Colonel Harland Sanders

I can't think of MAD Magazine and Kentucky Fried Chicken in the same sentence without immediately visualizing this panel from MAD's parody of the CBS crime series Mannix. Artist Angelo Torres captured the "vintage" chicken-shack design for this portion of the Lou Silverstone-penned "Manic," which originally ran in MAD #152 (July '72).

Submitted for your approval as we wrap up MAD Mumblings' birthday tribute to Harland Sanders: A MAD mystery. Sometime in the early '80s, Dick DeBartolo and Bill Gaines found themselves in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. According to Dick's memoir Good Days and MAD, Bill got such a chuckle out of Dick's griping about the restaurant's posted "pledge" that it led to the article "A Pledge That Employees Can Really Live Up To," which ran in MAD #226 (October '81) underneath a reproduction of the

Originally conceived as a fake article title for the contents page of MAD #479 (July '07), "If Chickens Could Time Travel" actually wound up as a full three-page article by John Caldwell in the following issue. (So maybe HE had access to a time machine!!!) The delightful piece from MAD #480 (August '07) was recently reprinted in The MAD Vault of MAD #539 (June '16) to honour our friend Hammer-Head's memory and legacy.

I've loved KFC for a long time but I don't think I could ever bring myself to eat their Double Down sandwich, which replaces the buns with two breaded chicken filets. Dick DeBartolo apparently felt just as queasy about the concept, resulting in one of his classic MAD ad parodies. Originally appearing on The Idiotical, "The KFC Triple By-Pass" was printed in MAD #504 (August '10) and also wound up in the 2012 60th-anniversary anthology Totally MAD.

Mmm...Cheesy discharge... KFC was one of the long-running franchises sent up in one of my favourite MAD articles of the past five years, "Unadvertised Fast Food 'Secret Menu' Offerings." Written by Scott Maiko and illustrated by Mike Leow for MAD #524 (December '13).