and maybe even a rip off of) MAD’s “The 50 Worst Things About America” article from MAD #515. | 523 — Oct 2013 |
| Trying to Sweden the Deal | IKEA | A contest for kids to have their designs made into Christmas toys is a blatant rip-off of Al Jaffee’s same feature in MAD #76 from 1963. | 543 — Feb 2017 |
Compiled by John R. Racano
excerpt from MAD Rip-Offs — from #246, April 1984