question about magic_quotes_gpc not adding slashes into $_GET

I have a server where magic_quotes_gpc is set to On. It's my understanding that this should add slashes to something like "Joe's" so that it's "Joe\'s" but when I look in the db, it is in there as Joe's. This doesn't seem like it should be the anticipated behavior. Is there another setting in either PHP or MySQL that will subsequently strip out slashes from magic_quotes_gpc or override this setting such that the automatic adding of slashes isn't taking place? thanks, jon