[11] Unlike Neuman, who appears primarily on covers, Smythe sometimes spoke and was frequently seen inside the magazine, interacting with parody subjects and other regular characters.

The magazine's first editor was Sol Brodsky, who was better known as a journeyman artist and later production manager and a publishing vice president at Marvel Comics.

A number of monster-themed issues were printed under the Cracked umbrella, capitalizing on such publications as Fangoria and Famous Monsters of Filmland.

'"[16] The magazine also regularly featured good girl artist Bill Ward, comic book stalwart Howard Nostrand, and gag cartoonists Don Orehek and Charles Rodrigues.

In later years, the magazine was a useful training ground for such future independent comic book creators as Rick Altergott, Dan Clowes, and Peter Bagge.

'"[17] Other name artists who contributed at least once to Cracked include such Mad veterans as Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, Don Martin, and Basil Wolverton, and such future Mad contributors as Jack Rickard, Angelo Torres, Bill Wray, Greg Theakston, Dennis Snee, Mike Snider, Dean Norman, Charlie Kadau, May Sakami and Tom Richmond.

[18] Richmond, who drew four articles for Cracked, reported on his webpage that he was paid just $100 for a finished page, a small fraction of what he earned for his first Mad assignment.

The magazine also published "interview" articles featuring the recurring character Nanny Dickering (Nancy Dickerson was then an investigative newscaster).

[citation needed] One of the magazine's longest-running features was "Shut-Ups", which were two-panel gags in which a character would make an observation or excuse in the first panel, and then be told to "SHUT UP" in the second, as the true situation was visually revealed.

Other recurring features included "Ye Hang-Ups", "The Talking Blob", "Spies vs. Sabs" (originally "Saboteurs & Investigators") and, in the 1980s, "the Uggly Family" by Daniel Clowes.

In 1995, Greg Grabianski began his career as a writer and associate editor at Cracked before going on to write for TV and film projects including Beavis & Butthead and the Scary Movie franchise.

[citation needed] At its height, Cracked's circulation might have been a third of Mad's, with the overall total generally rising or falling along with the bigger magazine's fortunes.

Writer/editor Barry Dutter said, "One thing you have to realize is that AMI never wanted Cracked; it was just part of a package they bought from Globe Communications.

[14] Published reports indicate that American Media never had an interest in supporting the magazine, which was only selling in the high five figures, compared with AMI's multi-million-selling line of tabloids.

Combined with Cracked's weakened distribution, circulation continued to drop precipitously, and Kulpa was forced to turn the magazine into a bi-monthly.

Dark Horse Star Wars comic editor Peet Janes briefly joined the staff, but financial difficulties at the magazine ended his tenure very quickly.

[citation needed] In an effort to generate publicity, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen was named as the magazine's new "publisher," but this failed to spark interest.

[citation needed] Publisher Sarhan responded: My impression of Mort was that he was stuck in a time warp, wanted to relive his personal "glory days" when he edited CRACKED and didn’t get what we were trying to do.... A Contributing Editor is a freelancer with whom we have a relationship with [sic].

He's a person who is a regular contributor to the magazine, but he is not on staff ... Mort quit as a Contributing Editor because, he said, he had a few TV projects in development.

The first issue was a significant departure from Cracked's previous incarnation, notably in its sharp reduction of comics and illustrated content.

The new format was more text-heavy, and was overtly indebted to modern "lad mags" like Maxim, Stuff and FHM, although the media website Gawker.com wrote, "Very little remains of the old Cracked – a Mad ripoff that had tread water in various incarnations for almost half a century.

Much was made of the new direction now ripping off Maxim instead, but aside from a "look and feel" resemblance in terms of layout, the much more obvious (attempted) homage runs to Spy.

[32] Citing distribution problems for its demise, editor Jay Pinkerton claimed that the remaining staff would be focusing its energies toward the Cracked website, as well as unspecified book projects.

The company's website, Cracked.com, continued on and has become known for its humorous lists and compilations, such as "6 Most Ridiculous Things People Claimed to Legally Own".

[citation needed] A two-volume history of the magazine, If You're Cracked, You're Happy, written by Mark Arnold, was published in June 2011.