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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Sunday, December 6, 2020
BLARNEY MILLER
BARNEY MILLER
1975-1982 ABC
BLARNEY MILLER
MAD #195, December 1977
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
A weekly sitcom about a police precinct initially featuring Captain Barney Miller (Hal Linden), Wojohowicz (Max Gail), Yemana (Jack Soo), Harris (Ron Glass), and Fish (Abe Vigoda), who eventually spun off into his own show (coming soon) and then came back. An occasional character they used for this MAD parody is Marty (Jack DeLeon) who was not a cop but usually brought in as a suspect.
It was considered acceptable for a mainstream magazine refer to someone as a “faggot” in 1977.
“Don't squeeze the Charmin” was a popular ad campaign then. Mr. Whipple, the man behind Fish, was the man in the commercials who would look on disapprovingly.
In the background here is Carl Leavitt (Ron Carey), another occasional character who later got top billing.
The inspector suspects the cops are all on the take and explains why.
The show only had the one set, and as such, the plot were not about the investigations but the reports.
This was the seventies version of “woke”.
The suspect in the final panel is Mayor Abe Beame.
Cover artist Norman Mingo once drew a portrait of the mayor
MAD foresaw a potential spinoff in TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in #206, April 1979, written by Tom Koch and drawn by Harry North, Esq. The show didn't joke about Wojo's Polish heritage but MADdid. As I mentioned before, Polish jokes were a big thing in the seventies. (see Banacek link)
MAD artist Jack Davis did a TV Guide cover of the show's cast.
Cracked did three parodies. The first one is from #139 in January 1977.
And here's the second one.
BLARNEY MILLER
Cracked #176, March 1981
a: John Severin
Actor Jack Soo had died at this point, and they replaced him with Dietrich (Steve Landesberg), known for statistics and trivia, what we call being on the spectrum now. (I would know. Why do you think this @#$%* blog exists?)
The commanding officer (a caricature of Telly Savalas as Kojak) tells Barney the precinct they need to cut costs. Harris is an aspiring writer.
Barney is trying to discuss ways to cut costs with his squad but all Harris wants to do is take photos for his book.
He's getting sick of being unable to concentrate with flashbulbs going all over the place, until Harris informs him the publisher is paying for the photo shoot.
Now that their financial problems are over, they can go home. But before that, he needs to get Dietrich to shut up.
This was their third and last parody.
BLARNEY MILLNER
Cracked #186, May 1982
a: John Severin
Harris has been assigned the duty of painting the precinct and a suspect they brought in is a suspect who thinks he's a superhero who calls himself Captain Democracy.
The suspect Wojo brought in is a pickpocket.
They didn't use the usual “your case isn't funny enough” punchline.
BALONEY MILLER
Crazy #22, January 1977
w: Len Herman
a: Kent Gamble
The precinct is told by Inspector Luger (James Gregory) they need to cut costs in another story dealing with New York's financial crisis.
A character they had early on that wasn't in the MAD parody is Chano (Gregory Sierra), also on Jack Davis' TV Guide cover.
Since they had only one set, arrests are made off-camera. The cops bring their suspects in.
The city has fired all their judges as part of their cutbacks so the police must sentence criminals themselves.
Sick did two parodies of the show. The first one was drawn by Jerry Grandenetti. Grandenetti was a golden age artist, doing a lot of work for DC's war comics as well as assisting Simon & Kirby and Will Eisner.
BLARNEY MILLER
Sick #109, April 1976
a:Jerry Grandenetti
They call the article Blarney Miller that but they don't use that name for the character. They don't do puns on anyone's name, for that matter.
Even though the show was ethnically diverse, they never really pointed it out. These magazines made it a bigger deal than it actually was and as I said before, it was a common thing to do in the seventies.
I guess if you're going do some ethnic jokes you may as well also have some homophobia.
The woman inspecting the precinct finally finds evidence of police brutality. You see, because it's the grilling room. Get it?
Bella Abzug was a prominent lawyer and member of congress in the 70s
BLARNEY MELLOW
Sick #117, August 1977
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling
BLARNEY MILLER
Bananas #42, 1981
w: Jovial Bob Stine
a: Samuel B. Whitehead
Bob Stine was an in-house writer and editor of all sorts of books and magazines for Scholastic such as this one, but would go on to bigger fame and fortune as the author of the Goosebumps series.
UPDATE:
I had Cracked's first Barney Miller spoof on my wantlist and now I'm able to include it. I've added it back there with the others. Photoshop wouldn't let me “colorize” it and everything got all clonky when I tried to and I can't figure out why.
In the Mad parody, the Don Martin character on page 2 is from a superhero parody he did called Captain Klutz. It didn't run in the magazine; only in several of the paperbacks they put out.
In the first Cracked parody, there are a whole bunch of cameos. Most are obvious: Archie Bunker on page 1, Toody and Muldoon from Car 54 Where Are You on page 3, Al Pacino and Telly Savalas on page 4, the Godfather on page 6. The only one that's obscure is at the start of page 5: that's Richard Widmark, from a movie he starred in as a cop called Madigan. Severin must have liked that one, because he threw that character into a few cop spoofs.
In the second Cracked parody, the guy on the wanted poster on page 2 is a character from another story Severin illustrated in that issue, The Great Chicago Heist.
In the third Cracked parody, the joke about Reagan that Severin squeezed in at the end refers to a controversy about school lunches. In order to cut spending while still pretending to satisfy nutritional requirements, a proposal at the USDA infamously classed ketchup as a vegetable.
In the Mad parody, the Don Martin character on page 2 is from a superhero parody he did called Captain Klutz. It didn't run in the magazine; only in several of the paperbacks they put out.
ReplyDeleteIn the first Cracked parody, there are a whole bunch of cameos. Most are obvious: Archie Bunker on page 1, Toody and Muldoon from Car 54 Where Are You on page 3, Al Pacino and Telly Savalas on page 4, the Godfather on page 6. The only one that's obscure is at the start of page 5: that's Richard Widmark, from a movie he starred in as a cop called Madigan. Severin must have liked that one, because he threw that character into a few cop spoofs.
ReplyDeleteIn the second Cracked parody, the guy on the wanted poster on page 2 is a character from another story Severin illustrated in that issue, The Great Chicago Heist.
In the third Cracked parody, the joke about Reagan that Severin squeezed in at the end refers to a controversy about school lunches. In order to cut spending while still pretending to satisfy nutritional requirements, a proposal at the USDA infamously classed ketchup as a vegetable.