JAWZ

JAWS (1975)
dir: Steven Spielberg

Yesterday (click “older post” at bottom) we looked at MAD and Sick's take on this, today we'll see how Cracked and Crazy handled it. I repeat some text from yesterday but you came here to see the pages anyway.

JAWZ
Cracked #129, November 1975
a: John Severin

I think this was my first issue of Cracked. You always remember your first time.

The inside front and back cover were always a pullout poster.

Teenagers are having a party on the beach at night, and when one goes into the water for a swim, she is attacked. The next morning Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider), goes to see what the problem is.

The mayor (Murray Hamilton) insists on not letting the townspeople know there's a problem and wants to bring in tourists that upcoming weekend, but a skeptical Brody keeps a lookout on the beach and another child is attacked. Here is another twist on the old “he had a hat” joke. The town has a meeting about what might be a shark problem.

Everybody is in the water trying to collect the bounty on the shark, and Brody insists his son stay away from the water after his son's friend was killed in a boating accident. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), an oceanographer and shark expert, is called in to analyze the dead bodies. Somebody catches a tiger shark, everyone thinks the problems are over, but Brody is still skeptical.

Brody and Hooper analyze the bites on the bodies and conclude it must be a different shark. There are no signs of human body parts inside the tiger shark, which only contains garbage. As more victims are reported, they have no choice but to hire Quint (Robert Shaw), a boatsman who offered his services earlier, and didn't leave a good impression.

Brody, Hooper, and Quint don't get along at first as they hunt for the shark, but bond as they get drunk, sing sea shanties, and compare scars. Hooper lowers himself into the water in a shark-proof cage, planning to inject the shark with poison, but he drops his harpoon and the shark rams itself into the cage and breaks it.

As the shark jumps onto the boat and smashes it with its weight and its thrashing around, it gets Quint. Hooper has escaped, and Brody makes the shark explode by putting pressurized scuba gear in its mouth and shooting it. Having successfully destroyed the great white, Brody and Hooper are able to swim safely to the shore.

The next issue cashed in on this by printing A Cracked Look at Sharks drawn by Don Orehek.

Cracked did a few different versions, some of which I already posted, combining Jaws with The Godfather and Happy Days and Hawaii Five-O. Here is their mash up with Lassie in #151, July 1978.

JAWBONES
Crazy #15, January 1976
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Marie Severin

Later in the film, a billboard welcoming people to Amity Island for the fourth of July is defaced to mock how the town is a sudden magnet for shark attacks.

Kids playing a practical joke with a fake fin is another part not used in the other parodies.

Hollywood Spinoffs on Jaws from Crazy #16, March 1976

Saturday Night Live did more than one sketch with their Landshark character.

The next two days we look at the next two sequels.