A-Z GUIDE TO MOVIES AND TV SHOWS PARODIED BY MAD, CRACKED, CRAZY, ETC. UP TO 1996. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. SPOILERS AND OTHER NON-SEQUITURS, TOO. SOMETIMES THESE THINGS HAVE WORDS OR SITUATIONS WE DON'T USE ANYMORE. YOU KNOW, 'CAUSE THEY'RE OLD.
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NUTWORK
MAD #192, July 1977
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
At the Union Broadcasting Company, anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has announced that he will kill himself on the air, his best friend Max Schumacher (William Holden) is chairman in charge of the network's news division and has begun an affairwith Diane Christensen (Faye Dunaway), head of programming who has taken over his position and sees this as a ratings bonanza. Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) is executive in charge of the network.
Max has to fire Howard and does it gently over drinks. This and other problems trigger Howard to announce his suicide. Meanwhile, at programming, Diane is looking for a hit show that will put the network in first place.
Footage has been released of the Ecumenical Liberation Army (stand-in for the Symbionese Liberation Army), a communist movement that has kidnapped an heiress and brainwashed her into helping them commit a bank robbery, and filmed it. This gives Diane an idea for a new reality show that will put UBS on the map. Max allows Howard to let him say whatever he wants on the air, including swearing. Diane sees the attention Howard is getting and wants to turn the news into the #1 show they seek.
Diane begins her affair with Max, and makes the news into an entertainment hour, led by Sybil the Soothsayer. Howard is the star of the show, giving his daily rant, the most famous being the oft-quoted “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!” (see below)
Max is tired of seeing Howard being exploited and wants to give him the help he needs, but is fired because Frank has merged news and programming (they were two separate things once). Max leaves his wife (Beatrice Straight) for Diane. In Howard's rants, he mentions a secret deal the network is making which puts everyone's job in jeopardy.
This is outdated in many ways: Networks used to be the only option. A show had to have at least 30 million viewers to survive. News was once considered a loss leader. There were no all-news network channels at the time, or even basic cable for that matter. Howard asks viewers to write local politicians to protest the corporate merger. At one time, politicians actually listened to their constituents.
Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), head of the parent company, convinces Howard to backpedal on the air. Max is tired of Diane caring more about her career than their relationship and goes back to his wife. The network sees Howard Beale's ratings slip and wants to get rid of him. Not shown: The Ecumenical Liberation Army, which now has a show called The Mao Tse-Tung Hour, is arguing about things like percentage points and syndication rights. They're concerned that Howard Beale, the lead-in to them, is hurting their ratings, so Diane's solution is to have them assassinate Howard on the air.
The last panel has Harry Reasoner, Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, and Barbara Walters.
NYETWORK
Sick #117, October 1977
w: George Kashdan
a: Dave Manak
The opening panel is a parody of film critic Rex Reed. The old Lennon/Marx joke is used.
THE INEPT-ONE FACTOR
Cracked #120, October 1974
a: John Severin
Underwater adventure about an Oceanlab planning to leave an expedition until they experience an earthquake. Dr. Andrews (Walter Pidgeon) is the captain of The Neptune and enlists the help of Adrien Blake (Ben Gazzara) to help rescue the divers, along with Mack Mackay (Ernest Borgnine) and Leah Jansen (Yvette Mimieux). Scenes of real marine life are shown, supposedly the species the divers must be saved from.
This parody has all kinds of footnotes explaining the jokes so I don't have to. I'm not sure if they were part of the script or added by Severin himself.
Here's a gag they don't explain. A diver is Lloyd Bridges from Sea Hunt.
They also make reference to Shelley Winters from the then-recent Poseidon Adventure.
THE NELSON FAMILY (THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET)
1952-1966 ABC
THE NILSON FAMILY
MAD #100, January 1966
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
This sitcom at 14 seasons had been the longest-running at the time. This parodies the show during the last season. It involves the real-life stories of actual husband and wife Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, though it wasn't a reality show.
Ozzie's son Ricky was a teen idol in real life, and was married to Kristin Harmon.
David, the other real-life son, also grew up on the show and became a lawyer.
E. G. Marshall was a lawyer on a short-lived TV drama called The Defenders.
Wally (Skip Young) was not a real person, He was Ricky's college mate.
OZZIE'S GIRLS
ABC, 1973
OOZIE'S GIRLS
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Steve Gerber
a: Robert Graysmith
The show was rebooted a few years later, with the premise being that the children had moved out of the house and Ozzie was now renting to two college girls (Susan Sennett, Brenda Sykes) who basically carried the show.
THE NINNY
MAD #342, January 1996
w: Josh Gordon (Arnie Kogen)
a: Angelo Torres
The premise in this sitcom is that Jewish fashionista Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) from Flushing is selling cosmetics door-to-door and shows up at the home of Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) at the same time he is looking for a nanny for his family. Maxwell's butler is Niles (Daniel Davis). The three children are Maggie (Nicholle Tom). Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima).
The opening parodies Mary Poppins' entrance.
C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane) is Maxwell's assistant and Fran's rival in a “will they or won't they” love triangle. Funny how Maxwell's name here is “Loxwell” considering he's the Christian in a comedy about the clash between Jewish and Christian cultures. Phil Gramm was a vilified Senator. Fran's grandmother is the comic strip character Momma, which was authored by one-time MAD contributor Mell Lazarus.
THE FANNY
Cracked #311, October 1996
w: Greg Grabianski
a: John Severin
THE GAME IS INANE
MAD #143, June 1971
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
Pictured in that first panel are MAD staffers Leonard Brenner, Jerry DeFuccio, John Putnam, Al Feldstein, and William Gaines. I do not know who the man is with the gun to his head, the black man must be some generic food delivery man.
The show was part of the rotating series that made up the NBC Mystery Movie. It was about reporters at Howard Publications, each of whom usually had their own story. Glenn Howard (Gene Barry) was the publisher of the line and Dan Farrell (Robert Stack) was a reporter for Crime magazine, and Paul Tyler (Robert Culp) was a reporter for People. Peggy (Susan Saint James) was assistant to the reporters. Culp came in the middle of the last season and I do not know why he's drawn differently from everyone else.
It was 1971. Jokes like those in that last panel were common.
THE NAKED GUN 2½: THE SMELL OF FEAR (1991)
dir: David Zucker
THE NAKED BUN 2 ½: THE SMELL OF BEER
Cracked #269, January 1992
a: Walter Brogan
It's weird they'd do a spoof of a spoof. They managed to make it less funny. And if you weren't familiar with the original source, you wouldn't even know it was a comedy from this.
The prologue begins with Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) at a dinner for President Bush Sr. and his cabinet, with the misogynistic hijinks of Drebin accidentally abusing Barbara Bush. The dinner is to celebrate an energy conference that is to happen the next day withAlbert Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths) to give a lecture about renewable energy. Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet) is the head of an oil company.
At the table are energy secretary John Sununu, Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife, Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and senator Edward Kennedy. Sununu's caption is a reference to how he flew around the country to expose forgeries of George Bush baseball cards from Bush's days as a college player.
There was an explosion at Meinheimer's lab which Frank Drebin, along with Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Nordberg (O. J. Simpson, before he was O. J. Simpson) helping to investigate. Jane (Priscilla Presley), who is now dating Hapsburg, was once a fiance of Frank's who broke off their engagement and is now a potential witness.
Life Stinks was Mel Brooks' attempt at doing a movie that wasn't a parody of anything. The sight gag in the third panel is a reference to one where the body outlines at the scene of the crime were shaped like Egyptian paintings.
Hapsburg and his henchmen plan to replace Meinheimer with a double (Earl Hacker) so Meinhemer's speech at the conference will now be about oil as a renewable energy source.
At the conference, someone manages to find the real Meinheimer who will give the speech, but Frank doesn't know that. He knows the real Meinheimer has a birthmark on his butt, so he will pull down the pants of the man he thinks is an impostor to show he's fake.
The next few pages show what it would be like if other movies used the Naked Gun formula, which is basically “What if these movies were parodied by Cracked?”
Airplane!, the first Zucker movie, used the “What is it?” gag a few times, and the Panic parody did the 'damn/dam' pun.
The more successful Naked Gun franchise evolved from the far superior TV series Police Squad!, which was more of a parody of 70s detective shows like Columbo or Cannon than a series of comedies about a clumsy cop. The latter flopped because the ways of watching television were much different forty years ago, and without paying attention, viewers didn't know that with the deadpan delivery and lack of laughtrack it was still a comedy using the Airplane! formula.
When the team of The Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams made Airplane!, it worked because such a way of parodying hadn't been done before, absurd lines delivered completely straight by actors who would've been in the very movies being parodied, and plots and background music that weren't comedic at all. By the time the Naked Gun movies were released, it wasn't surprising serious actors would do comedies and even though conventions were still being parodied, actors were mugging for the camera and there were “funny” situations.
POLICE SQUAD: O.J. ON THE ROCKS
MAD #344, April 1996
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
MAD parodied them too, or rather the movies and not the series. Again, treating it as if it weren't a comedy, but probably using it because O. J. Simpson played Nordberg.
O.J. Simpson, declared innocent, vowed to find “the real killers”. Behind him is lawyer Johnnie Cochran. Under the desk is Lisa Marie Presley, who was married to Michael Jackson.
In the first panel is a caricature of Rodney King, the victim of a police beating after trying to get both sides to make peace in the Los Angeles riots a few years earlier. The third panel has Leslie Nielsen narrating as Dracula from the Mel Brooks movie Dracula Sucks. The glove was supposedly planted as evidence. The running gag in the Naked Gun movies is that When Frank Drebin parks he drives into trees and hydrants.
