AMERICAN GIGGLER

AMERICAN GIGOLO (1980)
dir: Paul Schrader

AMERICAN GIGGLER
Crazy #68, November 1980
w: Paul Kupperberg
a: Gary Hallgren

As a gigolo, in the parody Julian Kane (Richard Gere) is constantly surrounded by tailors and groomers.

One of Kane's clients early on is Mr. and Mrs. Rheiman (Tom Stewart, Patti Carr). He is paid by the husband to watch him have sex with the wife.

Though since it is a magazine read by kids they can't mention that his occupation is prostitution so within the parody, when they say he plays games for money, he plays board games.

The reason the house is full of sand and water is New York writers' way of mocking the idea of a beachfront house

He later cruises a hotel bar and sees a woman, Michelle (Lauren Hutton) sitting by herself and propositions her.

(“Dewey Defeats Truman” was a famous newspaper headline when the Chicago Tribune wrongly predicted the 1948 Presidential race). He's suspected in the murder of the couple he met earlier, and approached by a detective named Sunday (played in the movie by Hector Elizondo, but drawn here like Friday from Bill Elder's Dragnet parody from a few decades earlier. The “DOMM DA DOMM DOMM” is taken from that as well.)

Julian realizes he is being framed for the murder and seeks the solace of everyone including Michelle (her husband is a Senator. ABSCAM was a sting operation that brought down many politicians)

He finds that Mrs. Rheiman's money has been planted inside his car.

He goes to see his friend Leon, a pimp for male escort (Bill Duke, who looks nothing like this, but is drawn to look like a “pimp” stereotype) who he finds out is the one who framed him.

Julian murders Leon, and is arrested for that crime. Michelle comes to visit him in prison.

This is the only movie parody I know of to be drawn by Gary Hallgren, who a decade earlier had been one of the Air Pirates, a group of cartoonists sued by Walt Disney Productions for parodying, their characters, which is the small reference in the splash panel.

The problem with this particular parody is the “chicken fat”, the little sight gags all artists draw, here have jokes within the jokes which distracts from the story.