GORYSON'S GORILLAS

GARRISON'S GORILLAS
ABC 1967-1968

GORYSON'S GORILLAS
Cracked #71, September 1968
a: John Severin

TV series ripped off from inspired by The Dirty Dozen, about a WWII troop of criminals fighting the Nazis that will be absolved if they live. The troop was led by Warden Garrison (Ron Harper) and consisted of Actor (Cesare Danova), Chief (Brendon Boone), Casino (Rudy Solari), and Goniff (Christopher Cary).

Lee Marvin is caricatured in the last panel.

GANG DUSTERS

GANG BUSTERS
CBS 1936-1957

GANG DUSTERS
Crazy #1, December 1953
w: Stan Lee
a: Davy Berg

Radio show, short-lived TV series, and movie serial of "true crime cases".

And yes, it's the same Dave Berg. Stop asking.

She has some type of towel that clings to her waist. Maybe such a thing existed in the 50s.

G. I. DONUT BOYS

G. I. DONUT BOYS
Cracked #167, March 1980
a: John Severin

There's this one gag in The Phynx, a movie comedy about a rock band recruited as part of a secret operation to rescue actors that have been captured by a foreign government. After weeks of rigorous military training they are given much needed R & R by the government who sets them all up with groupies. Everybody is getting laid except one member and out of nowhere Patsy Kelly pops up and offers him a donut. The whole movie is cameo appearances by Hollywood stars for no reason at all, so I figured that's all there was to it.I didn't know that donut dollies were a real thing, service volunteers who made donuts for soldiers. The movie came out in 1970, so there would be plenty of vets from World War II, and maybe those who finished their tour of duty in Vietnam, that got the reference.

FUN LADY

FUNNY LADY (1975)
dir: Herbert Ross

MAD #179, December 1975
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

Sequel to earlier movie Funny Girl about the life of comedian Fanny Brice (Barbara Streisand), this one concentrating on her marriage to songwriter/producer Billy Rose (James Caan)

The movie begins with Fanny finishing a show and going backstage ready to see her husband Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif) only to be greeted with divorce papers. Later, as she's going over her finances, she meets fast-talking stenographer Billy Rose.

When Fanny is at a club, she's approached by Rose, an aspiring songwriter, who asks her to record a song of his, and talks her into investing in it in exchange for profits, if there are any. He later promotes a Broadway show using her name without her consent.

Fanny's manager Bobby is played by Roddy McDowall.

After Fanny agrees to do the show, anything that could possibly go wrong does, with props breaking and animals running loose. Billy breaks into Fanny's hotel room under the pretense that he needs to make a phone call to bookies and tells her he's in deep financial trouble unless he makes significant changes to the show and asks for her help.

One night when Fanny does her show, she sees Nick in the audience and tries to resist the urge to go back to him. Ultimately she makes the choice to marry Billy.

They didn't know it at the time, but the next version of A Star Is Born, the story of one half of a showbiz couple's rise to fame and the other's decline, remade every generation or two, would star Barbara Streisand.

Although Billy Rose and Fanny Brice are married, their careers keep them from ever seeing each other. She comes to see him while he's working on his show Aquacade and suspects something may be going on with his star Eleanor Holm.

In Beverly Hills, Nick comes to see Fanny again and she tells him how unfeeling he really is and how her heart belongs to Billy Rose. She flies to see him and finds he is in fact having an affair with Eleanor Holm. Flash forward to at least ten years later, after Fanny and Billy are long divorced, and he tries to convince her to appear in another Broadway production.

Fanny Brice was big in the 30s and 40s, probably most remembered for her character Baby Snooks.

FOOL HOUSE

FULL HOUSE
1987-1995 ABC

AMERICA'S PHONIEST HOME VIDEOS VISITS FOOL HOUSE
MAD #297, September 1990
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Bob Saget was hosting America's Funniest Home Videos at the same time he was starring in this, but this parody has nothing to do with that show except a voice-over narration.

Michelle (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) was the youngest of the three daughters. The other daughters were Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and D. J. (Candace Cameron). The premise of the show was that Danny Tanner (Saget) was a recently divorced father, and had his brother-in-law Jesse (John Stamos) and Joey (Dave Coulier) help him take care of his daughters.

Samples of the one-liners are below.

FULL OF IT HOUSE
Cracked #292, September 1994
w: Greg Grabianski
a: John Severin

This was done four years later. By this time, Jesse had a wife Rebecca (Lori Loughlin) and had two sons, Nicky and Alex (Blake and Dylan Tuomy-Wilholt). Funny how earlier the youngest child was played by twins since children are usually played by twins because of child labor laws, but when it came time to bring in younger children, the characters were twins on the show.

Waco, Texas was the location of a religious cult that had a standoff and shootout with the government around this time.

The Olsen Twins became famous pop sensations for fifteen minutes in real life.

Lori Loughlin is probably better known for her stint in prison for falsifying her daughter's college application.

THE STOOGE-ITIVE

THE FUGITIVE (1993)
dir: Andrew Davis

THE STOOGE-ITIVE
MAD #325, February 1994
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres

Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), is a doctor wrongly accused of killing his wife (Sela Ward), and is being grilled by the police. Doctor Nichols (Jeroen Krabbe) is his co-worker and friend, Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), the man assigned to bring him to justice, and Frederick Sykes (Andreas Katsulas) is the one-armed man Kimble is going to prove is the real killer.

References are made throughout to other Harrison Ford movies. In the background of the splash panel is David Janssen, who played Richard Kimble in the TV series this is based on.

Kimble is sentenced to death and sent to prison on a transfer bus. In transit, one of the prisoners has a seizure and Kimble, being a doctor, is the only one who can treat him and must have free hands in order to do so. The sick man is faking it and makes the bus crash into a train, and instead of freeing everyone as intended, kills them. Kimble is presumed dead, but Marshal Gerard finds empty leg irons and realizes Kimble has escaped.

Richard Kimble has run away, escaping to a nearby hospital where he has sews the wound he has acquired while escaping and shaved off his beard. He escapes to a sewer, where he is cornered by the marshal and his men in a pipe leading to a dam, which he jumps off. None of the other men think he could have survived and consider the case closed, but Gerard thinks he's still on the loose.

Kimble has used various disguises and his calls from payphones have been traced. He finds Dr. Nichols, asks for change and leaves. The marshal questions Nichols, who refuses to cooperate, telling them Kimble is too smart for them. Kimble has gone to the hospital where he used to work, pretending to be a janitor while looking up the records of one-armed men. A nurse (Julianne Moore) has asked him to transport a sick patient, but he cures the patient which the nurse witnesses. Marshall Gerard catches up to Kimble yet again.

In the middle left panel is Dr. Kevorkian

Kimble escapes yet again into a St. Patrick's Day parade. At a medical conference, Dr. Nichols is speaking to promote a new drug called Provasic. Richard Kimble disrupts the speech to say he knows the records were falsified by Nichols to get FDA approval for the drug he stood to make millions from. He also knows how the murder of his wife went down--it was originally meant for him, Nichols arranged for Sykes, the one-armed man to commit the murder because Kimble would have come forth with this information, and he would have succeeded if it weren't for you meddling kids. This leads to a big fight on the rooftop, Gerard finally catches up again, and says he's known Kimble was innocent all along.

THE PHEWWW-GITIVE
Cracked #287, January 1994
w: Lou Silverstone
a: John Severin

The picture the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have on their wall is of co-creator Kevin Eastman.

Julianne Moore isn't caricatured here. Even though she'd had plenty of roles at that point, Lost World was her big breakthrough. Or maybe John Severin was just lazy.

Also not in the MAD parody are Kimble breaking into Sykes' house to get the evidence, the subsequent questioning by the feds, and Kimble's fight with him on the El train.

THE PHEWGITIVE
1963-1967 ABC
MAD #89, September 1964
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

The Fugitive started out as a TV series, which MAD did a parody of back in the day, with Barry Morse in the Marshal Gerard role. The formula was used later for Kung Fu and The Incredible Hulk, which were also parodied by the other major humor magazines, and will be posted soon.

Jack Palance's show was The Greatest Show on Earth, which was only on that one season.

I believe the police chief is supposed to be Bert Lahr.

And the head of the Olympics is Wally Cox.

David Janssen sent MAD a letter of himself enjoying his roasting.

From If TV Shows Were Written by the Ad Agencies in Sick #48, November 1966. Artist unknown.

Chris Elliott did his version for a few years on Late Night with David Letterman.