THE GREATEST TV SHOW EVER MADE
Cracked #161, August 1979
a:John Severin
Another comic, just like yesterday, where
Cracked did what they did throughout most of the 70s and 80s by doing several parodies at once,usually combining them, they did movies last time, this time they set their sights on TV shows.
One of the tropes of
Laverne and Shirley was Shirley's stuffed kitten.
They used Robin Williams as Mork from
Mork and Mindy every chance they could, doing about five parodies and three specials with him.
For some reason Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) of
M*A*S*H are married in this. Maybe they would be in post-Korea civilian life.
They also had Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) of
Fantasy Island.
Cheryl Ladd, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith, the second wave of Charlie's Angels. Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) of
The Odd Couple, which was off the air by then. Lorne Greene as Commander Adama on
Battlestar Galactica, Ed Asner was Lou Grant in his own show by then. Archie (Carroll O'Connor) and Edith (Jean Stapleton) from
All In the Family.
Mike Wallace of
Sixty Minutes when they were more known for investigative reporting than profiles (they still do both). Back to
Battlestar Galactica with Richard Hatch as Apollo. John Travolta had left the role of Vinnie Barbarino on
Welcome Back, Kotter by then though Valerie Bertinelli was still Barbara on
One Day at a Time.
Mork's commander was named Orson. Linda Lavin was Alice.
Fonz was another person they put in
Cracked every chance they could. The only other two series of Don Rickles I know of were
The Don Rickles Show and
CPO Sharkey.
In the third-to-last panel, Starsky of "Starsky and Hutch" says "It was him, Mr. Grunt."
ReplyDeleteThere were two shows called "The Don Rickles Show": One ran from 1968-9 and was a variety show on ABC. The second ran mid-season 1972 on NBC and was a sitcom (produced by Sheldon Leonard).
So the three shows are the two "Don Rickles Show"s and "CPO Sharkey". There were other failed pilots as they tried to figure out some way to put Rickles in a regular weekly show. Like Jonathan Winters, he's a talented fellow whose act/talent doesn't lend itself to a regular show and is wasted on a scripted show.