Al Feldstein, the long-time former editor of Mad Magazine who helped his usual gang of idiots develop pop culture mainstays like the "Spy vs. Spy" comic and the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, died yesterday at his home. He was 88.

Have you ever had the desire to watch Spy Vs. Spy in an animated format? Dreams do come true—in the form of MAD, a new half hour cartoon made for Cartoon Network. The show premieres September 6th.

Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner reading what must be a hilarious issue of Mad in 1967, featuring the first Star Trek parody, "Star Blecch". [The Daily What]

Basil Wolverton was a devout Christian, an apocalypse aficionado, and MAD magazine's most prominent creator of 1950s grotesquerie. And—now—a fine artist.

[Former actress Mischa Baron in Paris; image via Bauer-Griffin]

MAD Magazine is about to put out its 500th issue. Fantastic! But starting in April, the mag is cutting down to only four issues per year. Nooooo! Reminisce on some of MAD's fine Obama-related work:

"Will Elder, whose frantic, gag-filled illustrations helped to define the comic identity of Mad magazine and who was a creator of the Playboy cartoon serial "Little Annie Fanny," died Wednesday in Rockleigh, N.J. He was 86.The cause was Parkinson's disease, said Gary VandenBergh, his son-in-law. A dead-on caricaturist with an anarchic sense of humor, Mr. Elder stuffed the backgrounds of his Madison Avenue parodies and comic-strip spoofs with inane puns, silly signs and weird characters doing strange things."

I'm all whatever about The New York Times, but I love, love, love me some MAD magazine! "Is this the end of the line?" "No, it's a freight train and I'm the caboose, you clod!" Ha! I remember learning what "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" meant when I was five because of a Sergio Aragones margin cartoon in which a clever hippie has those slogans written on two different picket signs so he can pick up chicks at rallies for both sides. It's also where I first read "The Raven"-in a 1979 or 1980 "Super Special". And I think an artist's depiction of Lois Lane in "Super-Dooper Man" in that same issue gave me my thing for leggy "gal" reporters in heels.

• "I used to be Dan Rather," says the CBSer. "I used to cover hurricanes." He then burst into tears and burned an effigy of Anderson Cooper. [LAT]
• The rumors were all true: Newsday continues to whither away, as 45 newsroom jobs are cut and the city edition is decimated. [Newsday]
• Bryan Curtis hits F1 on his Slate keyboard to produce today's expectedly unexpected lead — verbatim, "TK has been dusted with so much glory lately that it's high time [his/her/its] reputation got a good sullying" — and decides to insert "Ray Bradbury." [Slate]
• Paper mag launches new website, featuring — you'll never guess! — blogs. [Papermag.com]
• Coming soon: MadKids. For those who find old-school Mad magazine too old-skewing and highbrow. [Baltimore Sun]