A-Z GUIDE TO MOVIES AND TV SHOWS PARODIED BY MAD, CRACKED, CRAZY, ETC. UP TO 1996. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. SPOILERS AND OTHER NON-SEQUITURS, TOO. SOMETIMES THESE THINGS HAVE WORDS OR SITUATIONS WE DON'T USE ANYMORE. YOU KNOW, 'CAUSE THEY'RE OLD.
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“What in the wide world of sports is going on here”
--Slim Pickens, BLAZING SADDLES
ABC TV'S WILD WORLD OF SPORTS
MAD #102, April 1966
w: Al Jaffee
a: George Woodbridge
Sports show before there were several all-sports channels covering lesser-known events like racing and skiing. The show was hosted by Jim McKay. Ken Sanguine and the other field commentators don't seem to be based on anyone in particular.
From When American TV Programs Are Shown in Russia by Lou Silverstone and Angelo Torres in #272, July 1987.
THE WIDER WORLD OF SPORTS
Cracked #139, January 1977
a: John Severin
Howard Cosell, obligatory appearances by Kojak and The Fonz.
Chris Schenkel. Bill Flemming
The Ty-D-Bol Man was a mascot that lived in the toilet tank.
WEIRD WORLD OF SPORTS
Sick #107, December 1975
w: Kim Bene
a: Tony Tallarico
Jean-Claude Killy was the biggest downhill sking star then and Evel Kneivel started the daredevil motorcycle craze of the 70s.
Keith Jackson and Frank Gifford were also correspondents on the show.
BIG BIG EARTH
MAD #39, May 1958
w: Bob & Ray and Tom Koch
a: Mort Drucker
When MAD started under the editorship of Al Feldstein, they used a lot of the work of comedians at the time, reprinting material or having them write new stuff. Bob and Ray were among them. Bob's probably most known now as Chris Elliott's father, but for decades was half of a comedy team with a career than spanned from a radio show to an appearance on Saturday Night Live. This piece is credited to Tom Koch, who was a writer for both them and for MAD. Many of the pieces by famous comedians were probably done by their writers. A lot of MAD's writer's also worked for TV. Mort Drucker was one of about a dozen of the artists hired for MAD and when he was given the assignment of the Bob and Ray sketches, they realized he was the best at caricature, so was used when they started doing more movie and TV parodies.
Wide Wide World was a documentary series hosted by Dave Garroway. The difference between this parody and that show is that the field reporter didn't interview the subjects.
Dave Huntley is a play on reporters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. The Trade Mark figures in the globes are the Smith Brothers, mascots of a cough drop brand. Dave Garroway was also host of the Today Show, and would sign off by holding out his hand in from of the camera.
THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ (1968)
dir: George Marshall
MOVIE SPOOF
Sick #62, August 1968
w: Bill Majeski
Sorry everything's all scrunched up. It's all I could find on YouTube. Well, there are a couple other things. Another copy of the whole movie's there, but the link's only been there a year and I don't trust any links to stay if they've been up less than two years. There's also the opening titles on my own web page, which contains mostly animated sequences from movies. (Suggestions always welcome, but do a search to make sure they're not already there first). Almost everything I've posted a spoof of is on YouTube for that matter, the catch is they charge money, and I ain't payin' fer nuthin'.
MAD #266, October 1966
w: Dennis Snee
a: Mort Drucker
“Will they or won't they?” sitcom about Tony Micelli (Tony Danza), en ex-ball player, who leaves Brooklyn with his daughter Samantha (Alyssa Milano) and moves to Connecticut to be a live-in maid for Angela Bower (Judith Light) and her son Jonathan (Danny Pintauro). Rounding the cast is Angela's mother Mona Robinson (Katherine Helmond. An older horny woman named Robinson. You get it?)
1Benchley was a newspaper strip Drucker was doing in the late eighties that he'd plug in every MAD piece. He's pictured later.
WHAT'S THE BEEF?
Cracked #220, July 1986
w: Joe Catalano
a: John Reiner
“Where's the beef?” was a slogan for Wendy's that became the “Whassup?”/”Yeah, Baby!”/”My wife” of the mid-eighties. Even those references are just as dated. What's the equivalent now?
Richie's brother Chuck was in the first three or four episodes of Happy Days, then disappeared and was never mentioned again.
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)
dir: Mike Nichols
WHO IN HECK IS VIRGINIA WOOLFE?
MAD #109, March 1967
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker
Called that because the some of characters sing it to the tune of Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, but just its meter, probably because they couldn't get the rights, as if it's the funniest thing they ever heard. It had an adults only warning when it was released theatrically before there was a rating system, though by today's standards there's nothing particularly dirty other than their behavior and somebody being called “angel boobs”. It had to pass MAD's ratings, which is why they used 'heck' instead of 'hell' in the title.
George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) are a forty-ish married couple coming back from a faculty party late at night drunk and as soon as they get home they start sparring verbally and going through wild mood swings,fighting, making up, being passive-aggressive, loving, then yelling at each other again.
Martha neglected to tell George she invited Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis). He's a much younger professor who was also at the party and she's his wife. They see the fighting and don't really want to be there, but now George insists they stay for drinks and some games.
Honey goes upstairs to the bathroom to freshen up and Martha joins her, leaving the men alone. Nick talks about his job as a biology professor, and George keeps forgetting whether the subject is biology or history. When Honey and Martha come down, Honey asks about the son Martha mentioned while they were gone, which George says he doesn't want to talk about. The subject of their son keeps coming up again. George disappears into the garage, gets out a rifle, shoots at them all and scares them, but it turns out to be a joke gun and an umbrella comes out, then they all laugh. The younger couple also get drunk, Honey can't handle her liquor, and throws up.
They all decide to call it a night. George and Martha drive them home, but they stop at a bar because the women want to go dancing. Honey dances but suddenly doesn't like the music and sits down. Nick and Martha dance together. They all drink and fight some more with Martha belittling George for being a failed author.
Martha takes off abandoning George by the side of the road, returns home to find Honey asleep in the car, and suspects Martha and Nick have gone off together. Martha is just belittling Nick, making him do chores, calling him “houseboy”, and he just wants to leave.
Martha brings up their son again, who she says is coming home from boarding school to celebrate his birthday, but George tells her he died in a car accident and that he ate the telegram that informed them. It's revealed that the son never existed and the “games” they were playing were about who could humiliate each other the most in front of the guests. George had to kill the son off to punish Martha for letting out their secret, and the son was made up to keep their marriage together. Nick and Honey decide it's finally time to leave.
WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? (1971)
dir: Ulu Grosbard
>
The last of the movies with long names that started with Dr, Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, then continued with Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad and Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?.
SICK MOVIE REVIEW
Sick #89, March 1972
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (1988)
dir: Robert Zemeckis
WHO DE-FAMED ROBBER RABBIT?
MAD #284, January 1989
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
Film noir that was a big hit for its many cameo appearances by characters from cartoons from the 30s-50s from different studios. It took place in 1947, with detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) reluctantly taking the case of animation studio head R. K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) who suspects the reason for his star performer Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer)'s poor performance is that his wife Jessica (Kathleen Turner) is having an affair with Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Eddie photographs the evidence, submits it to Roger, the next day Marvin is murdered. Roger has been set up and goes to Eddie to clear his name and this leads a plot by Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) of Toontown, the town where all the cartoon characters live, to destroy the area to make room for a freeway. Eddie, who previously hated 'toons', learns to appreciate them.
The MAD parody is about what was supposed to have happened after the story ended.
The character sitting on the curb is Baby Herman, Roger Rabbit's co-star, who acts like a baby on film, but is a talking adult who smokes when off the set. George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis were the main Presidential candidates of 1988.
'Patty cake' was what Jessica and Marvin were caught doing and literally that, not any actual sexual act. “I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way” was Jessica's tagline in the movie.
Benny, also voiced by Charles Fleischer, was Roger's taxi in the movie's big chase scene. Alfred Hitchcock is always shorthand for “movie director” when it's not Erich Von Stroheim. Mommie Dearest was a book written by Joan Crawford's daughter about how cruel she apparently was.
Howard the Duck, one of the first movies based on a Marvel character before the Marvel Universe was conceived for Hollywood, was considered one of the biggest flops of the 80s. I never saw it. Maybe in retrospect it wasn't as bad as people say it was.
WHEN ROGER RABBIT TECHNOLOGY TAKES OVER ALL OF HOLLYWOOD'S FILMS
MAD #285, March 1989
w: Stan Hart
a: Bob Clarke
As we all know, animation and live action has been done several times since the 80s, then there's CGI and deepfakes, and soon A.I. Will replace all of us.
THE GREAT TOON SURPLUS SALE
MAD #292, March 1990
w: Larry Siegel
a: Angelo Torres
The lower left has Fox and the Crow which had few cartoons in the series and was already discontinued 40 years before this. There was a long-running comic book adaptation of it but even that was over long before most readers of this would have been born.
The weasel with the steamroller was one of Judge Doom's minions in the movie. Magilla Gorilla, next to Mickey and Donald, might be known by some.
German cover.
WHO FWAMED ROGER WABBIT?
Cracked #241, December 1988
w: Rick Kriegel (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
Elmer Fudd narrates the parody. Steven Spielberg wasn't the director. He may not even have been on the set. He was executive producer which could mean a lot of things.
Eddie spent a lot of time at a bar. The waitress was Joanna Cassidy.
Judge Doom had a solution called Dip, which was essentially ink remover, that he planned to execute Roger with.
Eddie hates Toons because one killed his brother. As he's about to be killed, Judge Doom reveals that he was that Toon, which is all Eddie needs to snap out of his hatred, turn the tables, and regain his sense of humor.
Disney release a few Roger Rabbit cartoons with their full-length movies in their attempt to bring cartoons back to theaters.
CRACKED INTERVIEWS ROGER WABBIT
Cracked #245, July 1989
w: Vic Bianco (Lou Silverstone)
a: John Severin
Cher, Morton Downey Jr., and Mel Blanc are the big Lakers fans.
