Listed scale for this model is 1/8 scale, same as Aurora’s bread-and-butter monster figure kits.  However, the size of Alfred’s head and his supposed diminutive stature would probably place this one closer to 1/6 territory, like Aurora’s later Captain Action figure.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad...model kit.  Revell's 2000 artwork pays homage to the original Aurora box.  Sorry we don't have an original Aurora box.  We're cheap--but you're here anyway.

Revell forces you to cut up that beautiful box.  The signs are printed on the bottom.

After the unexpected popularity of the Universal Monsters, Aurora tried its luck with comic book superheroes to great success.  Extremely popular in American culture at the time was Mad Magazine, which had started out as a comic book, and perhaps the Aurora folks assumed that Alfred E. Neuman would join the comic book superheroes as a popular product.  

If the fictional mascot of Mad Magazine lacked super-powers, Aurora gave him unprecedented powers of interactivity for the modeler/builder.  The figure came with no less than four interchangeable pairs of arms with hands in different positions allowing the builder many options for customizing and changing Alfred’s pose.  In addition to this, a wood floor base with a sign allowed the builder to insert four different punchline sayings, along with of course the option for the builder to create their own.

Kit contents, partially assembled.  Brudder Bill decided to reduce immediately his Revell kit's collector value by starting it--and then letting it sit in the box half-built for twenty years.

This kit came well-armed.  You can even duplicate Alfred's exact pose on the box art with what comes in the kit--provided you scratchbuild a new set of hands from kit sprue.

Alas Alfred E. Neuman was not the hot seller for Aurora, and after his initial run, he was relegated to the back of Aurora’s tooling warehouse.  In the years after, the original kits became among Aurora’s most sought-after collectibles.​

Along to the modelers’ rescue came the Revell company in the year 2000.  Alfred’s trip to Revell took some twists and turns; Monogram Models took on Aurora’s tooling when Aurora went bankrupt in the late 1970’s, and when Monogram merged with Revell in 1986, the Aurora tooling fell under one roof.  In the 1990's, Revell had had success re-releasing many old kits with close copies of their vintage box art as part of their Selected Subjects Program (SSP).  They started the new century by dusting off the Alfred E. Neuman tooling.
 
Revell’s 2000 release of Alfred E. Neuman was unusual in a couple ways; first, the box size shared its format with a set of Toys ‘R Us exclusives, and the paper used on the side-hinged box appeared to be a higher-grade matte finish than the semi-glossy fare that usually covered a model kit box. 

Revell's instruction sheet uses Aurora's original graphics.

Fit of the parts isn’t all that great as was not unexpected for a kit from the mid-1960’s.  The head and torso go together pretty well, but many of the arms and the legs in particular have gaps that will need filler or attentive trimming to improve fit.  There weren’t a lot of ejector pin marks; the most prominent were on the backs of Alfred’s jug-handle ears.

Don't call that hotline number!  Operators are NOT standing by!

All those extra hands and arms will provide plenty of options to customize a pose.  Inexplicably, Alfred’s cheeky box art pose can’t be done with what comes in the kit.  If a modeler wishes to portray Alfred in this way, some scratchbuilding will be needed.

Compare Aurora's 3D rendition of Alfred...

to Norman Mingo's original artwork.  The eyes have it (tell us if you are getting tired of that joke).

Circa early 2020 as this is written, it is uncertain whether or not Alfred E. Neuman will reappear in hobby shops again.  If you want one at the moment, your only recourse is to pay the collector’s rate on eBay or hope to find it for less at a model contest vendor’s area.  We'd like to think that the tooling for Alfred E. Neuman has found a safe new home, and in the model kit industry, we've learned that never-say-never is a good philosophy.  What, me worry?

MORE ABOUT ALFRED E. NEUMAN AND MAD MAGAZINE

​The familiar image of Alfred E. Neuman is ubiquitously tied to Mad Magazine.  What is Mad Magazine, and where did it come from?  Mad has its roots in the comic book industry.  Harvey Kurtzman began Mad as a satirical comic book in 1952.  Three years later, he’d had enough, wishing to work on a “slick”— a real magazine.  William Gaines, also an editor in the comic book industry, took over leadership reins, converting Mad from a comic book to a magazine in 1955 in an effort to get a burned-out Harvey Kurtzman to stay on with the publication.  Harvey left anyway, joining Hugh Hefner to edit a magazine called, “Trump,” which had an epic run of precisely two issues.  

The "gap-toothed kid" image was found in American advertising dating back to the Nineteenth Century.  One advertiser took on Mad Magazine for its use only to find that the courts decided the basic image was in the public domain.

Small images of what later became Alfred E. Neuman were used by Harvey Kurtzman in the magazine from the early days.  An established image of a grinning, gap-toothed, moon-faced boy often seen in American advertising since the nineteenth century appeared in the magazine at odd places, mostly in the margins.  

During the transition from comic to magazine, the new Mad staff felt that the magazine needed a face.  Kurtzman had already used the gap-toothed kid image, but with larger magazine format and full-gradient color, the image needed to be rendered in a much more presentable style if it was to be the key feature of the magazine cover.​

Artist Norman Mingo responded to a New York Times ad, “ILLUSTRATOR WANTED.”  Mingo was sixty years old and needed the work prior to his retirement.  His nearly photo-realistic style, utilized in advertisements and magazine articles, has been compared to Norman Rockwell’s.  Mingo applied in person at 425 MADison Avenue, and nearly walked out when he found out where he actually was.

The first cover of Mad Magazine with the image of Alfred E. Neuman as painted by Norman Mingo.

Convinced to produce one painting, Mingo created the face of Alfred E. Neuman, which debuted to the world on the cover of the December, 1956 issue of Mad.  

​​Mingo painted that same face on nearly every cover for the next twenty years.  Even though he’d had a distinguished resume and successful art career prior to responding to the Times ad, he is best known and revered for his work at Mad Magazine.

When I was very young, I knew that the Mad Magazines in the house were Brudder Dick's.  I also thought it was HIS image on the cover and that the magazine was about him, or maybe he was publisher.  I'll let the reader decide about the resemblance.

Initially, there was concern among Mad’s editorial staff that using Alfred’s face on every cover would make it difficult to come up with sufficient ideas.  However, the innovation of substituting Alfred’s face for the celebrity de jour guaranteed ideas for covers in perpetuity and monthly staff meetings were held to discuss cover ideas for the eight-issues-per-year magazine.
 
Soon, the Norman Mingo-created face of Alfred E. Neuman became the key icon of Mad Magazine, and Mad went on to become part of American culture.  At its peak in the 1970’s, the magazine published about two million copies per issue.  Dem Brudders were influenced, for better or worse, through a decades-long subscription to the magazine and I can still remember our model-hating mom announcing the arrival of the latest issue in the mail upon coming home from school.  Blame everything bad that happens on this website on Mad Magazine.

Perhaps the cover that has the most interest to modelers debuted in September, 1964.  On that issue, Frankenstein’s monster is carefully creating his own monster, a model of Alfred E. Neuman.  

Universal Studios threatened to sue for property use infringement after this cover hit newsstands.  Mad had to promise never to include the Karloff version of Frankenstein's monster on the cover again.  However, this promise did not extend to the insides of the magazine.  

In his usual lavishly detailed style, Mingo’s cover portrays a model kit box, used sprue, paint bottles and brushes, and a tube of glue that Frankenstein’s monster is using in excess.  This cover was released prior to the Aurora kit, so picky modelers can give Mingo a break for not being accurate to Aurora’s model.

Mad's editorial policy was strict regarding the depiction in the magazine of Alfred's face only in a straight-on view from front or rear; no profiles or three-quarter views were allowed as seen here.

With the Aurora/Revell kit, you have Alfred's head in three glorious dimensions.  Will the Alfred E. Neuman kit ever see the light of day again?  We can only hope the tooling gets parole in our lifetime.

In 1964, Aurora’s Universal Monster figure kits, Frankenstein included, were extremely popular with youngsters which no doubt inspired the cover in the first place.  Building plastic models was as popular and widely practiced in those days as video games are today.

​Mad Magazine hit its stride for decades with parodies and satire skewering movies, television shows, trends, personalities, news, and politics of the day. 

A few of our favorite artists were Al Jaffe, Don Martin, Sergio Aragones, and Dave Berg.  These and others thrived in a creative environment led by Bill Gaines, who was chief editor from the latter half of the 1950’s until his death in 1992.  Even though he passed away that year, his staff indicated that he was “still functioning in a reduced role” as editor of the magazine.

A typical 21st Century Alfred E. Neuman-as-celebrity cover.  for 67 years, Mad Magazine was never afraid of politics.  "Alfred E. Neuman for President" was an ongoing and enduring theme.

Alfred E. Neuman gag cover:  A good poke in the eye hasn't gotten any less funny since The Three Stooges quit doing it.

​Circa 2019, Mad Magazine announced that it would no longer be sold on newsstands with subsequent publications focusing on previous content.  In 2017, Rolling Stone stated,  "operating under the cover of barf jokes, Mad has become America’s best political satire magazine.”  We're sad to see it depart its traditional form.
​
You can still visit madmagazine.com to see what they're up to nowadays.  Dem Brudders recommend checking them out, at least until their lawyers take issue with our fair use of the material and free advertising for them that you're seeing here.
 
A lot has changed since Mad’s heyday.  Thanks to the Internet and social media, one not need look far for instantaneous satire and ridicule of today’s happenings.  The comment boards at the end of virtually every news story are full of the work of everyman would-be satirists and the really bad ones are often just as entertaining as the good ones.
 
To those modelers who miss the Alfred E. Neuman model kit and the old Mad Magazine, we can only say, Potrzebie!