CEASE

GREASE (1978)
dir: Randal Kleiser

Started out in 1971 as a Broadway show about a high school reunion taking place in Brooklyn, then rewritten to take place in a high school, then when it was made into a movie, the location moved to Los Angeles and added new songs, then when it was a stage production again it adapted the movie, which was shown on TV. This is the 1978 movie.

CEASE
MAD #205, March 1978
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) had met on the beach during the summer and had a fling, now everyone's back in school again. Danny doesn't know that Sandy has transferred to his school and Sandy doesn't know Danny's in his new school either. The T-Birds and Pink Ladies are re-united. Rizzo (Stockard Channing) is a member of the Pink Ladies who acts like she's more mature and more experienced to keep up appearances. Eve Arden is the principal and Alice Ghostley is a teacher. Allusions are made throughout of Travolta's previous role in Saturday Night Fever.

Danny and Sandy each tell their friends their own side of their summer romance.

MAD always has a footnote saying "Sung to the tune of" when it parodies lyrics but for some reason this is the exception.

I've heard women say they don't like how one of the lyrics was "did she put up a fight", I always argue it's a character in a movie. Then again that's easy to say from my perspective, I can only partially understand and am fully aware it comes off as mansplaining. It's one of the perpetual disagreements that will always last throughout time. I can agree it that in retrospect it was wrong for our third-grade music class to sing it in our assembly, though.

Danny and Sandy are reunited later at a pep rally, and even though he's glad to see her has to act like a tough guy to protect his reputation in front of his friends.

The girls invite Sandy to a slumber party at Frenchy(Didi Conn)'s house and make fun of her when she leaves the room. Rizzo sees Kenickie (Jeff Conway) outside the window and leaves to make out with him. While Kenickie and Rizzo are in his car, they're interrupted by Crater-Face (Dennis Cleveland Stewart) who challenges them to a drag race. At a diner, Danny sees Sandy with a new date (Lorenzo Lamas) and starts his tough guy act again when his friends show up.

Danny wants to win Sandy back so he tries to become an athlete. The coach (Sid Caesar) tries to see what Danny's good at and he hurts himself pole vaulting, gaining Sandy's sympathy and temporarily her affection. At the diner, where Frenchy works, she tells another waitress (Joan Blondell) she's dropped out of high school to go to vocational school, and failed a cosmetics course there as well. As they're closing she has a dream that Frankie Avalon sings to her.

Rydell High has been chosen to be the school for National Bandstand, a stand-in for American Bandstand. Danny meets his old girlfriend Cha Cha (Annette Charles), they dance together and win, and a jealous Sandy storms off. Danny tries to make it up to Sandy by taking her to a drive-in but comes on strong because he thinks that's what he's supposed to do, and she leaves him again. Rizzo's in another car and she says she thinks she might been knocked up by Kenickie when they made out earlier, and rumor about it spreads throughout the drive-in.

There's another musical number they don't use here where Danny's by himself and he sings a song pining for Sandy.

There's a drag race between the T-Birds and a rival gang and they make over their car (with another song they don't parody). For some reason, the shop teacher helps referee a game of death. Sandy wants to win over Danny and makes herself over for him. Even 43 years ago, MAD pointed out how sexist it was for the girl to change her image to make herself attractive to the boy. Well, sort-of back-handedly, anyway, because they also suggested that dressing provocatively is a bad thing. I'm starting to border on mansplaining again. I'll stop. At an end-of-the-year fair, they all resolve their issues and sing the finale.

That's Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back. Kotter at the drag race. John Travolta started on that show, though as a kid I didn't know they were the same person.

GREASED
Cracked #155, December 1978
a: John Severin

The prologue is used here, and mentions the fact that the part of Sandy was changed to an Australian for the movie because they couldn't get actress Olivia Newton-John to do an American accent.

The actors were all full-grown adults. Stockard Channing was 34. The number 34 would have made more sense for the song lyrics too since it rhymes with "tell me more". Maybe they know something I don't.

Dick Clark stand-in Vince Fontaine (Edd "Kookie "Byrnes), who would be arrested for sexual assault today. (Not shown in any of these parodies is a scene where the rest of the T-Birds moon the cameras on national TV and get in trouble for it).

When Danny and Sandy reconcile at the end they take off in a car that turns into a spaceship. To cash in on Star Wars, maybe?

GROSS
Crazy #44, November 1978
w: Murad Gumen
a: Kent Gamble

And here they used the same photo reference for Travolta that MAD did.

Who's that supposed to be in the first panel? Adlai Stevenson? You can't always tell with Kent Gamble.

And as usual with Crazy, the art director gets the dialogue balloons mixed up in some panels.

And they get the chronology of the movie mixed up.
Is that supposed to be Mickey Rooney as one of the T-Birds?
And Charles Martin Smith at the diner?

And Eisenhower and Ron Howard at the dance?
And Paul LeMat and Henry Winkler at the drag race?

I can tell that's Gen. McArthur and Nixon and the end, duh.

UPDATE 2:

cover to Pancada, Brazilian edition of Cracked
(“Pancada” means “knock” or “blow”) Nos Tempos de Vaseline means In the Times of Vaseline and Danem Se Days means Damn Days. The former was a sexploitation comedy in Brazil around the same time.