Alfred E. Newman

Alfred E. Neuman is the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine Mad. The character's distinctive gap-toothed smiling face, freckles, red hair, protruding ears, and scrawny body date back to late 19th-century advertisements for painless dentistry, as does the origin of his "What, me worry?" motto. The magazine's founder and original editor, Harvey Kurtzman, began using the character in 1954. He was named "Alfred E. Neuman" by Mad's second editor Al Feldstein in 1956. Neuman's likeness has appeared on all but a handful of the magazine's covers, over 550 issues. He has almost always been rendered in a front view but has occasionally been seen in silhouette, or directly from behind.