Mad Magazine Responds To Donald Trump Giving Pete Buttigieg Alfred E. Neuman Nickname

With the 2020 election inching closer and closer, Democratic candidates are beginning to come out of the woodwork to compete with Donald Trump. As is his usual tactic, Trump has decided to fit candidate Pete Buttigieg with the nickname of “Alfred E. Neuman”, the long running mascot for Mad Magazine. Following these barbs, Mad Magazine has decided to respond themselves to the use of their mascot in this political sideshow.

Mad Magazine was originally founded in 1952 by Howard Kurtzman and William Gaines. While being mostly known for its monthly print publication that would take humorous swings at pop culture and politics alike, Mad also had a long running sketch comedy show, Mad TV, on the Fox Network that ran in direct competition to Saturday Night Live.

Allie Goertz, current editor of Mad Magazine, had this response to the verbal altercation:

In kind, Mad Magazine’s Twitter account itself also managed to poke Trump with a retort of their own:

Pete Buttigieg has been the mayor of South Bend, Indiana since 2012, formerly a naval intelligence officer. On April 14th 2019, he announced his candidacy for President of the United States in 2020. Ironically enough, after Trump deemed Buttigieg a look alike to the long running mascot for Mad, Mayor Pete stated that he needed to run a “Google Search” to figure out who Alfred E. Neuman even was. This is understandable considering that Buttigieg himself is only 37 years old.

Mad Magazine is currently released on a bi-monthly schedule, with over 140,000 copies in circulation at any given time. The publication has printed over 550 issues, not counting special one-offs and publications that are distributed. Mad is currently under the Warner Brothers’ wheelhouse, so it regularly makes appearances at comic conventions under the DC Comics’ banner.

In addition to the magazine, MAD has been publishing periodic specials such as the Donald Trump-themed one-shot collecting years’ worth of political and apolitical material pertaining to the U.S. President. They have also delved into book publishing.

What do you think of the use of Alfred E. Neuman’s likeness here? Are you a current reader of Mad Magazine or a fan of the old Mad TV show? Let us know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

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