Your Tax Dollars At Work: In its January, 1958 issue, MAD Magazine featured a Monopoly-style game, the object of which was to avoid Selective Service. If you completed the game (which, of course, was not a playable game but just a batch of jokes), the "finish line" — seen at left — invited you to send to the head of the FBI, Mr. Hoover hisself, for your membership card in some spurious Draft Dodgers Society. Amazingly, like they had nothing better to do, the Federal Bureau of Investigation dispatched agents to the Mad offices to, basically, intimidate them into not doing anything like that again. Thereafter, they kept close tabs on the content of the magazine…which I guess is more important than tracking down murderers and racketeers. At least, it's safer. First time I heard this, I thought it was a joke or some gross exaggeration of reality…but it turned out to have been true. You can verify it via documents obtained by www.thesmokinggun.com, a well-known website that traffics in embarrassing paperwork.
You can actually read the FBI file on-line by clicking here and you may want to browse that site a bit while you're over there. It's full of fun stuff including this peek at the contracts that various performers have (or had) for concert appearances, itemizing the perks they demand. Frank Sinatra, for instance, had to have in his dressing room, two egg salad sandwiches, two chicken salad sandwiches, two sliced turkey sandwiches, three cans of Campbell's Chicken Rice soup, 12 rolls of cherry LifeSavers, etc. Make sure you read the one for David Copperfield.