HOME A-GROAN

HOME ALONE (1990)
dir: Chris Columbus

I know in the heading I said this was alphabetical but I decided for Christmas Eve and Christmas I'd do a couple Christmas movies since they'll be coming up soon anyway, then I'll go back.

HOME A-GROAN
MAD #303, June 1991
w:Stan Hart
a: Sam Viviano

It was the third highest-grossing movie when it came out, so I'm assuming most of you saw it, or at least know it's about a kid that gets left at home for Christmas.

Marley (Roberts Blossom) is the guy all the kids are scared of, he's always by himself so they've made up all sorts of stories about he's a murderer. Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is pestering his parents Peter (John Heard) and Kate (Catherine O'Hara) as everyone is preparing for a trip to Paris the next morning. One of the burglars (Joe Pesci), is casing the house while impersonating an officer and has a telltale gold tooth. Kevin is constantly being picked on by his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray). After his parents accidentally abandon him, he takes advantage by eating ice cream and looking through his family's stuff. The burglars are spying on him, the other one played by Daniel Stern.

A storm knocks out the electricity overnight, causing everyone to oversleep, so they're all in a rush to male it to the airport on time the next morning forgetting Kevin. Kevin, who was punished the night before by being made to sleep in the attic, wakes up to find his family gone, fulfilling his wish. On the plane, the mother worries they forgot to do something then she realizes it was to get Kevin. Meanwhile, we see the burglars breaking into the other houses in the neighborhood. Buzz's pet tarantula figures later into the plot.

One of the kids is the comic strip character Henry

After they realize Kevin is missing, the mother rushes back home to get to Kevin, but since it's Christmas and all direct flights are booked, she has to go take all sorts of connecting flights in various cities. At one airport, she tries to bribe an elderly couple into getting their seat. A polka player (John Candy) overhears her predicament, happens to be going her way, and offers her a ride. Meanwhile, Kevin seeks solace in a church where he encounters Marley and finds he isn't so scary after all. He's a loner because he hasn't reconnected with his son.

   -The airport ticket clerk was played by Hope Davis, who was not famous enough to be caricatured yet.
   -The elderly couple are caricatures of MAD publishers William and Anne Gaines.
   -Jim Bakker was a preacher indicted for fraud in the late eighties who I think is back.
   -The other members of the polka band in the background are MAD staffers Nick Meglin, Dave Berg, and Dick DeBartolo. I believe the passenger in the fishing hat is art director Leonard Brenner.

Kevin overhears that the burglars are coming to his house next and he booby traps the house to defend it and foil them, by doing what you see here; swinging paint cans on ropes, rigging a door so an iron falls on one of them, pouring water on the steps so it turns into ice, burning someone's hat with a blowtorch, putting sharp glass under the windowsill [not shown: the tarantula from earlier gets loose and bites one of them]. His mother finally gets home and is glad to see Kevin. Here the John Candy role is combined with that of Uncle Buck, the role of his (and writer John Hughes') previous movie.

That's supposed to be Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in the first panel.

From Reel vs. Real in MAD #307, written by Russ Cooper.

HOMEBOY ALONE
Cracked # 262, May 1991
a: John Severin

This has a few things that weren't in the MAD parody.

A neighboring kid gets mistaken for Kevin when One of the McCallisters does a headcount.

Kevin runs into Marley when he's buying a toothbrush and runs away, and the cops run after him for shoplifting.

When John Candy's character meets Kate, he assumes she recognizes him.

More comparing violence against the burglars to cartoons.

The MAD parody doesn't point out that the burglars get caught and arrested.

HOME ALONE GOES PUBLIC
Cracked #263, July 1991
a: Don Orehek