Dave Berg (June 12, 1920 in Brooklyn – May 17, 2002 in Marina del Rey, California) was an American cartoonist, most noted for his five decades of work in Mad of which The Lighter Side of... was the most famous.

Berg showed early artistic talents, attending Pratt Institute when he was 12 years old, and later studying at Cooper Union.

Berg retains notoriety as a contributing “good girl artist” during the 50s and 60s for such publications as editor Abe Goodman's Humorama, rendering attractive women using pinup stylings generally in the form of one-panel humorous gags.

Berg would take an omnibus topic (such as "Noise," "Spectators" or "Dog Owners") and deliver approximately 15 short multi-panel cartoons on the subject.

Berg often included caricatures of his own family—headed by his cranky hypochondriac alter ego, Roger Kaputnik—as well as of the Mad editorial staff.

The artist's lightweight gags and sometimes moralistic tone were roughly satirized by the National Lampoon's 1971 Mad parody, which included a hard-hatted conservative and a longhaired hippie finding their only common ground by choking and beating Berg.

"[7] Fellow Mad contributor Al Jaffee described Berg's unique personality in 2009: "Dave had a messianic complex of some sort.

"[8] In this faith connection, Berg was additionally hired to contribute content to The Magazine For Jewish Children, The Moshiach Times, by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Sholom Pape.

'"[10] His characters occasionally made their way into other artists' works, such as Kaputnik finding himself a patient in a Mort Drucker spoof of St.

Between 2008 and 2017, Berg's old Lighter Side gags were given rewritten word balloons with inappropriately "un-Berg-like" humor by longtime Mad writer Dick DeBartolo and other staffers, while the art was unchanged.

[citation needed] After a long battle with cancer, he died in his home in Marina del Rey, California, shortly after midnight on May 17, 2002.