"What? Me Worry?"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:50:22 -0400, Fred Shapiro wrote:

>Thanks to Sam and Ben Zimmer for their great posts on this.  It seems to
>me that this is really a Mad Magazine quote with the advertisement as a
>closely related precursor.  Can anyone tell me what was the exact date of
>the first issue of Mad with "What? Me Worry?," and was that the exact
>punctuation and capitalization there, and was it definitely Harvey
>Kurtzman who came up with this slogan?

I believe the first appearance of the slogan is on the cover of _Mad_ #30,
Dec. 1956: <http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/mad030.html>.

The text reads:

   Write-in Candidate for President
          ALFRED E. NEUMAN
               says
         "WHAT - ME WORRY?"

The FAQ for that site <http://www.collectmad.com/collectibles/FAQ.htm>
also says:

-----
What is the earliest image of Alfred E. Neuman?
This is a tough one because different people can see or not see his
likeness in early images. Also many of the early images are not dated.
Most collectors will agree that the earliest dated image that is
definitely Alfred E. Neuman is from the  Atmore’s Mince Meat Plum Pudding
ad dating from 1895. The ad can be found in the Illustrated London News
(the New York City edition).
http://www.collectmad.com/collectibles/atmorepie.jpg
-----

Nothing in the FAQ about the history of "(What) Me Worry".


--Ben Zimmer