Recurring features in Mad (magazine)

Mad is known for many regular and semi-regular recurring features in its pages.

Every issue but two of Mad from 1964 to the present has featured a Fold-in, designed by artist Al Jaffee. They usually appear on the inside back cover, though one issue featured a Fold-in front cover and the year-end "Mad 20" issues move the feature to an interior page. In each Fold-in question is asked, often of a topical nature. The subject is illustrated by a picture taking up the bulk of the page, with a block of text underneath. When the page is folded inward, the inner and outer fourths of the picture combine to reveal an alternate answer in both picture and words. Jaffee's precise layouts sometimes include false visual cues designed to trick the reader's eye towards an incorrect solution.

From 1961 to 2002, Dave Berg produced "The Lighter Side of…", which often satirized the suburban lifestyle, capitalism and the generation gap. Subjects commonly lampooned include medicine, office life, parties, marriage, psychiatry, shopping, school and other everyday activities. Although this feature eventually became notorious for its corny gags and garishly outdated fashion choices, the Mad editors reported that it was the magazine's most popular feature. "The Lighter Side" was more pointed in its early years, providing the sort of Americana-based humor that standups such as Shelley Berman and Alan King performed successfully onstage. The feature was retired with Berg's death.

Four months after the last Berg artwork was published, his final set of gags, which Berg had written but not penciled, appeared as a tribute. These last "Lighter Side" strips were divided among 18 of the magazine's regular artists, including Jack Davis' last original work for Mad. In 2007, an occasional feature called "The Darker Side of the Lighter Side" debuted. These consist of reprinted Berg strips, with rewritten word balloons that change the gags to references about disease, sex offenders, corpse disposal and other unsavory, un-Berg-like topics.

Antonio Prohías's wordless "Spy vs. Spy," the never-ending battle between the iconic Black Spy and White Spy, ended up outlasting the Cold War that inspired it. Except for the respective black/white color of their clothing, the two spies were identical in appearance and intent. The strip was a silent parable about the futility of mutually-assured destruction, with various elaborate deathtraps designed in Prohías' thick line. Typically, the trap would boomerang back on whichever spy had concocted it. There was no pattern or order dictating which spy would be killed in a particular episode. A female "Grey Spy" occasionally appeared; unlike her two adversaries, she always prevailed. Although Prohías retired from doing the strip in the late 1980s, "Spy vs. Spy" continued in a series of different hands until 1997, when Peter Kuper took over as the full-time writer-artist. However, the original Morse Code byline "by Prohias" remains in each strip's title.

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