Americana meets meshuggeneh at a museum exhibit about MAD magazine

(JTA) - STOCKBRIDGE, Massachusetts - There's a delightful "what if" moment at the start of "What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine," a new exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

In 1964, MAD commissioned Rockwell himself to paint a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman, the humor magazine's gap-toothed mascot, as he might have looked in real life. Correspondence featured in the exhibit suggests that Rockwell - grand master of gentle, folksy, even cornball Americana - was close to signing on with what MAD called its "usual gang of idiots": goofball masters of sophomoric, anti-establishment sa...