Anyway, while Mad magazine is still alive, it seemed more vital in the 60s and 70s. There wasn’t much like it out there available for mass consumption. It was one of the few places that as a kid, I could ingest occasional nuggets of political and military satire while still enjoying my more regular diet of booger and booby jokes.

I’m sure there’s archives of Mad magazine content and covers, and even the precious fold-ins to be found on the web, but doubtful there’s a more satisfying interactive experience for nostalgic design farts like me than to actually/virtually fold the fold-ins to reveal their hidden message.

Some of the hidden messages are fairly obvious at a glance (and are incredibly obvious once you’ve unfolded them again) but you can forgive those when you consider the camouflaging effort involved. But most are exceptionally well done and suck you in for a surprising payoff, especially if you’ve read the few lines of text below the image first.

By the way, here’s the link to the full Times article about artist Al Jaffee… 87, still going strong!

Okay, enough talk – even though I know you’ve long ago clicked on the picture, had your fun and totally ignored all this text. Perhaps I’ll better pique your attention with a future exposé of the foldouts I enjoyed as a youth (I’ve only heard they’re available on the interweb…)?