FANTASY "BUY" LAND

FANTASY ISLAND
1977-1984 ABC

FANTASY "BUY" LAND
MAD #203, December 1978
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres

An anthology series that usually had two or three guest stars each week that came to a secret island in the Pacific to live out their wishes. They would be welcomed at the beginning by Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) and his assistant Tattoo (Herve Villechaise). Tattoo was the comedy relief often trying to make out with the women there to greet the arrivals.

Farrah Fawcett-Majors is the first guest on the island.

The other is Shaun Cassidy.

The waiter at the restaurant is Dick Van Dyke.

Often the fantasies of the guests taught them a lesson that what you wish for isn't always what it looks like.

Cracked did a parody called Funniest Island that's on my want list. They also had this in If Mork Appeared In Other TV Shows and Movies in #167, March 1980.

FANTASTIC ISLAND
Crazy #54, September 1979
w: Michael Weiss
a: Kent Gamble

Dick Van Dyke's in this one too. Also Hope Lange as the woman wishing to be the Hulk.

I have known the writer Michael Weiss for a while. He himself is a comedy writer and comics fan. He once told me some of his first printed work in high school was for Crazy, and recalls how happy he was to have sold some pieces to them, only to discover how much of the art he recognized as swiped from Mort Drucker. In an Incredible Hulk parody coming up in a few months, we'll show some panels that are even more blatant, and aren't even of celebrities. Below are a few panels where Hope Lange's likeness is taken directly from MAD's The Ghost and Mrs. Misses:

To be fair, Mr. Gamble wasn't much older himself and was directed specifically to draw like Drucker, who he obviously idolized, and being an illustrator seems to have been a phase.

REALITY ISLAND
Crazy #82, January 1983
w: Dana Kadison
a: Alan Kupperberg

Crazy's second parody of the show.

The writer in the splash page is Erich Segal. He is never referred to again in the story after this.

The second guest star is Barbara Eden. On the first few seasons of I Dream of Jeannie, censors allowed her bare her midriff but wouldn't allow the network to show her navel. Her series after this was Harper Valley PTA.

FANTASY I LAND
Sick #124, December 1978
a: Jack Sparling

Bert Lance was Jimmy Carter's budget director.

Ricardo Montalban also did commercials for the Chrysler Cordova.

The other visitors were Rev. Billy Graham, anti-homosexual activist Anita Bryant, and George Wallace, a presidential candidate that ran on the platform of segregation, though he was long out of the public eye at that point.

John Travolta, before he became a movie star, appears as a guest here.

One of the Looney Tunes compilation movies was framed to parody the show.
UPDATE:
FUNNIEST ISLAND
Cracked #155, November 1978
a: John Severin

I've been trying to find this issue for a while, but Chris Ekman of Barre, MA was able to locate it for me. This is one of the few spoofs Cracked did in the late 70s that didn't rely on someone like Fonzie or Mork.

Sometimes the guest stars on the show were recognizable and played themselves, as with this example of Gloria Steinem.

From The Final Segments to Popular TV Series in Crazy #47, February 1978, by Paul Laikin and John Reiner.

UPDATE 2:

FANTASTIC ISLAND
Bananas Looks at TV (probably a reprint), c. 1981
w: Jovial Bob Stine
a: Sam Viviano

Passengers are Ed Asner, Suzanne Somers, and O.J. Simpson

UPDATE 3:

cover for Mundo Loco (Crazy World), South American version of Cracked

Their version is called Crackpot Island

SCTV parody