THE GREAT WALDO POOPER

THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER (1975)
dir: George Roy Hill

THE GREAT WALDO POOPER
Sick #106, October 1975
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti

Waldo Pepper (Robert Redford) is a former World War I pilot with flying still in his blood. In the 1920s he is doing barnstorming with a touring air show, and later has a rivalry with Axel (Bo Svenson), sabotaging each others' acts. Waldo is trying to impress a woman named Mary Beth (Susan Sarandon) by lying about his war record, and runs into his rival Axel. The two of them eventually team up and join Doc Dillhoefer's Flying Circus, and Mary Beth helps with their stunts.

During an injury, Waldo goes back to see his girlfriend Maude (Margot Kidder) who doesn't like that he's always hurting himself with flying stunts, and only comes to see her when he's hurt. Maude's brother Ezra (Edward Herrmann) promises to design new planes for him when he gets better.

With the Flying Circus failing to attract an audience, they decide to add Mary Beth as an attraction (They made up the whole thing about Waldo in drag). During a promotion she clings to a wing when she's supposed to get back to the cockpit, and Waldo must fly out to rescue her, which he fails to do. Later, they all find out they are all grounded and the show has been closed down due to new air regulations, with the air inspector being Newt Potts (Geoffrey Lewis), a former commanding officer of Waldo's.

Waldo's friend Ezra, while doing a stunt, crashes and burns, and a crowd gathers around him. In an attempt to get the crowd away, Waldo gets in a plane and tries to fly into it hoping it will disburse them, and ends up crashing himself, which leads to him being grounded permanently. Axel had moved out to Hollywood to become a stuntman earlier, so Waldo tries his luck out there. He goes by an alias to be able to fly again, and meets German Flying Ace Ernest Kessler (Bo Brundin), a consultant on one of the films.

The first thing that comes to mind when anyone mentions World War I air battles is Snoopy, which I bet is the case for 95% of the public, if not more.

And that is indeed the punchline to this, as the movie ends with Waldo Pepper fulfilling his dream of battling with a real German WWI pilot with real planes, and they end up fighting a real dogfight.

THE GREAT WALDORF SHLEPPER'S HISTORY OF FLIGHT
National Crumb #1, August 1976
w: Guy Thomas
a: Jerry Grandenetti

This was a MAD imitation that lasted only one issue. I guess the reason for the name was a combination ripoff of the name National Lampoon they were trying to confuse kids into thinking these were actually comics by Robert Crumb.

There are caricatures of Nelson Rockefeller, Spiro Agnew, Henry Kissinger, Gloria Steinem, Teddy Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Danny Thomas, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and Don Rickles. I don't know if the garbageman is supposed to be a parody of Cracked's Sylvester P. Smythe or a parody of him. Agnew having been out of the public eye for three years would have made me think this was intended to come out a few years earlier, but the reference to Jaws negates that.

UPDATE:

cover to Kaputt, German edition of Cracked