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.
Updated daily. There's posts besides this one archived in the sidebar on the right, you clods!
if you're at a laptop or desktop, right-click and open link on pages and they'll be clearer and legible in a new window.
ZZZZPG
Cracked #105, November 1972
a: John Zeverin (Severin)
ZPG stood for Zero Population Growth, an idea floating around at the time (still talked about at flat-earth levels) that was the basis for this movie, the concept of this dystopian science-fiction film (basically the only kind of science-fiction before Star Wars). In this future, the population of earth has become so uncontrollable that there is a moratorium on all births for thirty years, punishable by death.
Russ (Oliver Reed) and Carol (Geraldine Chaplin) are a couple who work at a twentieth-century museum and yearn to have an actual baby.
Walter Matthau as Kotch is in the opening panel. That movie is also spoofed in this issue.
There is an option for couples such as this who are allowed to adopt realistic dolls that won't eat, so won't burden an already overpopulated Earth. This isn't good enough for Russ and Carol, who want a real baby. (They conceive one in the movie but here they buy one on the black market). They have to hide the fact that theirs is real to not tip off the authorities or anyone who sees them and is required to turn them in.
Their neighbors, George (Don Gordon) and Edna (Diane Cilento) know they have a real baby and want to share or else they'll turn Russ and Carol in.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was about two progressive couples that tried everything new, building up to their attempt at a foursome. It received an X rating when released but today is tamer than any family film. Conversely, it's shocking what had G and PG ratings then.
Carol and Russ go underground and find their way to an island free from excess pollution, where they're free to raise a baby without consequences.
Parodies of the Planet of the Apes franchise, Rosemary's Baby, and Willard are also on this blog.
And that's all she wrote. I've run out of movie parodies for now, but more will probably show up eventually and I'll post those as I get them. I'm still around on all other major social networks for anyone wanting to find me, though I'm considering quitting Twixter soon, since a mass exodus seems to be afoot.
ZERRO, THE GAY BLADE
MAD #231, June 1981
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Zorro has existed since early last century from pulps to Saturday matinees to early television. He was a swashbuckler in Mexico famous for marking his victims with a Z with his sword. A movie was made with George Hamilton in which he had to choose between either passing the torch to his son or his brother, who he also played. George Hamilton had previously been in the Dracula spoof Love at First Bite.
The following was from MAD's Academy Awards Show
ED ZORROW CALLS ON MORRO
This Magazine Is Crazy #6, September 1958
a: Tony Couch?
Zorro was an early segment on TV's Disneyland. This comic parodies Person to Person, an interview show hosted by newscaster Edward R. Murrow.
All TV shows and movies mentioned in this post have also been parodied and are featured here.
ZOO CHARADE
Panic #9, June-July 1955
w: Jack Mendelsohn
a: Joe Orlando
Marlin Perkins of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and announcer Jim Hurlbut would talk about various animals there. It was sponsore by Mutual of Omaha, sort of a precursor to the later Wild Kingdom series.
ZAPPING
MAD #258, October 1985
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
In Zapped!, Scott Baio and Willie Aames play two teenagers who obtain telekenetic powers that make them able to take off womens' clothes. From Academy Awards for Teenage Films. That's right, they call them “films” and not “movies”.
YOUNG SURESCHLOCK HOMELY
MAD #263, June 1986
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
The origin of Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe), how he met Watson (Alan Cox), and their first major case.
The prologue to the movie has someone shot with a blowdart and being injected with a poison that makes them hallucinate, part of the case they end up breaking. John Watson enrolls in Brompton boarding school where he meets Sherlock Holmes, who guesses his name and identity based on his clothing and belongings, a foreshadowing of the deductions we know him for. At the beginning of the film, Sherlock is challenged by a classmate to find a hidden trophy, which he concludes is inside an antique vase based on clues he discovers while looking for it. He's expelled from the school for cheating by schoolmaster Rathe (Anthony Higgins) who is also his friend and fencing instructor. Rupert Waxflatter (Nigel Stock), a former professor of Sherlock's and eccentric inventor, kills himself while the victim of the same mysterious blowdart perpetrator. Dr. Waxflatter's niece is Elizabeth (Sophie Ward) is Sherlock's girlfriend, and with Watson they decide to solve the case and find what happened.
Sherlock seeks the aid of Lt. LeStrade of Scotland Yard (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) who refuses to help. In their search for what's been happening in town, Sherlock and Watson come across an Egyptianh sacrificial cult, who has just kidnapped Elizabeth.
They find Rathe has been the leader of the cult all along and create a distraction to destroy the temple while saving Elizabeth. Sherlock challenges Rathe to a duel and wins. Elizabeth is shot in all this. The case is solved and Sherlock Holmes goes home for the year, promising Watson that some day they'll meet again.
A CRACKED LOOK AT YOUNG SCHLOCK HOLMES
Cracked #220, July 1986
w: Joe Catalano
a: Walter Brogan
It would be better to see more of this style from Walter Brogan than the Mort Drucker swipes they usually printed but I guess it's what they wanted. It would also be nice if I got some of these gags. But if “ifs and buts” were candy and nuts...
THE YOUNG BUMS
MAD UK #270, October 1984
w: Robert Seaville
a: David Stoten
Surreal sitcom from Britain that was a huge hit in the US when rerun on MTV, about four college students and their landlord. Rick (Rik Mayall) was the student who went through his leftist politics and anarchy phase and thought he was better than everyone, but secretly into mainstream entertainment like Cliff Richard (The Young Ones was named after an earlier movie and song of his). Vivian (Ade Edmondson) was the violent metal punk with a pet hamster named Special Patrol Group , Neil (Nigel Planer) was a hippie that was always ignored by the group, Mike The Cool Guy (Christopher Ryan) was publicly a ladies man and straight man of the group (he wasn't in the comedy circle the rest of them were part of). Jerzy Bulofsky (Alexei Sayle) was the landlord who dropped in time to time, drifting in and out of a Russian accent, and usually doing monologues from his stand-up routine.
Coincidentally, Bottom was the name of a show some of them did later on.
Neil was responsible for doing the cooking in the house, usually making things with lentils.
Rik Mayall was also one of the writers for the show.
Every week, there were two minutes with a musical guest, the reason it was rerun on MTV in the eighties.
The show would often be interrupted by talking animals and objects that had nothing to do with the plot. At the end is an appearance by Cliff Richard himself.
THE WRONG LIONS
MAD #41, September 1958
a: Mort Drucker
A movie about World War II based on a book by Irwin Shaw, with Marlon Brando as Christian Dietsl, Dean Martin as Michael Whiteacre, and Montgomery Clift as Noah Ackerman.
YOUNG BUMS
Cracked #243, March 1989
w & a: Rick Altergott
Western about the Lincoln County Regulators, “Dirty” Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney), “Doc” Scurlock (Keifer Sutherland), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Charlie Bowdre (Casey Siemasko), and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), ranch hands under the tutelage of John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) that all join Billy “The Kid” Bonney (Emilio Estevez). Tunstall has a feud with rival rancher Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance).
Lou Diamond Phillips' big breakthrough was as Ritchie Valens in La Bamba.
One of Murphy's hired hands, McCloskey (Geoffrey Blake), joins up with Tunstall, while Doc attempts to court Murphy's Chinese ward, Yen Sun (Alice Carter). Murphy's men kill Tunstall, leading his lawyer friend Alexander McSween (Terry O'Quinn) to arrange for the Regulators to be deputized and given warrants for the killers' arrest. Hotheaded Billy challenges Dick's authority as the group's foreman, as the Regulators attempt to take Murphy's henchmen in alive. Instead, Billy guns down several unarmed men, including McCloskey, whom he suspects of still working for Murphy. Newspapers paint the Regulators as a deadly gang headed by a larger-than-life outlaw, "Billy the Kid".With bounty hunters seeking them all over the West and unsure where to go, Chavez leads the others on a peyote trip.
One of the men on their warrants. Buckshot Roberts (Brian Kieth), tracks them down and a shootout ensues. Roberts barricades himself in an outhouse and kills Dick, and as a reaction, the rest of the Regulators shoot up the outhouse. This lead the others to go on the run, while an injured Doc goes his own way. Chavez reveals that Murphy's corruption led to the deaths of his mother and her Navajo tribe, and urges the others to abandon their need for bloodshed, but Billy takes charge as their new leader, determined to avenge Tunstall. Doc visits Yen Sun before rejoining the gang, and they kill the corrupt Sheriff William J. Brady (Danny Kamin) and his men. They meet with a furious Alex, who explains that their badges have been revoked. Though they are now wanted men, Billy insists that their actions will bring attention to Murphy's corruption. While Charlie revisits a brothel, Billy kills an arrogant bounty hunter, and the gang escapes to Mexico, where Charlie marries a local woman. Soon-to-be-sheriff Pat Garrett (Patrick Wayne) warns Billy that Murphy's men will make an attempt on Alex's life the following day.
At Alex's house in Lincoln, the gang is surrounded by Murphy's men and famed outlaw John Kinney. Realizing that they were lured into a trap, the Regulators survive an entire day's shootout. U.S. Army troops on the Houses take arrive, as does Murphy himself with Yen, who runs inside and is reunited with Doc. Murphy orders the soldiers to set fire to the house, while Alex's wife leaves unharmed and Chavez slips away. Trapped in the burning attic, the gang throws Alex's possessions out of the window, including a trunk with Billy inside, allowing him to surprise their attackers.
Young actors in the late eighties were often referred to as “the brat pack”, a reference to the previous generation of entertainers that was called “the rat pack”.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN—UNSEEN
Sick # 102, February 1975
a: Jerry Grandenetti
How do you do a parody of a parody? Sick thought of a novel way to do it. Their solution: you don't. This is just a parody of the Frankenstein legend. I've pointed out that in some of these magazines they do a spoof without ever having seen the target, here they admit it. They don't even try to make the characters look like Gene Wilder or Peter Boyle, or even have the monster be bald. It's even possible they may have had an article already and added the name to cash in on the release of the movie.
From If Movies Were Combined in Cracked #131, March 1976, art by John Severin
Crazy often used stock photos in their subscription ads. Here they used a still from Young Frankenstein.
YOUNG EISTRAIN
Australian MAD #287, April 1989
w & a: Warren Brown
His real name is Greg Pead, which is actually funnier than his stage name.
Showcase for Yahoo Serious, a comedian who had his fifteen minutes of fame here in the U.S. during our brief period of Ozploitation in the late eighties. Young Einstein concerns the exploits of Albert Einstein as a youth. How he developed carbonated beer and went to the city to patent his formula, had it stolen and thus in danger of having the bubbles create the nuclear bomb, and along the way he invented surfing and rock & roll, and had a romance with Marie Curie (Odile LeClezio).
