Everywhere around the world they’re dancing in the street, ’cause it’s Al Jaffee‘s birthday!
Michael Cavna, at The Washington Post has a brief talk with the birthday boy.
“Hitting the century mark in age, it’s a nice number” for the brain to consider, Jaffee said with a warm laugh Thursday from his New York home — even if some body parts don’t “seem to appreciate it.”
From the MAD Cover Site Facebook page:
Doug’s MAD Cover Site proper has birthday wishes and tributes from fans around the world.
Tom Richmond with art and words, and MAD Magazine Facebook honor The Man, The Legend.
From cartoonist and NCS prez Jason Chatfield, on the East Coast
to comic book and television writer Mark Evanier on the West Coast
accolades and appreciations for Al are pouring in.
Hogan’s Alley’s This Day in History couldn’t contain its joy to one tweet, it needed two.
Everywhere around the world via Twitter and Facebook people are standing and cheering,
and here at The Daily Cartoonist we join in thanking Al for the laughs and memories.
For a look at some of those non-MAD memories, let’s join Ger Apeldoorn in progress.
p.s.: the rumor is the N. Y. Times Sunday crossword tomorrow is a salute to Al.*
But today, in just an hour or so (7pm eastern), we can all join in a Jaffee Jamboree!
all art and images © their respective copyright holders
*Update: The Sunday New York Times Crossword did indeed salute Al. As The N.Y. Times said:
We have a one-subject trivia puzzle today, where all of the theme clues and a revealer revolve around an event or significant figure, usually pegged to a date. I love these when they roll around — we had one for the moon landing anniversary, there was an Albert Einstein puzzle, and so on. They’re pretty rare, and they’re always feats of construction. Today, Mr. Stulberg brings his devotion (and a willingness to tempt every fate) to celebrate a noted artist, editor and humorist’s 100th birthday…
I assumed until extremely late in the solve that we were getting to Rube Goldberg somehow, but the theme entries are mainly sensible products and services that we take for granted. All were apparently proposed, many years before their actual invention, by the hero of this grid.
Over at XWord Info puzzle creator Jacob Stulberg notes:
The idea for today’s theme came to me while I was constructing a different puzzle and looking for a fun way to clue AL JAFFEE. That puzzle never came to fruition, but my search led me to Mike Sacks’ entertaining interview with Jaffee in a 2009 collection called And Here’s the Kicker, where Sacks mentions Jaffee’s uncanny knack for predicting real-life inventions.
The clues (all across):
22
Architectural innovation jokingly predicted by 101-Across in 198238
Grooming tool jokingly predicted by 101-Across in 197952
Writing aid jokingly predicted by 101-Across in 196773
Winter sport jokingly predicted by 101-Across in 196584
Telephone feature jokingly predicted by 101-Across in 1961101
Satirical cartoonist, born 3/13/1921, known for dreaming up ridiculous inventions … or are they?
Spoiler Alert – answers at XWord Info.
Has there been an update on how many cards Mr. Jaffee received?
No total yet.
But Comicplex will have the birthday video up in a day or two for those who missed it, says Danny Fingeroth.