Mad Fold-in - Fold-In History

Fold-In History

Jaffee's first three Fold-Ins featured gags about the Elizabeth Taylor-Eddie Fisher-Richard Burton love triangle, Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller's battle for the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination, and The Beatles' departure back to England. Fold-In topics in the years 2008 and 2009 have included Guitar Hero, teen pregnancy, and Jay Leno temporarily leaving The Tonight Show. "Before anyone knew it," wrote comics historian Christopher Irving, "the hundreds of Fold-Ins created a timeline of American history, political satire, and entertainment."

In 2010, Jaffee described the earliest Fold-Ins:

"I thought to myself... now it's folded in and I've got to have something on the left side here, and something right side here. And the only thing that popped into my head was that Elizabeth Taylor had just dumped Eddie Fisher and was carrying on with Richard Burton. So I had Elizabeth Taylor kissing Richard Burton, and a cop is holding the crowd back — and just for the fun of it I put Eddie Fisher being trampled by the crowd. What a cruel thing to do! And then, when you fold it in, she's moving on from Richard Burton and kissing the next guy in the crowd. It's so simplistic and silly and juvenile! And anyone could have done that!

"I showed it to Al Feldstein, and the first thing I said was, 'Al, I've got this crazy idea, and you're not going to buy it, because it mutilates the magazine.' So I put it in front of him, and the thing about Al was, he liked things that intrigued him. The mechanics of it intrigued him. He said, 'You mean, you fold it, like this . . . ? And then . . . ?' He folded it, he unfolded it, he folded it, and then he said, 'I like this!' But I said, 'Al, it mutilates the magazine.' And he said, 'Well, I'll have to check it with Bill.' He takes it, runs it to Bill's office, and he was there a little while, and he comes back and he says, 'We're going to do it! You know what Bill said? Bill said, "So they mutilate the magazine, and then they'll buy another one to save!"'

"Four or five weeks later, Al comes over to me and says, 'When are you going to do the next fold-in?' And I said, 'I don't have another fold-in. That was it!' So he said, 'Come on, you can come up with something else.' I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was Nixon . That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the fold-ins has to be. It couldn't just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right."

From its debut in 1964, the Fold-In has rarely been absent from Mad's pages. Since issue #86, five issues (#121, #190, #212, #219, and #353) did not feature Fold-Ins, although Jaffee still wrote and drew four of those issues' back covers. (#219 featured a see-through effect which combined elements from the back cover and inside back cover could be held up to a light source to reveal the visual punchline.) The third Fold-In, in issue #88, had an unusual diagonally-folded layout which was never repeated. The first 33 Fold-Ins were printed in black-and-white; starting with Mad #119 (June 1968), all Fold-Ins have been presented in color.

On occasion, the feature has been moved from its usual spot. In the annual "20 Worst of the Year" issue, the Fold-In is used as one of the 20 items, and appears as an internal page of the magazine. Issue #320 (July 1993) featured a Fold-in as the front cover.