Harvey Kurtzman’s Humbug
 Humbug.
I suppose it’s not exactly a race, but I’d take the first 23 issues of Mad over it.
There are a couple of perenial issues that pop up in this book, pop up forever and ever. Take this from October 1957:
This promises to be a the most enjoyable school year for the kids yet. Happy rough and tumble classes will be afforded by overcrowded classrooms and busy busy teachers who will have little time to inhibit children. Teachers taking after-school jobs to supplement pay will have no time to create or check oppressive homework. Budget slashes and paper shortages will cancel a good part of annoying written tests. Following pages show more of the joys of today’s school life.
The image shown is of an aged building, replete with added on “anex”, “sub-anex”, and two outhouses, and a comically overflowing school bus with puffing smoke. The school is next to the “City Dump”, and in front of a city landscape with the (then modern innovation) fancy super-market, before a shiny Sports Stadium, and again.
Skipping forward:
“Typical schoolday starts with pledge of allegiance. A full and complete dossier is kept on the half-hearted performers.”
2 school children are shown dutifully with their hands raised, as the Pledge used to be done, the third kid is a stereotypical bearded Anarchis with the classic bowling ball bomb in hand. The teacher has notebook in hand, eyeing the third kid.
“Citizens Responsible for Fine Schools.”
One man in these four hits me as rather familiar. Col. Good Oldays — “says improvement lies in going back to little red school-house. Was good enough for him.”
I remember a “Citizen’s Form Letter” which was sent out to my town back in high school arguing against proposed bond measures for the schools. This was the gist of his argument, it was good enough for him, why make these changes to the school? The letter had a half dozen typos in it. The bond issue, incidentally, failed the first two times, and then the third time was broken into three parts, where two of the three failed. The Gym and Athletics Facility part failed, which I suppose was just as well.
Another perenial topic pops up in the old Humbug, regarding prospective relocations for the old Brooklyn Dodgers franchise.
Baseball minded town of Grunch (Idaho) makes attractive proposal for New Home for the Majors.
Smile and nod.