"Some of the people MAD has "worked on" over the years have taken offense at the magazine's irreverence. Gaines smiled as he recalled some of the magazine's more notable lawsuits. "One of the first was Ava Gardner who had just finished filming `The Barefoot Contessa.' She was upset because we ran a parody called `The Barefoot No-Contessa.' Then Dentyne got after us when we ran ads for Cavetyne Chewing Gum. There have been so many threats that after all this time they sort of blend together. "Especially when we were younger, it seemed like people got offended by these things. There were a lot of lawsuits but over the years we've always been able to jolly everybody out of it who took offense. We'd say, 'Aw, come on, this is only MAD Magazine. We're only fooling around.' We really haven't had any serious court cases in years.""