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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MR. NUDNIK
MAD #91, December 1964
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
I guess it's inspirational teacher week. That's only because we have several shows in a row with “Mr.” in their title. Anyway, this was a TV drama about John Novak (James Fransiscus), a first-year English teacher at Jefferson High that often addressed issues of the day.
The assistant principal was Jean Pagano (Jeanne Bal) and the principal was Albert Vane (Dean Jagger)
Vince Edwards, Dick Chamberlain, and Robert Reed were the stars of Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, and The Defenders.
From The Comedy Trend on TV in Cracked #50, March 1966, art By Bill Ward
MR.HOLLOW'S OLD PUSS
MAD #346, June 1996
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
The movie is about the life of Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfuss), his career as a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School over thirty years, when he initially took the job on the side while working on a composition. It begins with its changing the name from Ulysses Grant High School. Through stock footage of Vietnam, the oil crisis, punk rock, etc, it shows the passage of time. The passage of time here is shown by the campaign buttons of Principal Jacobs (Olympia Dukakis). The “No Dukakis” button is a joke about she's a relative of 1988 candidate Mike Dukakis.
Gertrude Lang (Alicia Witt) is a student of his who becomes inspired by him. Mr. Meister (Jay Thomas) is a phys ed teach that becomes Mr. Holland's best friend. Another, student, Russ (Terence Howard) is a student he inspires to play drums in a marching band. At home, Mr. Holland finds out his wife (Glenne Headley) is pregnant. This parody has all kinds of sight gags referring to previous Richard Dreyfuss movies.
Mr. Holland's students are unenthusiastic until he shows them the similarities between classical music and rock'n'roll, which doesn't sit well with the principal, and Vice Principal Wolters (William H. Macy), who's had it in for him since he started there. His student Rowena (Jean Louisa Kelly) is a singer for a school play saluting Gershwin. The Hollands raise their son only to find out he's deaf.
Russ is killed in Vietnam and Mr. Holland attends his funeral. Rowena drops out of school to become a professional singer in the big city. The Hollands' son Cole (Joseph Anderson) acts out feeling his father ignores him. Mr. Wolters, now the principal, has to cancel the school's music department and fires Mr. Holland.
As Mr. Holland gathers his things and leaves the school with his family, they catch him by surprise revealing an auditorium full of every student he's taught over the last thirty years. Gertrude (Joanna Gleason) is now the Governor of the state and introduces him for an assembly. They must have edited out footage of Rowena returning since it wasn't in the cut I saw. MAD's later movie parodies often had scenes that weren't in the movie, leading me to believe the parody was written from a script or advance screener before release of the movie. There were scenes where the wife suspected something was going on between them, which would explain it. Mr. Holland finally gets to perform the symphony he composed.
MESSY'S THANKGIVING DAY PARADE
MAD #148, January 1972
w: Dick DeBartolo & Kedzie North
a: Angelo Torres
The annual tradition to promote New York's department store since 1924 was parodied in MAD. This one hosted by Lorne Greene and Betty White.
Reference to Greene as lead on Bonanza.
The footprints on the butts in the Smothers Brothers float is a reference to them being kicked off the air.
Then there were these pieces from Ron Hauge's Year of Rejected New Yorker Covers in the December 1983 issue of National Lampoon. One of the few pieces of the 80s that captured the original spirit of the magazine. Ron Hauge went on to write for Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and Ren & Stimpy.
MR. ID
Cracked #269, January 1992
w: Tommy Uno
a: John Severin
Nick at Nite, the version of Nickelodeon that shows old TV shows, was showing reruns of sixties and seventies shows in the nineties. Among them was Mister Ed, a magicom about Ed, a talking horse. He only talked in the presence of Wilbur Post (Alan Young) and nobody else knew about this. Often Wilbur would talk to Ed and neighbors such as Colonel Kirkwood (Leon Ames) thought he was insane believing he was talking to himself.
Wilbur had a wife and other neighbors, not used in this parody.
THE MORON DOWNER JR. SHOW
MAD #286, April 1989
w: Larry Siegel
a: Jack Davis
We used to watch The Morton Downey Jr. Show all the time in high school and college. The chain-smoking conservative with his big mouth, many teeth, and catch phrases like “Zip It!” and “pablum puking liberal” in front of a bloodthirsty audience was like nothing we'd ever seen. This political equivalent of pro-wrestling was the first example (on the East Coast) of what became known as 'trash TV', that spawned a few imitations. When it was canceled, it was replaced in most outlets by Rush Limbaugh, a mellower version of Downey that wasn't an act, and evolved into the types of opinion shows in outlets like FOX News.
Between the Klansman and cannibal is presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.
Morton Downey Jr. had his fifteen minutes of fame, then lost credibility when he beat Jusie Smollett by several decades, claiming skinheads beat him up and shaved a swastika into his forehead, but everyone knew he did it himself because the swastika was backwards.
Chris Elliot had a character for a while that was a parody of Morton Downey Jr.
Long before his talk show, Morton Downey Jr. tried to follow in the footsteps of his father, a famous pop singer, in the 30s and 40s.
MORON KOMBAT
Cracked #303, November 1995
w: Andy Simmons
a: John Severin
Moron Kombat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The director's not Paul Thomas Anderson who did Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. That would be interesting if it was, though.
This seems to assume we're familiar with the game it's based on. I know nothing about video games past the old school arcade games of my youth, so I tried to follow as best as I could. Something to do with three of the greatest fighters on Earth summoned to another world to fight beings there in order to save the fate of the world.
Raiden (Christopher Lambert) has chosen three people to fight members of Outerworld in order to win the tenth tournament to the death, and prevent them from conquering the Earth. The three members of Earth are movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou), and military special forces officer Sonya Blade (Brigitte Wilson). Among those they must fight are Sub-Zero (François Petit).
They are sent to the island owned by Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to compete. Sonya is accidentally referred to here by her real name.
Ater a brief bout with Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto), she advises Liu to use the force of life for his upcoming battle with Sub-Zero.
In one of the prelimary fights of the tournament, warriors are defeated by Prince Goro (Kevin Michael Richardson), who has killed Art Lean (Kenneth Edwars) and Shang Tsung has sucked out his soul.
Johnny has defeated Goro through surprise and Tsung retaliates by kidnapping Sonya.
Kitana reveals to Johnny and Liu that Outerworld was once a paradise until the previous battles, another reason this one must be won. Liu and Johnny find Sonya and Liu duels Shang under Shang's terms. Shang attempts to play to Liu's emotions by transforming into his dead brother.
In the actual movie Liu defeats Shang, releasing all the souls he has taken and a parade in the Orient is held in their honor. Here Shang transforms into the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Liu morphs into a Transformer. The souls that come out of Shang Tsung are the Ghostly Trio from Casper.
Here was the cover to the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous based on the third version of the video game, which had nine sequels, and I guess has more voilence than allowed in the movie.
THE MORK BOOK OF ORKIAN FUN
date unknown
a: Tony Tallarico
Not a parody, but included because it was done by Tony Tallarico, who drew for (and edited some of) almost every one of the lesser-known MAD knock-offs. Actual parodies and versions of the show were posted the previous four days, and can be found by either clicking on the archives in the sidebar or the “Previous” icon below. Thus concludes Mork week.
In case you didn't know. Mork and Mindy was a sitcom about Mork (Robin Williams), an alien from Ork, sent to Earth to report about it. He's discovered by Mindy McConnell (Pam Dawber) and lives in her attic. He has a hard time adjusting to Earthling ways, not getting metaphors and sitting in furniture upside-down among other eccentricities. He sprinkles his dialogue with Orkan language saying words like “Nanoo Nanoo” and “Shazbot”. All the while he has to hide that he's from space from most people.
I always assumed a native of Ork was an Orkan and not an Orkian, but I guess because this is an official licensed product, the latter is correct.
