Mad celebrates 60 years of parodying Madison Avenue
Mad Magazine is celebrating its 60 years of history of “humor in a jugular vein,” as its slogan once promised, with an anthology to be published Tuesday titled Totally Mad: 60 Years of Humor, Satire, Stupidity and Stupidity. Among the 256 pages of the $34.95 book are generous samples of the wicked ad spoofs, parodies and sendups — takeoffs, as the editors call them — that have been an intrinsic part of Mad since the debut issue in August 1952.
Mad recently mocked the “I’m the NRA” campaign for the National Rifle Association, with an ad featuring an armed whitetail deer that belongs to the Nature’s Revenge Association; Whole Foods Market, with an ad carrying the theme “Fancy-shmancy food, unbelievably high prices” and offering shoppers fake deals like “Buy one, get one for the same price”; and recruitment ads for the Army during the Iraq War. One takeoff, showing a soldier before an oversize photograph of Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, carried the headline “Mess by Rumsfeld, cleanup by you!”
INVESTORS FIND GREECE RISKIER THAN SYRIA
An annual survey of finance directors from global business consultancy BDO has found that the crisis over too much government debt in Europe remains one of their key concerns — so much so that Greece is considered a riskier place to invest and set up business in than war-torn Syria.
Only Iran and Iraq are considered more risky than Greece, which also struggles to convince its international creditors that it deserves bailout loans to avoid bankruptcy and a possible euro exit. “CFOs are becoming increasingly wary of Southern Europe, parts of which they now see as risky as the politically unstable countries of the Middle East,” said BDO chief executive Martin Van Roekel.
THEME PARKS CONSTRUCTION ADDS JOBS
Theme parks in Orlando, Fla.,have been on a multibillion-dollar building binge in recent years, from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando to an expanded Fantasyland at Walt Disney World to a soon-to-open Antarctica complex at SeaWorld Orlando.
Those capital investments are translating into new jobs. Disney, for instance, also launched in March the more than $900 million Disney Fantasy cruise ship at Port Canaveral — its second new ship in two years — spurring the creation of an estimated 500 direct and indirect jobs in the region. The company then began opening the $350 million Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, a 2,000-room hotel that Disney says will support approximately 750 full-time jobs.
NOKIA’S FUTURE HANGS ON WINDOWS 8 ROLLOUT
For Nokia, getting it back in the smartphone race hinges on Microsoft’s new phone software, analysts say.
After being the top seller of cellphones in the world for 14 years, Nokia failed to meet the challenge when Apple in 2007 introduced the iPhone that scooped up mobile markets. The Finnish company hit a downward spiral that has led to shrinking sales and market share, plant closures, thousands of layoffs and downgrades by credit agencies to junk status.
Research firm IDC said that in the July-to-September period, Nokia slid for the first time off the list of the top five smartphone makers in the world. It’s still the secondlargest maker of phones overall, but sales of non-smartphones are shrinking across the industry, and there’s little profit there. The ailing company’s chief executive, Stephen Elop, sees Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 software as a chance to reverse that trend, describing it as a catalyst for the new models.
IBM REPORTS NANOTUBE CHIP BREAKTHROUGH
IBM
scientists are reporting progress in a chip-making technology that is likely to ensure the shrinking of the basic digital switch at the heart of modern microchips for more than another decade.
The advance, first described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, is based on carbon nanotubes, exotic molecules that have long held out promise as an alternative material to silicon from which to create the tiny logic gates that are now used by the billions to create microprocessors and memory chips.
FORMER ISRAELI BANK CHAIRMAN INDICTED
Israel’s Justice Ministry has indicted the former chairman of a major bank on charges including aggravated fraud and money laundering. The suspicions against Danny Dankner, who served as chairman of Bank Hapoalim between 2007 and 2009, center on the lender’s dealings with Turkey’s BankPozitif.
Hapoalim acquired a controlling stake in the Turkish lender in 2005, and Dankner is suspected of personally benefiting from the deal. Dankner was forced to step down under unprecedented pressure from the Bank of Israel, in a rare public spat with Hapoalim’s owner, billionaire Shari Arison, who lined up behind him. The central bank did not explain why it wanted Dankner removed.
‘ARGO’ FINALLY TOPS BOX OFFICE WITH $12.4M
Argo, the Warner Bros. film from director and star Ben Affleck about the rescue of six U.S. Embassy workers during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, led box office receipts this past wekend with nearly $12.4 million, according to studio estimates. Argo had been in second place the past two weeks and has now made about $60.8 million total.
Debuting at No. 3 was the sprawling, star-studded Cloud Atlas, which made a disappointing $9.4 million.