title: Indian passport

text: In India, the e-passport is under its first phase of deployment and is restricted to Diplomatic passport holders. On 25 June 2008 the Indian Passport Authority issued the e-passport to the then President of India Pratibha Patil. As of 2016, the Government has plans to issue e-passports to all of its citizens. Also the Government has authorized Indian Security Press to float a global three-stage tender for procurement of ICAO-compliant electronic contactless inlays along with its operating system, which is required for the manufacture of Biometric Passports. The necessary procurement have been initiated by India Security Press, Nasik by calling for Global tender for the supply of electronic contactless inlays. The actual transition to the new age passport is expected to commence on the successful completion of the tendering and procurement process. The Biometric E-Passport work is currently in progress/pipeline and is yet to be available for Ordinary Passport holders.


title: Indian passport

text: During the 2022 Union budget of India speech, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that e-Passports with embedded chip and futuristic technology will be rolled out in 2022-23. It contains microchips that would have important security data stored in them, which enhances the convenience of citizens in their overseas travel. The Ministry of External Affairs has stated that the digital passport will allow greater security for personal data as well as smoother immigration process.


title: Indian passport

text: Visa requirements for Indian citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of India.


title: Indian passport

text: , Henley Passport Index ranks Indian passport at 83rd place with visa-free or visa on arrival access to 60 nations and territories to Indian citizens. , The Passport Index ranks Indian passport at 69th place on global ranking with 72 mobility ranking (based on visa-free or visa on arrival access to nations or territories). Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan in his reply to an unstarred question in Rajya Sabha in November 2019 stated that the rank of the Indian passport on the Henley Passport Index is expected to improve.


title: Indian passport

text: Furthermore, Indian citizens may live and work freely in Nepal under the terms of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship.


title: Indian passport

text: According to the statistics these are the numbers of Indian visitors to various countries in 2017 (unless otherwise noted)


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: Barbara Ann Blakeley Oliver Marx Sinatra (March 10, 1927 – July 25, 2017) was an American model, showgirl, socialite and the fourth wife of Frank Sinatra.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: Barbara Ann Blakeley was born on March 10, 1927 in Bosworth, Missouri, the elder of two daughters. Her parents were Charles Willis Blakeley (June 29, 1895 – October 5, 1989) and Irene Prunty (née Toppass) Blakeley (June 22, 1907 – December 15, 1993). At age 10, she moved with her parents and younger sister, Patricia, to Wichita, Kansas, where she was raised. In 1946, she graduated from Wichita North High School. At age 18, she moved to Long Beach, California.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: She married Robert Oliver in September 1948 and had a son, Robert Blake "Bobby" Oliver on October 10, 1950. She divorced Oliver in 1952.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: She married Zeppo Marx on September 18, 1959. Despite their divorce in 1973, she was thenceforth known as Barbara Marx.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: She married Frank Sinatra on July 11, 1976. It was his fourth and final marriage, and her third and final marriage. It was also the longest-lasting marriage for both. She converted to Catholicism. According to her book, "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank", "He [Frank] never asked me to change faith for him, but I could tell he was pleased that I'd consider it."


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: Upon his death in 1998, Frank Sinatra left her $3.5 million in assets, along with mansions in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. She also inherited the rights to Sinatra's "Trilogy" recordings, most of his material possessions and control over his name and likeness.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: Barbara Marx Sinatra died on July 25, 2017, in Rancho Mirage, California, of natural causes at the age of 90. She died a year before Frank's first wife, Nancy, who died on July 13, 2018, at the age of 101. She is buried at the Desert Memorial Park next to husband Frank.


title: Barbara Sinatra

text: The Sinatras founded the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1986. The center is adjacent to the Betty Ford Center on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center. The non-profit facility provides individual and group therapy for young victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.


title: Simple machine

text: A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force. Usually the term refers to the six classical simple machines that were defined by Renaissance scientists:


title: Simple machine

text: A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force. Ignoring friction losses, the work done on the load is equal to the work done by the applied force. The machine can increase the amount of the output force, at the cost of a proportional decrease in the distance moved by the load. The ratio of the output to the applied force is called the "mechanical advantage".


title: Simple machine

text: Simple machines can be regarded as the elementary "building blocks" of which all more complicated machines (sometimes called "compound machines") are composed. For example, wheels, levers, and pulleys are all used in the mechanism of a bicycle. The mechanical advantage of a compound machine is just the product of the mechanical advantages of the simple machines of which it is composed.


title: Simple machine

text: Although they continue to be of great importance in mechanics and applied science, modern mechanics has moved beyond the view of the simple machines as the ultimate building blocks of which all machines are composed, which arose in the Renaissance as a neoclassical amplification of ancient Greek texts. The great variety and sophistication of modern machine linkages, which arose during the Industrial Revolution, is inadequately described by these six simple categories. Various post-Renaissance authors have compiled expanded lists of "simple machines", often using terms like "basic machines", "compound machines", or "machine elements" to distinguish them from the classical simple machines above. By the late 1800s, Franz Reuleaux had identified hundreds of machine elements, calling them "simple machines". Modern machine theory analyzes machines as kinematic chains composed of elementary linkages called kinematic pairs.


title: Simple machine

text: The idea of a simple machine originated with the Greek philosopher Archimedes around the 3rd century BC, who studied the Archimedean simple machines: lever, pulley, and screw. He discovered the principle of mechanical advantage in the lever. Archimedes' famous remark with regard to the lever: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth," () expresses his realization that there was no limit to the amount of force amplification that could be achieved by using mechanical advantage. Later Greek philosophers defined the classic five simple machines (excluding the inclined plane) and were able to calculate their (ideal) mechanical advantage. For example, Heron of Alexandria (c. 10–75 AD) in his work "Mechanics" lists five mechanisms that can "set a load in motion": lever, windlass, pulley, wedge, and screw, and describes their fabrication and uses. However the Greeks' understanding was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics, the tradeoff between force and distance, or the concept of work.


title: Simple machine

text: During the Renaissance the dynamics of the "mechanical powers", as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading eventually to the new concept of mechanical work. In 1586 Flemish engineer Simon Stevin derived the mechanical advantage of the inclined plane, and it was included with the other simple machines. The complete dynamic theory of simple machines was worked out by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1600 in ("On Mechanics"), in which he showed the underlying mathematical similarity of the machines as force amplifiers. He was the first to explain that simple machines do not create energy, only transform it.


title: Simple machine

text: The classic rules of sliding friction in machines were discovered by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), but were unpublished and merely documented in his notebooks, and were based on pre-Newtonian science such as believing friction was an ethereal fluid. They were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons (1699) and were further developed by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1785).


title: Simple machine

text: If a simple machine does not dissipate energy through friction, wear or deformation, then energy is conserved and it is called an ideal simple machine. In this case, the power into the machine equals the power out, and the mechanical advantage can be calculated from its geometric dimensions.


title: Simple machine

text: Although each machine works differently mechanically, the way they function is similar mathematically. In each machine, a force formula_1 is applied to the device at one point, and it does work moving a load formula_2 at another point. Although some machines only change the direction of the force, such as a stationary pulley, most machines multiply the magnitude of the force by a factor, the mechanical advantage


title: Simple machine

text: Simple machines do not contain a source of energy, so they cannot do more work than they receive from the input force. A simple machine with no friction or elasticity is called an "ideal machine". Due to conservation of energy, in an ideal simple machine, the power output (rate of energy output) at any time formula_4 is equal to the power input formula_5


title: Simple machine

text: The power output equals the velocity of the load formula_7 multiplied by the load force formula_8. Similarly the power input from the applied force is equal to the velocity of the input point formula_9 multiplied by the applied force formula_10. Therefore,


title: Simple machine

text: So the mechanical advantage of an ideal machine formula_12 is equal to the "velocity ratio", the ratio of input velocity to output velocity


title: Simple machine

text: Therefore the mechanical advantage of an ideal machine is also equal to the "distance ratio", the ratio of input distance moved to output distance moved


title: Simple machine

text: This can be calculated from the geometry of the machine. For example, the mechanical advantage and distance ratio of the lever is equal to the ratio of its lever arms.


title: Simple machine

text: In the screw, which uses rotational motion, the input force should be replaced by the torque, and the velocity by the angular velocity the shaft is turned.


title: Simple machine

text: All real machines have friction, which causes some of the input power to be dissipated as heat. If formula_19 is the power lost to friction, from conservation of energy


title: Simple machine

text: The mechanical efficiency formula_21 of a machine (where formula_22) is defined as the ratio of power out to the power in, and is a measure of the frictional energy losses


title: Simple machine

text: So in non-ideal machines, the mechanical advantage is always less than the velocity ratio by the product with the efficiency formula_21. So a machine that includes friction will not be able to move as large a load as a corresponding ideal machine using the same input force.


title: Simple machine

text: A "compound machine" is a machine formed from a set of simple machines connected in series with the output force of one providing the input force to the next. For example, a bench vise consists of a lever (the vise's handle) in series with a screw, and a simple gear train consists of a number of gears (wheels and axles) connected in series.


title: Simple machine

text: The mechanical advantage of a compound machine is the ratio of the output force exerted by the last machine in the series divided by the input force applied to the first machine, that is


title: Simple machine

text: Because the output force of each machine is the input of the next, formula_27, this mechanical advantage is also given by


title: Simple machine

text: Thus, the mechanical advantage of the compound machine is equal to the product of the mechanical advantages of the series of simple machines that form it


title: Simple machine

text: Similarly, the efficiency of a compound machine is also the product of the efficiencies of the series of simple machines that form it


title: Simple machine

text: In many simple machines, if the load force formula_31 on the machine is high enough in relation to the input force formula_32, the machine will move backwards, with the load force doing work on the input force. So these machines can be used in either direction, with the driving force applied to either input point. For example, if the load force on a lever is high enough, the lever will move backwards, moving the input arm backwards against the input force. These are called "reversible", "non-locking" or "overhauling" machines, and the backward motion is called "overhauling".


title: Simple machine

text: However, in some machines, if the frictional forces are high enough, no amount of load force can move it backwards, even if the input force is zero. This is called a "self-locking", "nonreversible", or "non-overhauling" machine. These machines can only be set in motion by a force at the input, and when the input force is removed will remain motionless, "locked" by friction at whatever position they were left.


title: Simple machine

text: Self-locking occurs mainly in those machines with large areas of sliding contact between moving parts: the screw, inclined plane, and wedge:


title: Simple machine

text: Whether a machine is self-locking depends on both the friction forces (coefficient of static friction) between its parts, and the distance ratio formula_35 (ideal mechanical advantage). If both the friction and ideal mechanical advantage are high enough, it will self-lock.


title: Simple machine

text: When a machine moves in the forward direction from point 1 to point 2, with the input force doing work on a load force, from conservation of energy the input work formula_36 is equal to the sum of the work done on the load force formula_37 and the work lost to friction formula_38


title: Simple machine

text: When the machine moves backward from point 2 to point 1 with the load force doing work on the input force, the work lost to friction formula_41 is the same


title: Simple machine

text: Thus the machine self-locks, because the work dissipated in friction is greater than the work done by the load force moving it backwards even with no input force.


title: Simple machine

text: Machines are studied as mechanical systems consisting of actuators and mechanisms that transmit forces and movement, monitored by sensors and controllers. The components of actuators and mechanisms consist of links and joints that form kinematic chains.


title: Simple machine

text: Simple machines are elementary examples of kinematic chains that are used to model mechanical systems ranging from the steam engine to robot manipulators. The bearings that form the fulcrum of a lever and that allow the wheel and axle and pulleys to rotate are examples of a kinematic pair called a hinged joint. Similarly, the flat surface of an inclined plane and wedge are examples of the kinematic pair called a sliding joint. The screw is usually identified as its own kinematic pair called a helical joint.


title: Simple machine

text: Two levers, or cranks, are combined into a planar four-bar linkage by attaching a link that connects the output of one crank to the input of another. Additional links can be attached to form a six-bar linkage or in series to form a robot.


title: Simple machine

text: The identification of simple machines arises from a desire for a systematic method to invent new machines. Therefore, an important concern is how simple machines are combined to make more complex machines. One approach is to attach simple machines in series to obtain compound machines.


title: Simple machine

text: However, a more successful strategy was identified by Franz Reuleaux, who collected and studied over 800 elementary machines. He realized that a lever, pulley, and wheel and axle are in essence the same device: a body rotating about a hinge. Similarly, an inclined plane, wedge, and screw are a block sliding on a flat surface.


title: Simple machine

text: This realization shows that it is the joints, or the connections that provide movement, that are the primary elements of a machine. Starting with four types of joints, the revolute joint, sliding joint, cam joint and gear joint, and related connections such as cables and belts, it is possible to understand a machine as an assembly of solid parts that connect these joints.


title: Simple machine

text: The design of mechanisms to perform required movement and force transmission is known as kinematic synthesis. This is a collection of geometric techniques for the mechanical design of linkages, cam and follower mechanisms and gears and gear trains.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Mad (stylized as MAD) is an American humor magazine first published in 1952. It was founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, launched as a comic book series before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media, as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1973–74 circulation peak.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The magazine, which was the last surviving title from the EC Comics line, publishes satire on all aspects of life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format included TV and movie parodies, and satire articles about everyday occurrences that are changed to seem humorous. "Mad"s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, was often on the cover, with his face replacing that of a celebrity or character who was being lampooned.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: From 1952 to 2018, "Mad" published 550 regular magazine issues, as well as scores of reprint "Specials", original-material paperbacks, reprint compilation books and other print projects. After AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018, "Mad" ended newsstand distribution, continuing in comic-book stores and via subscription. The magazine has reduced its new content in standard issues (save for end-of-year specials), with the regular magazine almost entirely utilising curated reprints with new covers, although minimal amounts of new content appear in each issue.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" began as a comic book published by EC, debuting in August 1952 (cover date October–November). The "Mad" office was initially located in lower Manhattan at 225 Lafayette Street, while in the early 1960s it moved to 485 Madison Avenue, the location listed in the magazine as "485 MADison Avenue".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The first issue was written almost entirely by Harvey Kurtzman, and featured illustrations by him, Wally Wood, Will Elder, Jack Davis, and John Severin. Wood, Elder, and Davis were to be the three main illustrators throughout the 23-issue run of the comic book.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: To retain Kurtzman as its editor, the comic book converted to magazine format as of issue No. 24, in 1955. The switchover induced Kurtzman to remain for one more year, but the move had removed "Mad" from the strictures of the Comics Code Authority. William Gaines related in 1992 that "Mad" "was not changed [into a magazine] to avoid the Code" but "as a result of this [change of format] it "did" avoid the Code." Gaines claimed that Kurtzman had at the time received "a very lucrative offer from..."Pageant" magazine," and seeing as he, Kurtzman, "had, prior to that time, evinced an interest in changing "Mad" into a magazine," Gaines, "not know[ing] anything about publishing magazines," countered that offer by allowing Kurtzman to make the change. Gaines further stated that "if Harvey [Kurtzman] had not gotten that offer from "Pageant", "Mad" probably would not have changed format."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: After Kurtzman's departure in 1956, new editor Al Feldstein swiftly brought aboard contributors such as Don Martin, Frank Jacobs, and Mort Drucker, and later Antonio Prohías, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragonés. The magazine's circulation more than quadrupled during Feldstein's tenure, peaking at 2,132,655 in 1974; it later declined to a third of this figure by the end of his time as editor.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In its earliest incarnation, new issues of the magazine appeared erratically, between four and nine times a year. By the end of 1958, "Mad" had settled on an unusual eight-times-a-year schedule, which lasted almost four decades. Issues would go on sale 7 to 9 weeks before the start of the month listed on the cover. Gaines felt the atypical timing was necessary to maintain the magazine's level of quality. Beginning in 1994, "Mad" then began incrementally producing additional issues per year, until it reached a monthly schedule with issue No. 353 (Jan. 1997). With its 500th issue (June 2009), amid company-wide cutbacks at Time Warner, the magazine temporarily regressed to a quarterly publication before settling to six issues per year in 2010.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Gaines sold his company in 1961 to Premier Industries, a maker of venetian blinds. A few years later, Premier sold "Mad" to Independent News, a division of National Periodical Publications, the publisher of DC Comics. In the summer of 1967, Kinney National Company purchased National Periodicals Publications. Kinney bought Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in early 1969. As a result of the car parking scandal, Kinney Services spun off of its non-entertainment assets to form National Kinney Corporation in August 1971, and it reincorporated as Warner Communications, Inc. on February 10, 1972. In 1977, National Periodical Publications was renamed DC Comics.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Feldstein retired in 1985, and was replaced by the senior team of Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, who co-edited "Mad" for the next two decades. Long-time production artist Lenny "The Beard" Brenner was promoted to art director and Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau joined the staff as junior editors. Following Gaines's death in 1992, "Mad" became more ingrained within the Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) corporate structure. Eventually, the magazine was obliged to abandon its long-time home at 485 Madison Avenue and in the mid-1990s it moved into DC Comics' offices at the same time that DC relocated to 1700 Broadway. In issue No. 403 of March 2001, the magazine broke its long-standing taboo and began running paid advertising. The outside revenue allowed the introduction of color printing and improved paper stock. After Meglin retired in 2004, the team of Ficarra (as executive editor) Raiola and Kadau (as senior editors), and Sam Viviano, who had taken over as art director in 1999, would helm "Mad" for the next 14 years.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Throughout the years, "Mad" remained a unique mix of adolescent silliness and political humor. In November 2017, "Rolling Stone" wrote that "operating under the cover of barf jokes, "Mad" has become America’s best political satire magazine." Nevertheless, "Mad" ended its 65-year run in New York City at the end of 2017 with issue No. 550 (cover-dated April 2018), in preparation for the relocation of its offices to DC Entertainment's headquarters in Burbank, California. None of "Mad"s veteran New York staff made the move, resulting in a change in editorial leadership, tone, and art direction. More than a hundred new names made their "Mad" debuts, while fewer than ten of "Mad"'s recurring artists and writers remained regular contributors. The first California issue of "Mad" was renumbered as "#1." Bill Morrison was named in June 2017 to succeed Ficarra in January 2018.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: AT&T acquired Time Warner in June 2018. Morrison exited "Mad" by March 2019, during a time of layoffs and restructuring at DC Entertainment. After issue No. 10 (Dec. 2019) of the new Burbank edition, "Mad" began to consist almost entirely of curated reprints with new covers, with the exception of year-end specials and minimal amounts of new content. Distribution to newsstands stopped, with the magazine becoming available only through comic-book shops and by subscription.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Though there are antecedents to "Mad"s style of humor in print, radio and film, "Mad" became a signature example of it. Throughout the 1950s, "Mad" featured groundbreaking parodies combining a sentimental fondness for the familiar staples of American culture—such as Archie and Superman—with a keen joy in exposing the fakery behind the image. Its approach was described by Dave Kehr in "The New York Times": "Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding on the radio, Ernie Kovacs on television, Stan Freberg on records, Harvey Kurtzman in the early issues of "Mad": all of those pioneering humorists and many others realized that the real world mattered less to people than the sea of sounds and images that the ever more powerful mass media were pumping into American lives." Bob and Ray, Kovacs and Freberg all became contributors to "Mad".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1977, Tony Hiss and Jeff Lewis wrote in "The New York Times" about the then-25-year-old publication's initial effect:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" is often credited with filling a vital gap in political satire from the 1950s to 1970s, when Cold War paranoia and a general culture of censorship prevailed in the United States, especially in literature for teens. Activist Tom Hayden said, "My own radical journey began with "Mad Magazine"." The rise of such factors as cable television and the Internet has diminished the influence and impact of "Mad", although it remains a widely distributed magazine. In a way, "Mad"s power has been undone by its own success: what was subversive in the 1950s and 1960s is now commonplace. However, its impact on three generations of humorists is incalculable, as can be seen in the frequent references to "Mad" on the animated series "The Simpsons". "The Simpsons" producer Bill Oakley said, "The Simpsons has transplanted "Mad" magazine. Basically everyone who was young between 1955 and 1975 read "Mad", and that's where your sense of humor came from. And we knew all these people, you know, Dave Berg and Don Martin—all heroes, and unfortunately, now all dead." In 2009, "The New York Times" wrote, ""Mad" once defined American satire; now it heckles from the margins as all of culture competes for trickster status." Longtime contributor Al Jaffee described the dilemma to an interviewer in 2010: "When "Mad" first came out, in 1952, it was the only game in town. Now, you've got graduates from "Mad" who are doing "The Today Show" or "Stephen Colbert" or "Saturday Night Live". All of these people grew up on "Mad". Now "Mad" has to top them. So "Mad" is almost in a competition with itself."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad"s satiric net was cast wide. The magazine often featured parodies of ongoing American culture, including advertising campaigns, the nuclear family, the media, big business, education and publishing. In the 1960s and beyond, it satirized such burgeoning topics as the sexual revolution, hippies, the generation gap, psychoanalysis, gun politics, pollution, the Vietnam War and recreational drug use. The magazine took a generally negative tone towards counterculture drugs such as cannabis and LSD, but it also savaged mainstream drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. "Mad" always satirized Democrats as mercilessly as it did Republicans. In 2007, Al Feldstein recalled, "We even used to rake the hippies over the coals. They were protesting the Vietnam War, but we took aspects of their culture and had fun with it. "Mad" was wide open. Bill loved it, and he was a capitalist Republican. I loved it, and I was a liberal Democrat. That went for the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after all." "Mad" also ran a good deal of less topical or contentious material on such varied subjects as fairy tales, nursery rhymes, greeting cards, sports, small talk, poetry, marriage, comic strips, awards shows, cars and many other areas of general interest.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 2007, the "Los Angeles Times" Robert Boyd wrote, "All I really need to know I learned from "Mad" magazine", going on to assert:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1994, Brian Siano in "The Humanist" discussed the effect of "Mad" on that segment of people already disaffected from society:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Pulitzer Prize-winning art comics maven Art Spiegelman said, "The message "Mad" had in general is, 'The media is lying to you, and we are part of the media.' It was basically ... 'Think for yourselves, kids. William Gaines offered his own view: when asked to cite "Mad"s philosophy, his boisterous answer was, "We must never stop reminding the reader what little value they get for their money!"


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Comics historian Tom Spurgeon picked "Mad" as the medium's top series of all time, writing, "At the height of its influence, "Mad" was "The Simpsons", "The Daily Show" and "The Onion" combined." Graydon Carter chose it as the sixth-best magazine of any sort ever, describing "Mad"s mission as being "ever ready to pounce on the illogical, hypocritical, self-serious and ludicrous" before concluding, "Nowadays, it's part of the oxygen we breathe." Joyce Carol Oates called it "wonderfully inventive, irresistibly irreverent and intermittently ingenious."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Artist Dave Gibbons said, "When you think of the people who grew up in the '50s and '60s, the letters M-A-D were probably as influential as L-S-D, in that it kind of expanded people's consciousness and showed them an alternative view of society and consumer culture—mocked it, satirized it." Gibbons also noted that "Mad" was an overt influence on "Watchmen", the acclaimed 12-issue comic book series created by writer Alan Moore and himself:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In a 1985 "Tonight Show" appearance, when Johnny Carson asked Michael J. Fox, "When did you really know you'd made it in show business?", Fox replied, "When Mort Drucker drew my head." In 2019, Terence Winter, writer and producer of "The Sopranos", told "Variety" "When we got into "Mad" Magazine, that was the highlight for me. That said everything."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Monty Python's Terry Gilliam wrote, ""Mad" became the Bible for me and my whole generation." Underground cartoonist Bill Griffith said of his youth, ""Mad" was a life raft in a place like Levittown, where all around you were the things that "Mad" was skewering and making fun of."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Robert Crumb remarked, "Artists are always trying to equal the work that impressed them in their childhood and youth. I still feel extremely inadequate when I look at the old "Mad" comics."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: When Weird Al Yankovic was asked whether "Mad" had had any influence in putting him on a road to a career in parody, the musician replied, "[It was] more like going off a cliff." "Mystery Science Theater 3000" writer-actor Frank Conniff wrote, "Without "Mad" Magazine, MST3K would have been slightly different, like for instance, it wouldn't have existed." Comedian Jerry Seinfeld talked about the magazine's impact on him, saying, "You start reading it, and you're going, 'These people don't respect "anything".' And that just exploded my head. It was like, you don't have to buy it. You can say 'This is stupid. This is stupid.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" is known for many regular and semi-regular recurring features in its pages, including "Spy vs. Spy", the "Mad Fold-in", "The Lighter Side of ..." and its television and movie parodies. The magazine has also included recurring gags and references, both visual (e.g. the "Mad" Zeppelin, or Arthur the potted plant) and linguistic (unusual words such as axolotl, furshlugginer, potrzebie and veeblefetzer).


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The image most closely associated with the magazine is that of Alfred E. Neuman, the boy with misaligned eyes, a gap-toothed smile, and the perennial motto "What, me worry?" The original image was a popular humorous graphic for many decades before "Mad" adopted it, but the face is now primarily associated with "Mad".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" initially used the boy's face in November 1954. His first iconic full-cover appearance was as a write-in candidate for President on issue No. 30 (December 1956), in which he was identified by name and sported his "What, me worry?" motto. He has since appeared in a slew of guises and comic situations. According to "Mad" writer Frank Jacobs, a letter was once successfully delivered to the magazine through the U.S. mail bearing only Neuman's face, without any address or other identifying information.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The magazine has been involved in various legal actions over the decades, some of which have reached the United States Supreme Court. The most far-reaching was "Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc." In 1961, a group of music publishers representing songwriters such as Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, and Cole Porter filed a $25 million lawsuit against "Mad" for copyright infringement following "Sing Along With "Mad"", a collection of parody lyrics which the magazine said could be "sung to the tune of" many popular songs. The publishing group hoped to establish a legal precedent that only a song's composers retained the right to parody that song. Judge Charles Metzner of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled largely in favor of "Mad" in 1963, affirming its right to print 23 of the 25 song parodies under dispute. However, in the case of two parodies, "Always" (sung to the tune of "Always") and "There's No Business Like No Business" (sung to the tune of "There's No Business Like Show Business"), Judge Metzner decided that the issue of copyright infringement was closer, requiring a trial because in each case the parodies relied on the same verbal hooks ("always" and "business") as the originals. The music publishers appealed the ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals not only upheld the pro-"Mad" decision in regard to the 23 songs, it adopted an approach that was broad enough to strip the publishers of their limited victory regarding the remaining two songs. Writing a unanimous opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Circuit Judge Irving Kaufman observed, "We doubt that even so eminent a composer as plaintiff Irving Berlin should be permitted to claim a property interest in iambic pentameter." The publishers again appealed, but the Supreme Court refused to hear it, allowing the decision to stand.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: This precedent-setting 1964 ruling established the rights of parodists and satirists to mimic the meter of popular songs. However, the "Sing Along With "Mad"" songbook was not the magazine's first venture into musical parody. In 1960, "Mad" had published "My Fair Ad-Man", a full advertising-based spoof of the hit Broadway musical "My Fair Lady". In 1959, "If Gilbert & Sullivan wrote "Dick Tracy"" was one of the speculative pairings in "If Famous Authors Wrote the Comics".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1966, a series of copyright infringement lawsuits against the magazine regarding ownership of the Alfred E. Neuman image eventually reached the appellate level. Although Harry Stuff had copyrighted the image in 1914, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that, by allowing many copies of the image to circulate without any copyright notice, the owner of the copyright had allowed the image to pass into the public domain, thus establishing the right of "Mad"—or anyone else—to use the image. In addition, "Mad" established that Stuff was not himself the creator of the image, by producing numerous other examples dating back to the late 19th century. This decision was also allowed to stand.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Other legal disputes were settled more easily. Following the magazine's parody of the film "The Empire Strikes Back", a letter from George Lucas's lawyers arrived in "Mad"'s offices demanding that the issue be recalled for infringement on copyrighted figures. The letter further demanded that the printing plates be destroyed, and that Lucasfilm must receive all revenue from the issue plus additional punitive damages. Unbeknownst to Lucas' lawyers, "Mad" had received a letter weeks earlier from Lucas himself, expressing delight over the parody and calling artist Mort Drucker and writer Dick DeBartolo "the Leonardo da Vinci and George Bernard Shaw of comic satire." Publisher Bill Gaines made a copy of Lucas' letter, added the handwritten notation "Gee, your boss George liked it!" across the top, and mailed it to the lawyers. Said DeBartolo, "We never heard from them again."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" was one of several parties that filed "amicus curiae" briefs with the Supreme Court in support of 2 Live Crew and its disputed song parody, during the 1993 "Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc." case.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" was long noted for its absence of advertising, enabling it to satirize materialist culture without fear of reprisal. For decades, it was the most successful American magazine to publish ad-free, beginning with issue No. 33 (April 1957) and continuing through issue No. 402 (February 2001).


title: Mad (magazine)

text: As a comic book, "Mad" had run the same advertisements as the rest of EC's line. The magazine later made a deal with Moxie soda that involved inserting the Moxie logo into various articles. "Mad" ran a limited number of ads in its first two years as a magazine, helpfully labeled "real advertisement" to differentiate the real from the parodies. The last authentic ad published under the original "Mad" regime was for Famous Artists School; two issues later, the inside front cover of issue No. 34 had a parody of the same ad. After this transitional period, the only promotions to appear in "Mad" for decades were house ads for "Mad"'s own books and specials, subscriptions, and promotional items such as ceramic busts, T-shirts, or a line of "Mad" jewelry. This rule was bent only a few times to promote outside products directly related to the magazine, such as "The Mad Magazine Game", a series of video games based on "Spy vs. Spy", and the notorious "Up the Academy" movie (which the magazine later disowned). "Mad" explicitly promised that it would never make its mailing list available.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Both Kurtzman and Feldstein wanted the magazine to solicit advertising, feeling this could be accomplished without compromising "Mad"'s content or editorial independence. Kurtzman remembered "Ballyhoo", a boisterous 1930s humor publication that made an editorial point of mocking its own sponsors. Feldstein went so far as to propose an in-house "Mad" ad agency, and produced a "dummy" copy of what an issue with ads could look like. But Bill Gaines was intractable, telling the television news magazine "60 Minutes", "We long ago decided we couldn't take money from Pepsi-Cola and make fun of Coca-Cola." Gaines' motivation in eschewing ad dollars was less philosophical than practical:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" has provided an ongoing showcase for many long-running satirical writers and artists and has fostered an unusual group loyalty. Although several of the contributors earn far more than their "Mad" pay in fields such as television and advertising, they have steadily continued to provide material for the publication. Among the notable artists were the aforementioned Davis, Elder and Wood, as well as Sergio Aragonés, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Dave Berg, George Woodbridge, Harry North and Paul Coker. Writers such as Dick DeBartolo, Stan Hart, Frank Jacobs, Tom Koch, and Arnie Kogen appeared regularly in the magazine's pages. In several cases, only infirmity or death has ended a contributor's run at "Mad."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Within the industry, "Mad" was known for the uncommonly prompt manner in which its contributors were paid. Publisher Gaines would typically write a personal check and give it to the artist upon receipt of the finished product. Wally Wood said, "I got spoiled ... Other publishers don't do that. I started to get upset if I had to wait a whole week for my check." Another lure for contributors was the annual "Mad Trip", an all-expenses-paid tradition that began in 1960. The editorial staff was automatically invited, along with freelancers who had qualified for an invitation by selling a set number of articles or pages during the previous year. Gaines was strict about enforcing this quota, and one year, longtime writer and frequent traveller Arnie Kogen was bumped off the list. Later that year, Gaines' mother died, and Kogen was asked if he would be attending the funeral. "I can't," said Kogen, "I don't have enough pages." Over the years, the "Mad" crew traveled to such locales as France, Kenya, Russia, Hong Kong, England, Amsterdam, Tahiti, Morocco, Italy, Greece, and Germany. The tradition ended with Gaines' death, and a 1993 trip to Monte Carlo.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Although "Mad" was an exclusively freelance publication, it achieved remarkable stability, with numerous contributors remaining prominent for decades. Critics of the magazine felt that this lack of turnover eventually led to a formulaic sameness, although there is little agreement on when the magazine peaked or plunged.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Proclaiming the precise moment that purportedly triggered the magazine's irreversible decline is a common pastime. Among the most frequently cited "downward turning points" are: creator-editor Harvey Kurtzman's departure in 1957; the magazine's mainstream success; adoption of recurring features starting in the early 1960s; the magazine's absorption into a more corporate structure in 1968 (or later, the mid-1990s); founder Gaines' death in 1992; the magazine's publicized "edgy revamp" in 1997; the arrival of paid advertising in 2001; or the magazine's 2018 move to California. "Mad" has been criticized for its over-reliance on a core group of aging regulars throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and then criticized again for an alleged downturn as those same creators began to leave, die, retire, or contribute less frequently.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: It has been proposed that "Mad" is more susceptible to this criticism than many media because a sizable percentage of its readership turns over regularly as it ages, as "Mad" focuses greatly on current events and a changing popular culture. In 2010, Sergio Aragones said, "Mad is written by people who never thought 'Okay, I'm going to write for kids,' or 'I'm going to write for adults.' ... And many people say 'I used to read "Mad", but "Mad" has changed a lot.' Excuse me— you grew up! You have new interests. ... The change doesn't come from the magazine, it comes from the people who grow or don't grow." "Mad" poked fun at the tendency of readers to accuse the magazine of declining in quality at various points in its history in its "Untold History of "Mad" Magazine", a self-referential faux history in the 400th issue which joked: "The second issue of "Mad" goes on sale on December 9, 1952. On December 11, the first-ever letter complaining that "Mad" 'just isn't as funny and original like it used to be' arrives." The magazine's art director, Sam Viviano, suggested in 2002 that historically, "Mad" was at its best "whenever you first started reading it." According to former "Mad" Senior Editor Joe Raiola, ""Mad" is the only place in America where if you mature, you get fired."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Among the loudest of those who insist the magazine is no longer funny are supporters of Harvey Kurtzman, who had the good critical fortune to leave "Mad" after just 28 issues, before his own formulaic tendencies might have become obtrusive. This also meant Kurtzman suffered the bad creative and financial timing of departing before the magazine became a runaway success.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: However, just how much of that success was due to the original Kurtzman template that he left for his successor, and how much should be credited to the Al Feldstein system and the depth of the post-Kurtzman talent pool, can be argued without resolution. In 2009, an interviewer proposed to Al Jaffee, "There's a group of "Mad" aficionados who feel that if Harvey Kurtzman had stayed at "Mad", the magazine would not only have been different, but better." Jaffee, a Kurtzman enthusiast, replied, "And then there's a large group who feel that if Harvey had stayed with "Mad", he would have upgraded it to the point that only fifteen people would buy it." During Kurtzman's final two-plus years at EC, "Mad" appeared erratically (ten issues appeared in 1954, followed by eight issues in 1955 and four issues in 1956). Feldstein was less well regarded creatively, but kept the magazine on a regular schedule, leading to decades of success. (Kurtzman and Will Elder returned to "Mad" for a short time in the mid-1980s as an illustrating team.)


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The magazine's sales peak came with issue No. 161 (September 1973), which sold 2.4 million copies in 1973. That period coincided with several other magazines' sales peaks, including "TV Guide" and "Playboy". "Mad"s circulation dropped below one million for the first time in 1983.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Many of the magazine's mainstays began retiring or dying by the 1980s. Newer contributors who appeared in the years that followed include Joe Raiola, Charlie Kadau, Tony Barbieri, Scott Bricher, Tom Bunk, John Caldwell, Desmond Devlin, Drew Friedman, Barry Liebmann, Kevin Pope, Scott Maiko, Hermann Mejia, Tom Richmond, Andrew J. Schwartzberg, Mike Snider, Greg Theakston, Nadina Simon, Rick Tulka, and Bill Wray.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: On April 1, 1997, the magazine publicized an alleged "revamp", ostensibly designed to reach an older, more sophisticated readership. However, Salon's David Futrelle opined that such content was very much a part of "Mad"s past:


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" editor John Ficarra acknowledged that changes in culture made the task of creating fresh satire more difficult, telling an interviewer, "The editorial mission statement has always been the same: 'Everyone is lying to you, including magazines. Think for yourself. Question authority.' But it's gotten harder, as they've gotten better at lying and getting in on the joke."


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" contributor Tom Richmond has responded to critics who say the magazine's decision to accept advertising would make late publisher William Gaines "turn over in his grave", pointing out this is impossible because Gaines was cremated.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" is known for the stability and longevity of its talent roster, billed as "The Usual Gang of Idiots", with several creators enjoying 30-, 40- and even 50-year careers in the magazine's pages.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: According to the "Mad Magazine Contributor Appearances" website, more than 960 contributors have received bylines in at least one issue of "Mad", but only 41 of those have contributed to 100 issues or more. Writer-artist Al Jaffee has appeared in the most issues; No. 550 (April 2018) was the 500th issue with new work by Jaffee. The other three contributors to have appeared in more than 400 issues of "Mad" are Sergio Aragonés, Dick DeBartolo, and Mort Drucker; Dave Berg, Paul Coker, and Frank Jacobs have each topped the 300 mark.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Jaffee, Aragonés, Berg, Don Edwing and Don Martin are the five writer-artists to have appeared in the largest total of issues; DeBartolo, Jacobs, Desmond Devlin, Stan Hart, and Tom Koch are the five most frequent writers, and Drucker, Coker, Bob Clarke, Angelo Torres and George Woodbridge are the five top illustrators on the list. (The list calculates appearances by issue only, not by individual articles or overall page count; e.g. although Jacobs wrote three separate articles that appeared in issue No. 172, his total is reckoned to have increased by one.)


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Over the years, the editorial staff, most notably Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, John Ficarra, Joe Raiola, and Charlie Kadau have had creative input on countless articles and shaped "Mad"s distinctive satiric voice.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Among the irregular contributors with just a single "Mad" byline to their credit are Charles M. Schulz, Chevy Chase, Andy Griffith, Will Eisner, Kevin Smith, J. Fred Muggs, Boris Vallejo, Sir John Tenniel, Jean Shepherd, Winona Ryder, Jimmy Kimmel, Jason Alexander, Walt Kelly, Rep. Barney Frank, Tom Wolfe, Steve Allen, Jim Lee, Jules Feiffer, Donald Knuth, and Richard Nixon, who remains the only President credited with "writing" a "Mad" article. (The entire text was taken from Nixon's speeches.)


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Those who have contributed twice apiece include Tom Lehrer, Wally Cox, Gustave Doré, Danny Kaye, Stan Freberg, Mort Walker, and Leonardo da Vinci. (Leonardo's check is still waiting in the Mad offices for him to pick it up.) Appearing slightly more frequently were Frank Frazetta (3 bylines), Ernie Kovacs (11), Bob and Ray (12), Henry Morgan (3), and Sid Caesar (4). In its earliest years, before amassing its own staff of regulars, the magazine frequently used outside "name" talent. Often, "Mad" would simply illustrate the celebrities' preexisting material while promoting their names on the cover. The Bob and Ray association was particularly fruitful. When the magazine learned that Tom Koch was the writer behind the Bob and Ray radio sketches adapted by "Mad", Koch was sought out by the editors and ultimately wrote more than 300 "Mad" articles over the next 37 years.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: The magazine has occasionally run guest articles in which notables from show business or comic books have participated. In 1964, an article called "Comic Strips They'd Really Like To Do" featured one-shot proposals by cartoonists including Mell Lazarus and Charles M. Schulz. More than once, the magazine has enlisted popular comic book artists such as Frank Miller or Jim Lee to design and illustrate a series of "Rejected Superheroes." In 2008, the magazine got national coverage for its article "Why George W. Bush is in Favor of Global warming". Each of the piece's 10 punchlines was illustrated by a different Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. In 2015, "Weird Al" Yankovic served as the magazine's first and only guest editor, writing some material and guiding the content in issue No. 533, while upping his own career "Mad" byline total from two to five.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1955, Gaines began presenting reprints of material for "Mad" in black-and-white paperbacks, the first being "The Mad Reader". Many of these featured new covers by "Mad" cover artist Norman Mingo. This practice continued into the 2000s, with more than 100 "Mad" paperbacks published. Gaines made a special effort to keep the entire line of paperbacks in print at all times, and the books were frequently reprinted in new editions with different covers. There were also dozens of "Mad" paperbacks featuring entirely new material by the magazine's contributors.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" also frequently repackaged its material in a long series of "Special" format magazines, beginning in 1958 with two concurrent annual series entitled "The Worst from Mad" and "More Trash from Mad". Later, the "Special" issue series expanded to "Super Special" editions. Various other titles have been used through the years. These reprint issues were sometimes augmented by exclusive features such as posters, stickers and, on a few occasions, recordings on flexi-disc. A 1972 "Special" edition began Mad's including a comic book replica insert, consisting of reprinted material from the magazine's 1952–1955 era.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Between 2005 and February 17, 2009, the magazine published 14 issues of "Mad Kids," a spinoff publication aimed at a younger demographic. Reminiscent of Nickelodeon's newsstand titles, it emphasized current kids' entertainment (i.e. "Yu-Gi-Oh!", "Naruto", "High School Musical"), albeit with an impudent voice. Much of the content of "Mad Kids" had originally appeared in the parent publication; reprinted material was chosen and edited to reflect grade schoolers' interests. But the quarterly magazine also included newly commissioned articles and cartoons, as well as puzzles, bonus inserts, a calendar, and the other activity-related content that is common to kids' magazines.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Mad" has been published in local versions in many countries, beginning with the United Kingdom in 1959, and Sweden in 1960. Each new market receives access to the publication's back catalog of articles and is also encouraged to produce its own localized material in the "Mad" vein. However, the sensibility of the American "Mad" has not always translated to other cultures, and many of the foreign editions have had short lives or interrupted publications. The Swedish, Danish, Italian and Mexican "Mad"s were each published on three separate occasions; Norway has had four runs canceled. Brazil also had four runs, but without significant interruptions, spanning five decades. Australia (35 years and counting), United Kingdom (35 years), and Sweden (34 years) have produced the longest uninterrupted "Mad" variants.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Conflicts over content have occasionally arisen between the parent magazine and its international franchisees. When a comic strip satirizing England's royal family was reprinted in a "Mad" paperback, it was deemed necessary to rip out the page from 25,000 copies by hand before the book could be distributed in Great Britain. But "Mad" was also protective of its own editorial standards. Bill Gaines sent "one of his typically dreadful, blistering letters" to his Dutch editors after they published a bawdy gag about a men's room urinal. "Mad" has since relaxed its requirements, and while the U.S. version still eschews overt profanity, the magazine generally poses no objections to more provocative content.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Following the success of "Mad", other black-and-white magazines of topical, satiric comics began to be published. Most were short-lived. The three longest-lasting were "Cracked", "Sick", and "Crazy Magazine". These three and many others featured a cover mascot along the lines of Alfred E. Neuman.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Color comic-book competitors, primarily in the mid-to-late 1950s, were "Nuts!", "Get Lost", "Whack", "Riot", "Flip", "Eh!", "From Here to Insanity", and "Madhouse"; only the last of these lasted as many as eight issues, and some were canceled after an issue or two. Later color satiric comic books included "Wild", "Blast", "Parody", "Grin" and "Gag!". EC Comics itself offered the color comic "Panic", produced by future "Mad" editor Al Feldstein. Two years after EC's "Panic" had ceased publication in 1956, the title was used by another publisher for a similar comic.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1967, Marvel Comics produced the first of 13 issues of the comic book "Not Brand Echh", which parodied the company's own superhero titles as well as other publishers. From 1973 to 1976, DC Comics published the comic "Plop!", which featured "Mad" stalwart Sergio Aragonés and frequent cover art by Basil Wolverton. Another publisher's comic was "Trash" (1978) featured a blurb on the debut cover reading, "We mess with "Mad" (p. 21)" and depicted Alfred E. Neuman with a stubbly beard; the fourth and last issue showed two bodybuilders holding up copies of "Mud" and "Crocked" with the frowning faces of Neuman and "Cracked" cover mascot Sylvester P. Smythe.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Among other U.S. humor magazines that included some degree of comics art as well as text articles were former "Mad" editor Harvey Kurtzman's "Trump", "Humbug" and "Help!", as well as "National Lampoon".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Virginia Commonwealth University's Cabell Library has an extensive collection of "Mad" along with other comic books and graphic novels.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: With MAD Magazine ending the creation of new movie parodies in future issues, MAD veteran writer Desmond Devlin and caricaturist Tom Richmond have teamed up to create a book full of twelve brand new movie parodies done in the classic MAD style. The movies are classics that MAD did not parody when they were first released. First scheduled to be released in November 2021, it was delayed four times, first to March, then August, then December 2022, and finally to June 2023.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Over the years, "Mad" has branched out from print into other media. During the Gaines years, the publisher had an aversion to exploiting his fan base and expressed the fear that substandard "Mad" products would offend them. He was known to personally issue refunds to anyone who wrote to the magazine with a complaint. Among the few outside "Mad" items available in its first 40 years were cufflinks, a T-shirt designed like a straitjacket (complete with lock), and a small ceramic Alfred E. Neuman bust. For decades, the letters page advertised an inexpensive portrait of Neuman ("suitable for framing or for wrapping fish") with misleading slogans such as "Only 1 Left!" (The joke being that the picture was so undesirable that only one had left their office since the last ad.) After Gaines' death came an overt absorption into the Time-Warner publishing umbrella, with the result that "Mad" merchandise began to appear more frequently. Items were displayed in the Warner Bros. Studio Stores, and in 1994 "The Mad Style Guide" was created for licensing use.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1959, Bernie Green "with the Stereo Mad-Men" recorded the album "Musically Mad" for RCA Victor, featuring humorous music, mostly instrumental, with an image of Alfred E. Neuman on the cover; it has been reissued on CD. That same year, "The Worst from Mad" No. 2 included an original recording, "Meet the staff of Mad", on a cardboard 33 rpm record, while a single credited to Alfred E. Neuman & The Furshlugginger Five: "What – Me Worry?" (b/w "Potrzebie"), was issued in late 1959 on the ABC Paramount label.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Two full vinyl LP records were released under the aegis of "Mad" in the early 1960s: "Mad "Twists" Rock 'N' Roll" (1962) and "Fink Along With Mad" (1963; the title being a takeoff on the then-popular TV show "Sing Along With Mitch", with "" being a general insult then current in American slang).


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1961, New York City doo-wop group The Dellwoods (recording then as the "Sweet Sickteens") had released a novelty single on RCA Victor, written by Norman Blagman and Sam Bobrick, "The Pretzel" (a satiric take on then-current dance songs such as "The Twist"), b/w "Agnes (The Teenage Russian Spy)". Both songs were later included on "Mad "Twists" Rock 'N' Roll". (The Sweet Sickteens were Victor Buccellato (lead singer), Mike Ellis (tenor), Andy Ventura (tenor), Amadeo Tese (baritone), and Saul Zeskand (bass),


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1962, the Dellwoods (as they were now named), along with vocalists Mike Russo and Jeanne Hayes, recorded an entire album of novelty songs by Bobrick and Blagman. The album had originally been written and produced as a Dellwoods album for RCA, but was instead sold to "Mad" and released on Bigtop Records as "Mad "Twists" Rock 'N' Roll". There was a strong "Mad" tie in – besides the title, a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman was featured prominently on the cover, and "(She Got A) Nose Job" from the album was bound as a flexi disc into an issue of "Mad". None of the material, however, referenced "Mad" magazine, Alfred E. Neuman, or any other "Mad" tropes or features, having been recorded before the sale by RCA. Other songs on the album included "(Throwing The) High School Basketball Game", "Please Betty Jean (Shave Your Legs)", "Somebody Else's Dandruff (On My Lover-Baby's Shirt)". "Agnes (The Teenage Russian Spy)" and "The Pretzel" (now titled as "Let's Do The Pretzel (And End Up Like One!))".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: This was followed by another Dellwoods Bigtop release, "Fink Along With Mad", again with Russo and Hayes, written by Bobrick and Blagman, and tied in with "Mad", in 1963. Album tracks included "She Lets Me Watch Her Mom And Pop Fight" which was bound as a flexi-disc into an issue of "Mad" (the performance credited to Mike Russo, and described by Josiah Hughes as "one dark pop song" since it makes light of domestic assault, with lyrics such as "To see a lamp go through the window / And watch them kick and scratch and bite / I love her, I love her, oh boy how I love her / 'Cause she lets me watch her mom and pop fight.")


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Other songs on "Fink Along With Mad" included "I'll Never Make Fun of Her Moustache Again", "When the Braces on our Teeth Lock", and "Loving A Siamese Twin". This album also featured a song titled "It's a Gas", which punctuated an instrumental track with belches (these "vocals" being credited to Alfred E. Neuman), along with a saxophone break by an uncredited King Curtis). Dr. Demento featured this gaseous performance on his radio show in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. "Mad" included some of these tracks as plastic-laminated cardboard inserts and (later) flexi discs with their reprint "Mad Specials".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "Don't Put Onions On Your Hamburger" from the album was released as a single, credited to just the Dellwoods, and in 1963 the Dellwoods renamed themselves to the Dynamics and released a serious non-novelty single for Liberty Records, "Chapel On A Hill" backed with "Conquistador".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: A number of original recordings also were released in this way in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as "Gall in the Family Fare" (a radio play adaptation of their previously illustrated "All in the Family" parody), a single entitled "Makin' Out", the octuple-grooved track "It's a Super Spectacular Day", which had eight possible endings, the spoken word "Meet the staff" insert, and a six-track, 30-minute "Mad Disco" EP (from the 1980 special of the same title) that included a disco version of "It's a Gas". The last turntable-playable recording "Mad" packaged with its magazines was "A Mad Look at Graduation", in a 1982 special. A CD-ROM containing several audio tracks was included with issue No. 350 (October 1996). Rhino Records compiled a number of "Mad"-recorded tracks as "Mad Grooves" (1996).


title: Mad (magazine)

text: An Off-Broadway production, "The Mad Show", was first staged in 1966. The show, which lasted for 871 performances during its initial run, featured sketches written by "Mad" regulars Stan Hart and Larry Siegel interspersed with comedic songs (one of which was written by an uncredited Stephen Sondheim). The cast album is available on CD.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1979, Mad released a board game. "The Mad Magazine Game" was an absurdist version of "Monopoly" in which the first player to lose all his money and go bankrupt was the winner. Profusely illustrated with artwork by the magazine's contributors, the game included a $1,329,063 bill that could not be won unless one's name was "Alfred E. Neuman". It also featured a deck of cards (called "Card cards") with bizarre instructions, such as "If you can jump up and stay airborne for 37 seconds, you can lose $5,000. If not, jump up and lose $500." In 1980 a second game was released: "The Mad Magazine Card Game" by Parker Brothers. In it, the player who first loses all their cards is declared the winner. The game is fairly similar to "Uno" by Mattel. Questions based on the magazine also appeared in the 1999 "Trivial Pursuit: Warner Bros. Edition" (which featured questions based around Time-Warner properties, including WB films and TV shows, the "Looney Tunes"/"Merrie Melodies" cartoons (and follow-up projects from Warner Bros. Animation)), as well as DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network and assorted MGM properties owned by Turner Entertainment Co. that WB had come into possession of following the 1996 Turner/Time-Warner merger.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: "MAD" lent its name in 1980 to the risque comedy "Up the Academy". "Up The Academy" was such a commercial debacle and critical failure that "Mad" successfully arranged for all references to the magazine (including a cameo by Alfred E. Neuman) to be removed from future TV and video releases of the film, although those references were eventually restored on the DVD version, which was titled "Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: A 1974 "Mad" animated television pilot using selected material from the magazine was commissioned by ABC but the network decided not to broadcast it. Dick DeBartolo noted, "Nobody wanted to sponsor a show that made fun of products that were advertised on TV, like car manufacturers." The program was instead created into a TV special, and is available for online viewing. The special was made by Focus Entertainment Inc.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In the mid-1980s, Hanna-Barbera developed another potential "Mad" animated television series that was never broadcast.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1995, Fox Broadcasting Company's "Mad TV" licensed the use of the magazine's logo and characters. However, aside from short bumpers which animated existing "Spy vs. Spy" (1994–1998) and Don Martin (1995–2000) cartoons during the show's first three seasons, there was no editorial or stylistic connection between the TV show and the magazine. Produced by Quincy Jones, the sketch comedy series was in the vein of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and Global/CBC's "SCTV", and ran for 14 seasons and 321 episodes. On January 12, 2016, The CW aired an hour-long special celebrating the series' 20th anniversary. A large portion of the original cast returned. An eight-episode revival featuring a brand new cast premiered on July 26, 2016.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In September 2010, Cartoon Network began airing the animated series "Mad", from Warner Bros. Animation and executive producer Sam Register. Produced by Kevin Shinick and Mark Marek, the series was composed of animated shorts and sketches lampooning current television shows, films, games and other aspects of popular culture, in a similar manner to the adult stop-motion animated sketch comedy "Robot Chicken" (of which Shinick was formerly a writer and is currently a recurring voice actor); in fact, "Robot Chicken" co-creator Seth Green occasionally provided voices on "Mad" as well. Critics and viewers have often cited the series as a kid-friendly version of "Robot Chicken" . Much like "Mad TV", this series also features appearances by "Spy vs. Spy" and Don Martin cartoons. The series ran from September 6, 2010, to December 2, 2013, lasting for four seasons and 103 episodes.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1984, the "Spy vs. Spy" characters were given their own computer game series, in which players could set traps for each other. The games were made for various computer systems such as the Atari 800, Apple II, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. Whereas the original game took place in a nondescript building, the sequels transposed the action to a desert island for "Spy vs. Spy: The Island Caper" and a polar setting for "Spy vs. Spy: Arctic Antics".


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Not to be confused with the later television show, "Mad TV" is a television station management simulation computer game produced in 1991 by Rainbow Arts for the Mad franchise. It was released on the PC and the Amiga. It is faithful to the magazine's general style of cartoon humor but does not include any of the original characters except for a brief closeup of Alfred E. Neuman's eyes during the opening screens.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: In 1996, "Mad" No. 350 included a CD-ROM featuring "Mad"-related software as well as three audio files. In 1999, Broderbund/The Learning Company released "Totally Mad," a Microsoft Windows 95/98-compatible CD-ROM set collecting the magazine's content from No. 1 through No. 376 (December 1998), plus over 100 "Mad Specials" including most of the recorded audio inserts. Despite the title, it omitted a handful of articles due to problems clearing the rights on some book excerpts and text taken from recordings, such as Andy Griffith's "What It Was, Was Football". In 2006, Graphic Imaging Technology's DVD-ROM "Absolutely Mad" updated the original "Totally Mad" content through 2005. A single seven-gigabyte disc, it is missing the same deleted material from the 1999 collection. It differs from the earlier release in that it is Macintosh compatible.


title: Mad (magazine)

text: Another "Spy vs. Spy" video game was made in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows. A "Mad" app was released for iPad on April 1, 2012. It displays the contents of each new issue beginning with "Mad" No. 507, as well as video clips from Cartoon Network's "Mad", and material from the magazine's website, "The Idiotical".


title: Lime (fruit)

text: A lime (from French "lime", from Arabic "līma", from Persian "līmū", "lemon") is a citrus fruit, which is typically round, green in color, in diameter, and contains acidic juice vesicles.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: There are several species of citrus trees whose fruits are called limes, including the Key lime ("Citrus aurantiifolia"), Persian lime, Makrut lime, and desert lime. Limes are a rich source of vitamin C, are sour, and are often used to accent the flavours of foods and beverages. They are grown year-round. Plants with fruit called "limes" have diverse genetic origins; limes do not form a monophyletic group.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: The difficulty in identifying exactly which species of fruit are called lime in different parts of the English-speaking world (and the same problem applies to synonyms in other European languages) is increased by the botanical complexity of the citrus genus itself, to which the majority of limes belong. Species of this genus hybridise readily, and it is only recently that genetic studies have started to shed light on the structure of the genus. The majority of cultivated species are in reality hybrids, produced from the citron ("Citrus medica"), the mandarin orange ("Citrus reticulata"), the pomelo ("Citrus maxima") and in particular with many lime varieties, the micrantha ("Citrus hystrix" var. micrantha).


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Note that the tree species known in Britain as lime trees ("Tilia" sp.), called "linden" in other dialects of English, are broadleaf temperate plants unrelated to the citrus fruits.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Most species and hybrids of citrus plants called "limes" have varying origins within tropical Southeast Asia and South Asia. They were spread throughout the world via migration and trade. The makrut lime, in particular, was one of the earliest citrus fruits introduced to other parts of the world by humans. They were spread into Micronesia and Polynesia via the Austronesian expansion (c. 3000–1500 BCE). They were also later spread into Middle East, and the Mediterranean region via the spice trade and the incense trade routes from as early as ~1200 BCE.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: To prevent scurvy during the 19th century, British sailors were issued a daily allowance of citrus, such as lemon, and later switched to lime. The use of citrus was initially a closely guarded military secret, as scurvy was a common scourge of various national navies, and the ability to remain at sea for lengthy periods without contracting the disorder was a huge benefit for the military. British sailors thus acquired the nickname "Limey" because of their use of limes.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: In 2018, world production of limes (combined with lemons for reporting) was 19.4 million tonnes. The top producers – India, Mexico, China, Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey – collectively accounted for 65% of global production (table).


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Limes have higher contents of sugars and acids than lemons do. Lime juice may be squeezed from fresh limes, or purchased in bottles in both unsweetened and sweetened varieties. Lime juice is used to make limeade, and as an ingredient (typically as sour mix) in many cocktails.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Lime pickles are an integral part of Indian cuisine, especially in South India. In Kerala, the Onam Sadhya usually includes either lemon pickle or lime pickle. Other Indian preparations of limes include sweetened lime pickle, salted pickle, and lime chutney.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: In cooking, lime is valued both for the acidity of its juice and the floral aroma of its zest. It is a common ingredient in authentic Mexican, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. Lime soup is a traditional dish from the Mexican state of Yucatan. It is also used for its pickling properties in ceviche. Some guacamole recipes call for lime juice.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: The use of dried limes (called black lime or "limoo") as a flavouring is typical of Persian cuisine, Iraqi cuisine, as well as in Eastern Arabian cuisine "baharat" (a spice mixture that is also called "kabsa" or "kebsa").


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Key lime gives the character flavoring to the American dessert known as Key lime pie. In Australia, desert lime is used for making marmalade.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Lime is an ingredient in several highball cocktails, often based on gin, such as gin and tonic, the gimlet and the Rickey. Freshly squeezed lime juice is also considered a key ingredient in margaritas, although sometimes lemon juice is substituted. It is also found in many rum cocktails such as the Daiquiri, and other tropical drinks.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Lime extracts and lime essential oils are frequently used in perfumes, cleaning products, and aromatherapy.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Raw limes are 88% water, 10% carbohydrates and less than 1% each of fat and protein (table). Only vitamin C content at 35% of the Daily Value (DV) per 100 g serving is significant for nutrition, with other nutrients present in low DV amounts (table). Lime juice contains slightly less citric acid than lemon juice (about 47 g/L), nearly twice the citric acid of grapefruit juice, and about five times the amount of citric acid found in orange juice.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Lime pulp and peel contain diverse phytochemicals, including polyphenols and terpenes, many of which are under basic research for their potential properties in humans.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Contact with lime peel or lime juice followed by exposure to ultraviolet light may lead to phytophotodermatitis, which is sometimes called margarita photodermatitis or lime disease (not to be confused with Lyme disease). Bartenders handling limes and other citrus fruits while preparing cocktails may develop phytophotodermatitis.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: A class of organic chemical compounds called furanocoumarins are reported to cause phytophotodermatitis in humans. Limes contain numerous furanocoumarin compounds, including limettin (also called citropten), bergapten, isopimpinellin, xanthotoxin (also called methoxsalen), and psoralen. Bergapten appears to be the primary furanocoumarin compound responsible for lime-induced phytophotodermatitis.


title: Lime (fruit)

text: Lime peel contains higher concentrations of furanocoumarins than lime pulp (by one or two orders of magnitude), and so lime peels are considerably more phototoxic than lime pulp. Persian limes appear to be more phototoxic than Key limes.


title: Ben Folds

text: Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer, who is the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., since May 2017. Folds was the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again in the early 2010s during their reunion. He has recorded a number of solo albums and performed live as a solo artist. He has also collaborated with musicians such as William Shatner, Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds has frequently performed arrangements of his music with uncommon instrumentation, including symphony orchestras and a cappella groups. In addition to contributing music to the soundtracks of the animated films "Hoodwinked!," and "Over the Hedge", Folds has produced several albums, including Amanda Palmer's first solo album.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds was a judge on the NBC a cappella singing contest "The Sing-Off" from 2009 to 2013. In July 2019, Folds published his first book, a memoir, titled "".


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He became interested in piano at age nine. His father, a carpenter, brought one home through a barter trade with a customer who was unable to pay. During this time, Folds listened to songs by Elton John and Billy Joel on AM radio, and learned them by ear. During his years at Richard J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, Folds played in several bands as the pianist, bassist, or drummer.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds attended the University of Miami's Frost School of Music on a full percussion scholarship, but dropped out after having failed 'the jury' and losing his scholarship. He devoted a lot of time to working on piano technique. "I spent maybe six months just running scales with a metronome like a freak," Folds said. "I suppose that did something."


title: Ben Folds

text: After leaving Miami, he returned to North Carolina and enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for the fall semester of 1985. It was while studying at UNCG that he met his 'accidental mentor', Robert Darnell. Folds would acknowledge the impact of Darnell on his appreciation of music in his 2019 memoir "A Dream About Lightning Bugs".


title: Ben Folds

text: In the late 1980s, Folds (as a bassist) formed the band Majosha with longtime friends Evan Olson, Millard Powers, and Eddie Walker. The group released several locally produced records. They played their first gig at Duke University's Battle of the Bands in 1988, and won. They played at bars and fraternity parties, and self-produced an EP called "Party Night: Five Songs About Jesus" (1988), which they sold locally. The EP has four songs, none of which is about Jesus. They recorded "Shut Up and Listen to Majosha" in 1989. It contains, among other tracks, the four songs from "Party Night" (remixed and/or re-recorded) and "Emaline" and "Video", which Folds would later record with Ben Folds Five. The song "Get That Bug" from "Party Night" was released as a dance mix in Japan.


title: Ben Folds

text: After Majosha broke up, Folds played drums in a band called Pots and Pans with Evan Olson on bass and Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell on guitar and vocals, but the newly formed band lasted only about a month. Olson and Uzzell formed Bus Stop with Folds' brother, Chuck Folds, on bass, and Eddie Walker on drums.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds eventually got a music publishing deal with Nashville music executive Scott Siman who saw Folds open for musician Marc Silvey, as well as playing bass for Silvey's band Mass Confusion, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue it in 1990. He played drums for a short stint in Power Bill, headed by Jody Spence, Millard Powers, and Will Owsley. Power Bill was later renamed The Semantics. Folds did not take a creative role in the band. He attracted interest from major labels. He ended up playing drums there as a session musician.


title: Ben Folds

text: In Nashville, I was running eight miles a day, hanging out with my friends, walking around eating chocolate-chip cookies and playing a lot of drums, which I enjoyed. Life was easy. I was never frustrated—even though I wasn't fulfilling my contract obligations. If you are failing in Nashville, at least your standard of living is nice. Nashville is a nice way to fail.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and began to act in theater troupes in New York City. He enjoyed it in 1993 to the point where he did not want to keep pursuing a musical career. He also played weekly gigs at Sin-é, famous for being the café which had helped start Jeff Buckley's career.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds moved back to North Carolina and formed Ben Folds Five in 1994, with bassist Robert Sledge, and drummer Darren Jessee in Chapel Hill. As Folds put it, "Jeff Buckley was being signed at that time by Columbia and I was talking to Steve, his A&R guy, and somehow we knew the same people or something." In 1995, Ben Folds Five released their self-titled debut album. The debut was followed by "Whatever and Ever Amen" in 1997, and the odds-and-ends compilation "Naked Baby Photos" was released in early 1998. "Whatever and Ever Amen" included many singles such as "Song for the Dumped", "Battle of Who Could Care Less", and the band's most successful song, "Brick". In 1999, the band released what was to be their final album for over a decade, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner", which included the hit "Army".


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds has described Ben Folds Five as "punk rock for sissies", and his lyrics often contain nuances of melancholy, self-conflict, and humorous sarcasm, often punctuated by profanity.


title: Ben Folds

text: They gained a strong following in the United Kingdom and Australia early in their career. Like many other 'alternative' American acts, this was largely due to consistent support from national broadcasters in those countries, the BBC in Britain and the ABC's Triple J youth radio network in Australia (and ABC-TV's music video show "Rage"). The group's first chart breakthrough came in the UK, when "Underground" made the lower reaches of the Top 40, peaking at no. 37. Britain was the band's strongest territory in terms of chart success, with five singles making the national Top 40 there—"Underground", "Battle of Who Could Care Less", "Kate", "Brick" and "Army"—although none managed to crack the UK Top 20. In Australia, "Underground" likewise broke the band locally and while it did not make the ARIA chart, it came in at no. 3 on the 1996 Triple J Hottest 100 poll (broadcast on January 26, 1997). The 1998 single "Brick" became the group's only major chart placing in Australia, reaching no. 13; it also came in at no. 53 in the ARIA Australian Top 100 for that year and earned a Gold Record award while its parent album "Whatever and Ever Amen" peaked at no. 9 and charted for 32 weeks. Following their tour in support for "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner", the band decided to amicably break up, with each of the band members pursuing different projects.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds' first solo album after the breakup of the band was "Rockin' the Suburbs" in 2001, released on the same day as the September 11 attacks. He played nearly all the instruments, most notably guitar which was an instrument seldom used during the Ben Folds Five days. "The Luckiest" was written for the Amy Heckerling movie "Loser", but the scene it was meant for was deleted. Millard Powers, Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell, and Jim Bogios joined him on the promotional tour of the album. "Weird Al" Yankovic directed and appeared in Folds' video for the album's namesake song, "Rockin' the Suburbs". Folds' friend and fellow musician John McCrea, lead singer of the band Cake, contributed vocals to "Fred Jones, Part 2".


title: Ben Folds

text: A year later, Folds released "Ben Folds Live", a collection of live solo recordings. In late 2003, two solo EPs, "Speed Graphic" and "Sunny 16", were self-released on Folds' label Attacked by Plastic. The last EP, "Super D", was released in mid-2004.


title: Ben Folds

text: "Songs for Silverman" was released in the United States on April 26, 2005. The album returned to the trio format, featuring Jared Reynolds on bass and Lindsay Jamieson on drums. This album includes the track "Late", a tribute to the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, and also features backup vocals from "Weird Al" Yankovic on "Time". Folds had played piano for Yankovic's song "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" on his "Poodle Hat" album.


title: Ben Folds

text: On October 24, 2006, Folds released "Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP", a compilation of songs that were originally released on the EPs "Sunny 16", "Speed Graphic", and "Super D". He announced on his MySpace blog that he planned to work on his next studio album in October 2006, although recording did not actually start until 2007. On that same day, Folds became the first person to webcast a live-by-request concert over MySpace. The concert was complete with pranks staged ahead of time by Folds, including a drunk man falling over the balcony during "Jesusland" and a "suicide attempt" by Folds at the end. The concert is also notable for featuring a "guitorchestra", a group of acoustic guitarists from Nashville who accompanied Folds on some songs, as well as an impromptu ringtone orchestra made up of audience members playing their cellphone's ringtones in unison. A DVD of the performance, "Live at MySpace", was released on February 20, 2007.


title: Ben Folds

text: During a concert at the National in Richmond, Virginia on April 11, 2008, Folds announced that he had completed his newest album, and played four tracks from it. He played the first track, "Hiroshima", at the show. He also debuted new music at an impromptu gig at the Exit/In on December 19, 2007, and at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival on January 25, 2008. Other new songs include "Errant Dog", "Effington", "Bitch Went Nuts", "Free Coffee", and "Kylie From Connecticut". Folds played The 6th Annual Langerado on March 8, 2008, and was a part of the lineup for the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.


title: Ben Folds

text: On July 16, 2008, an anonymous user posted what they claimed was a "leak" of Folds' latest album on a fan site (eventually called "Way to Normal (Fake)"). The file contained nine tracks along with a PDF of supposed cover art, and was a mix of what appeared to be legitimate songs from "Way to Normal", pastiches of dry humor and melodramatic pop interwoven with bright, energetic melodies. Folds explained on Triple J radio a few weeks later that in one overnight session in Dublin he and the band had recorded 'fake' versions of songs from the new album. His sources had then leaked them to the public as a light-hearted joke on his fans.


title: Ben Folds

text: Ben Folds Five reunited to perform its first concert appearance in nearly 10 years on September 18, 2008, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall. The one-off gig was part of MySpace's "Front to Back" series, in which artists played an entire album live. The band played "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner". All proceeds from ticket sales benefited the charity Operation Smile, of which Folds' uncle, Jim Folds, is on the board of directors for the North Carolina Chapter.


title: Ben Folds

text: "Way to Normal" was released on September 30, 2008, in the United States and on September 29, 2008, in the United Kingdom. It became Folds' highest-charting album ever in the US, debuting at no. 11 on the "Billboard" 200. Fan reception of the album was rather mixed, with several citing the heavy use of dynamic compression as a major downfall of the album. Folds responded, releasing a more "traditional" mix of the album entitled "Stems and Seeds", featuring various bonus tracks such as the entire "leaked" album and providing stems that allowed fans to create remixes.


title: Ben Folds

text: On April 28, 2009, Folds released "", an album consisting of college student's a cappella arrangements of his music performed by some of the country's best college a cappella groups.


title: Ben Folds

text: In March 2010, a video Folds created titled "Ode To Merton" went viral on YouTube. In the video, Folds improvises several songs about people that he sees on the social networking site Chatroulette, in the style of "Merton", a YouTube creator who many initially thought was Folds himself.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds' final solo album before his reunion with Ben Folds Five, a collaboration with English author Nick Hornby, was entitled "Lonely Avenue" and was released on September 28, 2010. Announced shortly before the release of "Way to Normal", he idea of the collaboration came out of the "fake" leak of the album released in July 2008. "(We will) write and record it in about three days, just like we did in Dublin with the fake record," Folds said. As schedules began to misalign, the plans for the album began to change and take on the form of a more major release. On June 14, 2010, Folds released the official album art via his Twitter account. "From Above", the first single from the album, premiered on Richard Kingsmill's new music show "2010" on Triple J in Australia on July 18, 2010. "From Above" features Australian singer Kate Miller Heidke on backing vocals. Folds also recorded a video song with Nick Hornby and Pomplamoose. As well, English YouTuber Charlie McDonnell was commissioned to create the music video for Folds' song "Saskia Hamilton", which was uploaded on October 1, 2010.


title: Ben Folds

text: The band reunited once again in 2011 with a subsequent release of the album "The Sound of the Life of the Mind", leading to a tour of their new work throughout 2012 and 2013.


title: Ben Folds

text: In March 2014, Folds premiered a commissioned piano concerto he composed with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. This was followed up in 2015 with "So There", an album by Folds and the yMusic Ensemble, released on September 11, 2015. The album includes eight chamber pop songs and the piano concerto performed with the Nashville Symphony.


title: Ben Folds

text: In September 2018, Ben Folds released the song "Mister Peepers" as a single commissioned by "The Washington Post". The song depicts former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's conflict with Republicans during the Russia investigation, with the name coming from President Trump's nickname for Rosenstein.


title: Ben Folds

text: In June 2020, Ben Folds released the song "2020", describing the difficulty of living during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Ben Folds

text: In addition to collaborations on Folds' own music, he often works with other musicians on their projects. In 1997, Ben Folds recorded an unreleased studio album titled "Forever Valentine" with Whiskeytown.


title: Ben Folds

text: "Weird Al" Yankovic's parodied Ben Folds' style in the song "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" on his 2003 album "Poodle Hat". According to music critic Nathan Rabin, the song "amplifies the noxious self-absorption of the American character to hilarious extremes" by describing a narrator who, upon hearing about a number of horrible tragedies, only complains about the (minor) inconveniences that affect him. Folds himself plays piano on the track. Yankovic later told "The A.V. Club": "Ben and I are old friends at this point, and of course I sought his keyboard work for that song. So he came in and knocked it out."


title: Ben Folds

text: In 2004, Folds acted as producer, arranger, musician, and backup vocalist to William Shatner's album, "Has Been". Shatner was also involved in Folds' "Fear of Pop" project, contributing vocals to a number of songs on the album, most notably the song "In Love".


title: Ben Folds

text: In August 2008, Folds played piano for friend and Japanese singer-songwriter Angela Aki's song "Black Glasses" on her album "Answer".


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds produced Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls' first solo album, "Who Killed Amanda Palmer", which was released September 16, 2008. He also performs on the album.


title: Ben Folds

text: Ben Folds has often contributed both original and previously recorded songs to movies and television shows. The soundtrack for the 2005 animated film "Hoodwinked!" featured "Red is Blue", performed by Folds. In May 2006, Folds contributed three original songs to the soundtrack of "Over the Hedge", titled "Heist", "Family of Me", and "Still". Included with them was a cover of the Clash song "Lost in the Supermarket" and a recording of "Rockin' the Suburbs" featuring new lyrics written to complement the plot of the film.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds' song "Rockin' the Suburbs" was featured on the soundtrack for ABC's sitcom "Surviving Suburbia", which aired in August 2009. Folds also wrote the soundtrack for the Netflix original film "Handsome", released in May 2017.


title: Ben Folds

text: After Ben Folds Five split, Folds' first tour with a full band was to support the album "Rockin' the Suburbs". He was accompanied by Britt "Snüzz" Uzzell on guitar and electronic keyboard, Millard Powers on bass and keys, and Jim Bogios on drums. Powers and Bogios later went on to join Counting Crows.


title: Ben Folds

text: On a tour of Australia, Folds joined with solo artists Ben Kweller and Ben Lee to travel the country as The Bens, at the suggestion of a fan on Kweller's official website. The trio also went on to record a four-track EP together.


title: Ben Folds

text: In the summer of 2004, Folds co-headlined an American tour with fellow singer-songwriters Rufus Wainwright and Guster. Folds again performed with Wainwright and Lee in the summer of 2005 as part of the "Odd Men Out" tour. In addition, Folds has performed with many other notable musical names, including Weezer and Tori Amos. After seeing the Fray perform with Weezer, Folds asked the band to join him for twelve performances in 2005.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds also performed with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) in March 2005, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in November 2005, the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the Queensland Orchestra during an Australian tour in 2006. Folds performed with the North Carolina Symphony in March 2010, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra in July 2010. A DVD of Folds playing with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra was released in December 2005.


title: Ben Folds

text: On May 9, 2007, Folds performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra. The orchestra's performance was marred when a fight broke out between two audience members in the balcony, though Folds had not yet taken the stage.


title: Ben Folds

text: After his MySpace performance on October 24, 2006, Folds's tour performances began to feature a synthesizer, which he uses in many of the songs when played live. The synthesizer is a red Nord Lead II synthesizer. During his concerts, Folds frequently performs two of his concert traditions: palm-smashing the keys and throwing his stool at the piano.


title: Ben Folds

text: In March 2007, Folds went on a headlining tour, which opened on March 24 at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2007, he performed as the primary opener for John Mayer during his "Continuum" 38-day summer tour. During this tour, Mayer sometimes joined Folds on the song "Narcolepsy", playing synth. At various concerts throughout the tour, parents of young children going to see Mayer would file complaints about Folds' lyrics. Folds responded by posting on his website, "We have kids too, but we don't take them out to rock shows that last until 11 pm."


title: Ben Folds

text: On March 29, 2008, Folds played the Cage Center Arena at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia. During contract negotiations, he was asked by the administration to not play one of his songs due to its explicit lyrics. Folds refused, citing artistic freedom.


title: Ben Folds

text: On May 9, 2008, Folds played his first completely solo show in years at Western Connecticut State University due to the fact that his bassist Jared Reynolds was with his wife who had just given birth to their first son.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds made a brief solo tour of Australia during August 2009; at one of his sold out Sydney Opera House concerts he was joined onstage for several songs by Aimee Mann, who was also touring Australia at the time. At the Palais theatre in Melbourne Missy Higgins joined him for "You Don't Know Me", a single from "Way to Normal" that Folds originally sang with Regina Spektor.


title: Ben Folds

text: In 2010, Folds went on a brief tour of North America called "Ben Folds and a Piano" where he played solo other than with Zach Williams or Kate Miller-Heidke and her husband Keir Nuttall as supporting musicians. A small number of copies that were pre-ordered also included signed manuscripts by Folds and Hornby.


title: Ben Folds

text: In April 2011, Folds collaborated with Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, and Damian Kulash as 8in8 to write, record, and produce eight songs in eight hours which were then available online within 24 hours, as well as being performed once on its world tour, as part of the ReThink Music conference.


title: Ben Folds

text: Folds reunited with Ben Folds Five to play the Mountain Jam Music Festival on June 2, 2012. This was the first time the band had performed live together since 2008.


title: Ben Folds

text: Ben Folds performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. for the 2012 Presidential Scholar in the Arts ceremony with several of YoungArts best alumni.