No More Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions: RIP Al Jaffee

I grew up on a staple diet of MAD magazines, which has no doubt played a huge role in my twisted sense of humor. These were mostly back issues and hand-me-downs from my father, who had built up quite a collection by the time I could crawl. These magazines are old, frayed, dog-eared, their pages yellowed; some are tattered. They take up the entire bottom row of our bookshelf, carefully crammed in there waiting to be taken out again.

Every single issue we own has the back folded unfolded and folded again. Running vertically through the back are at least two parallel white lines. Some of them are crooked, others have tributaries stemming from them revealing multiple attempts to get it just right. All of them however are permanent. As permanent as the mark Al Jaffee has made on MAD magazine and its readers.

The iconic MAD Fold-Ins was the brainchild of American cartoonist Al Jaffee, who passed away at the age of 102 on April 10th, 2023. Always a freelancer for MAD, he worked for 65 years as its longest-running contributor.

The Fold-In first appeared in MAD Magazine issue #86 in 1964. The back flap of the magazine had an illustration with text at the bottom and instructions on the top. Following those instructions, one folded the flap to reveal a hidden image that has the answer to the question the text poses. In the era of Photoshop and GIFs, this may not seem particularly intriguing, especially to today’s generation. Back in the day, however, it was game-changing. You’re actually interacting with the magazine. It was magic. A conspiracy hiding in the crease of the paper.

Of course, all the revelations were tongue-in-cheek or just plain cheek, no tongue. MAD and its ‘Usual Gang of Idiots’ chose their narrative that way.

The Fold-In idea was initially meant to be a one-off thing. It was Jaffee’s satirical take on the Playboy centerfolds. Inspired by Elizabeth Taylor moving on to Richard Burton after dumping Eddie Fisher (Carrie Fisher’s father), Jaffee drew Elizabeth Taylor kissing Burton (with Fisher being trampled in the middle of a crowd). On folding in the page, Taylor moves on to the next man, both Burton and Fisher crushed in the melee.

Jaffee didn’t think the idea would be greenlit at first. After all, the Fold-In meant maiming the magazine. Which reader would want to do that (unless the reader happens to be the butt of the jokes of that issue of MAD)? Bill Gaines, MAD’s publisher was delighted at the idea. His logic was ‘So they mutilate the magazine, and then they’ll buy another one to save!’

Not all his Fold-Ins needed to be folded in per se. Jaffee had Fold-Ins where, on holding the back cover to a light source, would reveal the answer to the riddle or face. The face being the resident gap-toothed mascot Alfred E. Newman. 

It was a truly MAD strategy that kept going until 2018, when MAD officially brought its curtains down. After which they mostly published curated back issues with new covers and Fold-Ins.

Jaffee’s contribution to MAD was not solely restricted to the Fold-In. He also created ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.’ As the title suggests, a stupid question is asked and a host of smart answers (most often three) would be given. An essential field guide to sarcastic comebacks, it has one for every situation.

As children, young Jaffee and his brother Harry used to conceptualize and create their own toys. Their apparatuses were as useful as they were amusing; a basket affixed at the end of a stick with a wired hook for easy larceny of orchard fruits. These would later appear in MAD as Al Jaffee’s inventions. Where detailed images with detailed explanations of all manner of bizarre devices are guaranteed to make your life easy (terms and conditions heavily apply)! Practically and on paper, they appear to be sound.

In fact, so sound were these devices that many of them were made a reality later on. Jaffee himself was delighted at the turn of events that “something that I thought was a joke turned into reality.” Things like the ‘Curbside Multi-Level Parking Elevator Facility’ was first dreamed up by him. 

Abraham Jaffee was born in Savanah, Georgia in 1921 to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, eldest of four brothers. He began working as a cartoonist soon after high school. When he was 20, he sold the Inferior Man (a Superman parody) to cartoonist/publisher Will Eisner. Soon after that, he began working with Stan Lee.

Bill Morrison, cartoonist for the Simpsons and Futurama who was editor-in-chief of MAD in the 2010s is on record saying, “I was very fortunate to have been Al’s editor at MAD Magazine before he retired at age 99! I’ll always be grateful to him for waiting and not retiring earlier like a normal person. But to say I was his editor…well, it was more like we were pen pals. He would mail me a Fold-In for the latest issue of MAD, and I would thank him, tell him it was great, and ask for another. It was the easiest job in the world. There will never be another cartoonist like the great Al Jaffee.”

Al Jaffee’s final Fold-In was published in MAD’s August 2020 issue. He had prepared it in 2014, six years prior, to be published after his own death. But instead, he used it as his retirement announcement at the age of 99.

“I had two jobs all my life,” Jaffee had told New York Times then. “One of them was to make a living. The second one was to entertain. I hope to some extent that I succeeded.”

Of course, he more than succeeded.

Farewell, Al Jaffee. Where will we now find our snappy answers to stupid questions that plague us?