Saturday, August 29, 2015

Alfred E. Neuman - POTRZEBIE

Yes, Mad Magazine is still around. Sort of. Quarterly.

Face it, with everyone roaring with laughter over MEMES tossed around on FARCEBOOK, and people constantly e-mailing zany YouTube videos, and various Twitter idiots stealing each others jokes to post, who needs to buy a magazine? Why encourage a new generation of cartoonists and comedy writers?

POTRZEBIE was a beloved nonsense word back when Mad was loaded with them. There were various Yiddish expressions thrown in (this song mentions the FURSHLUGGINER Five). Don Martin and Will Elder were especially fond of creating words to denote violence (a face slapping SMEKKITY-SMEK for example) but this one was pure idiocy.

The only name stranger than Potzrzebie was found over at DC Comics, via Mister Mxyzptlk. He was an imp that sometimes annoyed Superman. He lived in the "Fifth Dimension" (a zone, not a sappy group of overweight and over-age singers) and the only way to get him to go back was to trick him into saying his name backwards.

Like the imp, who underwent various changes in shape and features depending on who drew him, there were several variations on Alfred E. Neuman. The definitive Alfred (as seen here) was created by Norman Mingo.

Unfortunately Mad magazine's music, on flexi-discs in the mag, singles and occasional albums, rarely reached the level of Spike Jones or Raymond Scott. Sorry, but this instrumental doesn't live up to having a Mad Magazine catch-word for a title.

Sapristi!

A Mad instru-mental.

Instant download or listen on line. No tricky links, stupid passwords named Zinhof, or other distractions.

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