Mad #464 (John Ficarra) - Burger King Issue - April 2006

What magazine other than Mad would devote six pages in a single issue to a creepy, fast-food mascot?  The star of the "Wake up with the King" advertising campaign appeared in ubiquitous spots on our television screens from 2003 to 2011.  Now that BK is moving to Canada, perhaps they can drown that thing in Lake Winnipeg.  Front-cover artist Mark Fredrickson accepted the assignment to place the King adjacent to Alf with a free but rather unflattering product placement.  Inside, unidentified writers ("Mad's Flame-Broiled Burger King Commercial Outtakes") and John Caldwell (who else?) reminded us that this was the worst product mascot ever.  Better stuff can be found on page 10 ("King Korn!") with Dick DeBartolo's parody of a movie about the making of a movie.  Drawings by Hermann Mejia are uncanny as always.  Monroe's grandfather makes a miraculous recovery from his death bed.  Richard Williams and Al Jaffee get their jabs at the president.  And, writer Jacob Lambert proves that he remembers much too much about high school ("35 Scholarly Reasons Why School Sucks") - so much that two artists (Tom Richmond and Peter Bagge) were needed to ink it all.  As the inevitable march towards full-color continues, only one artist (Ted Rall) was allowed to display his work in black-and-white.  [JAM 10/4/2014]

Color Pages: 55 of 56 pages (98%)
Humorous Content: 44 of 56 pages (79%)

Departments:
Random Acts of Mindless - The Fundalini Pages
The Tale of the Ape - King Korn!
Angster's Paradise - Monroe and ... The Right to Die Part II
Polluting the Flag - When the Government Allows Product Placement in the Pledge of Allegiance
The Meat Shall Inherit the Mirth - Mad's Flame-Broiled Burger King Commercial Outtakes
The Slight to Privacy - I Hear You
In Blog We Trust - Planet Tad!!!!!
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at the Prom
Dance, Dance Evolution - What If Charles Darwin Had Designed Videogames  [fake department]
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
Err to the Throne - The Burger King Funnies
License to Shill - Go Fetch!
Rall in a Day's Work - 7 Periods Closer to Death
A Pain in the Class - 35 Scholarly Reasons Why School Sucks

Fold-In - Osama Bin Laden (not George W. Bush)