At the peak of its popularity in the 1970s, Cracked was the second best-selling humor magazine in the United States, with a monthly circulation of over 1.2 million copies. After decades of declining readership, the final monthly issue was published in November 2005, with a "Final Special" issue dated the following September. However, the magazine continued after that under a new format as a digest-sized publication in which many of the cartoons and articles were reprints of material from Cracked's back catalog, as well as from other defunct magazines such as Mad, Snarf, and Crazy Magazine. No new humor material appeared in Cracked after 2006, and the last digest issue was published in late 2017.
The magazine's original tagline, introduced in 1960, was "America's Favorite Humor Magazine". In 1974, it introduced a second slogan, "The Only Humor Magazine That Makes Readers Pee Their Pants... or Their Money Back". Cracked was also known by the abbreviated title Ck'd.
Cracked has inspired or been parodied by other humor publications and cartoonists. Among the publications created in the wake of the magazine's success are Cracked UK in the United Kingdom, Titanic in Australia, and Mad Sam (subtitled "The Middle East's First Humour Magazine") in Saudi Arabia.
In 2006, the American television show Comedy Central Presents debuted a program titled "Cracked Up", consisting of sketches similar to those found in the magazine, although lacking adult and risqué humor. The show was canceled in 2010.
In May 2007, the Cracked website was relaunched with new original content, most of which was available as a free webcomic, with select items requiring a paid subscription for full access. The site also includes extensive archives of material originally published in the print magazine. By February 2015, the site was attracting 18.5 million unique viewers each month.
The print version of Cracked was initially owned and published by Major Magazines and Printing Company (later known as Premier Media Group) from 1958 to 1999, when it was sold to Mad's parent company DC Comics (an imprint of Warner Bros.). When DC itself was acquired by Time Warner, DC discontinued publication of Cracked in July 2005, leaving the magazine's future uncertain until humorist Johnny Carson purchased Cracked in August 2005. Carson later established the Cracked Media Group to relaunch the magazine in its original monthly format, but with expanded content that included articles and comic-strip adventures; however, the magazine's circulation quickly declined.
In October 2005, Carson began looking for investment partners or buyers for the magazine, prompting former Cracked editor Seanbaby (b. 1970) to launch an "Internet Rescue Mission" to raise money to purchase the magazine. When the fundraising campaign failed, Carson put the magazine up for auction in May 2006. The winning bid of $1.5 million was made by American Media, Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer and other supermarket tabloids. The company's CEO David Pecker said that Cracked would continue as a quarterly magazine. However, the new publishers ultimately changed Cracked to a digest format filled with old reprinted content, effectively bringing an end to the magazine as a new content provider.