Alfred, Meet Jimmy

Recent scholarship has traced the roots of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Newman back to the nineteenth century. But I don't believe anyone has ever before noted his resemblance to this animated version of Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen, as seen in the 1942 Superman cartoon "Showdown," embedded above.

How fitting that today both Jimmy and Alfred are owned by the same company, Warner Bros.!

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Comments

I may be mad but, JO looks more like Huck Finn than AJ.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/14/13 at 10:07 AM

I think "Alfred E. Newman" shows signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Does anyone familiar with this disorder care to comment?

Posted by Josh Levin on 01/14/13 at 05:12 PM

No!

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/14/13 at 11:51 PM

To have fetal alcohol syndrome he would have to have been a fetus. (psst, dude, he's a cartoon character)

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/15/13 at 01:40 AM

What I'm trying to say is that the original character's looks might have been based on those of some "village idiot" who got that way because his mother drank while he was gestating.

Posted by Josh Levin on 01/15/13 at 09:56 PM

If village idiots were caused by Mom's drinking and smoking then all those millions of baby boomers would fall into that category.

In fact, it's only been a few year when 'demon rum' has been un-PC and the data doesn't seem to line up too well with simple logic.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/15/13 at 10:50 PM

Heard when I was young: Mad's Martin was the son-in-law of Carson-Newman College head Alfred Newman, and decided to pull his leg a little. The cartoon was popular, but not with some of Alfred's litigious relatives. The settlement specified the Germanesque namw change, among other details, but Mad was allowed to keep the beloved character.

Posted by Angie unduplicated on 01/20/13 at 01:36 PM

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