Mad certainly did plant a bit of healthy cynicism in many impressionable young minds, which I call a civic service to the Republic.
Being a bad parent, I bought my daughter a subscription to Mad when she was twelve. She loves it.
Before the explosion.
Well-chosen word!
“So long, suckers!”
Has the president of North American Veeblefetzer ever disclosed what a Veeblefetzer is used for?
For fetzing veebles, what else?
And a furshlugginer is a man who shluggins furs. Duh.
This thread is suitable for framing. Or wrapping fish.
Let’s all hope he made it on board that big zeppelin in the sky! :o
It’s for pitting potrzebies, of course!
#@%®¢& !
Poit!
Wow, I missed this the first time around. I didn’t appreciate the effect you had on me at the time, Al. In retrospect, you were indispensable. See ya, old timer!
I loved Mad when I was a kid. Rest in peace, Al, and thanks for all the laughs.
Are potrzebie and fershlugginer Hebrew words? Or maybe just Hebrew-sounding words?
I remember Mad also had “spa fon” as an exclamation, but never found out what it meant.
Actually “Spa Fon” originated in the pre-Mad magazine EC science fiction comics. It was an exclamation that some aliens said. Here’s an (maybe the original) example.
In the 60’s both “Spa Fon” and “Squa Tront” were used as the titles of EC fanzines.
Edited to add - the statement on that page I linked to that reads: “They were the names of fanzines put out by Frank Frazetta in the 1950s.” is incorrect. The fanzines were published in the 60’s and, although they frequently featured work by Frazetta, they were not put out by him.
Potrzebie is a Polish word, meaning something like “as needed” (it originally appeared in Mad as a cut-and-paste from the multilingual instructions accompanying a bottle of Aspirin). It is pronounced something like “pot SHEB ya,” although to me it is forever “POT-ra-zee-bee.”
*Furshlugginer *is Yiddish. *Axolotl *is Nahuatl.
Thanks for helping make me who I am today, Al. 
Just remember, though, that it’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide.