Mad #465 (John Ficarra) - Kobe Bryant Issue - May 2006

Mark Fredrickson (cover), Keith Knight ("The Strip Club") and Hermann Mejia ("The NBA from A to Z") took turns drawing the much-maligned but multi-talented Laker shooting-guard.  Mejia's Kobe stretch from J to K is the best of the lot.  David Shayne's five-page, 26-joke article about the National Basketball Association is the anchor feature of the issue.  Shayne manages to exploit most of the pro basketball idiosyncrasies in the article.  Mad's Alfred E, Neuman replaces Jerry West in the NBA logo at the end.  Note the tooth gap.  The other excellent article in the issue is "A Day in the Life of Dick Cheney" by Scott Maiko and Drew Friedman.  Sadly, for most of us who lived through 2001-2008, this one is more fact than fiction.  [JAM 10/6/2014]

Color Pages: 46 of 52 pages (88%)
Humorous Content: 41 of 52 pages (79%)

Departments:
Random Acts of Mindless - The Fundalini Pages
Homo on the Range - Barebutt Mountain
Read It And Veep - A Day in the Life of Dick Cheney
Deface the Music - Mad's Out of Tune Grammy Outtakes
The Ol' Rall And Chain - 7 Periods Closer to Death
Pen And Stink - The Strip Club
Shooting from the Foul Rhyme - The NBA from A to Z
Mind over Bladder - Mad's Guide for Incontinent Psychics  [fake department]
Serge-In General - A Mad Look at Waiters and Waitresses
Condimental Illness - Taco Bell Hot Sauce Packets We'd Like to See
Joke And Dagger - Spy vs. Spy
You've Got Jail - Prison Fake

Fold-In - NSA Bug