In the '50s Kurtzman's MAD magazine was Lenny Bruce for kids. As a comic book it was the comics inside out, all id, and going too fast for kids to catch, especially around the edges of the panels. Nine- and twelve-year-olds picking their way through the 1954 Dragnet parody "Dragged Net" weren't going to connect the question that Sgt. Joe Friday continually asked his partner Ed Saturday—"How's your mom, Ed?"—with Oedipus, and there was no Oedipus Rex payoff. That wasn't the point.

The point was "How's your mom, Ed?" as absolute non sequitur. What in the world did it mean? The phrase turned every already-crowded, hysterical page into a mystery, put a hole in it. There was the suggestion that there was more going on in the comics you read and the TV shows you watched than you would ever know.