THE PLANET THAT WENT APE

PLANET OF THE APES (1968)
dir: Franklin J. Schaffner

THE PLANET THAT WENT APE
MAD #157, March 1973
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker

From The Milking of The Planet That Went Ape, condensed parodies of all four movies that had existed in the franchise up to then.

In the first one, Taylor (Charlton Heston), and his fellow astronauts (Robert Gunnier, Jeff Burton) wind up on what (they think is) another planet in the future, their spacecraft is destroyed, and he ends up being the only survivor.

Previously, Heston was most known for Exodus and The Ten Commandments.

Taylor is captured by apes that rule the planet and brought in for study by Zira (Kim Hunter), an animal psychologist sympathetic about his higher intelligence. Her fiancee Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) is also a scientist and also sympatnetic, at first acting outwardly against him out of concern for his own career, but warms up to him. Humans don't have the power of speech, and Taylor has temporarily lost his, and they just think he's smarter than average.

Taylor eventually escapes captivity and runs through the city, and regains his ability to speak. Zira and Cornelius are put on trial for heresy by the leader of the apes, Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and the superiors want to disband experimentation and dismiss Taylor as a kook. Zaius knows the truth about humans and is trying to suppress it. Cornelius, who had been an archeologist, shows what he had discovered in the past about how humans were once more advanced than anyone knew. The fact that the humans had a doll and it talked is evidence of this. Cornelius and Zira have are arrested for heresy and escape, and help Taylor escape. He brings Nova (Linda Harrison) along. They hold Zaius hostage and Taylor bids farewell to Zira and Cornelius (he's shaved his beard off by this point). Zaius lets Taylor escape but warns him he won't like what he sees.

Taylor finds out that the planet he landed on and the area he was warned about where humans were emasculated has been Earth this whole time. Nova talks in these panels for some reason.

PLANETS OF THE CREATURES
Cracked #72, October 1968
a: John Severin

Puns are made on Deborah Kerr, Dana Andrews, Ed Begley, Sal Mineo, Ella Fitzgerald, Terry-Thomas, Richard Basehart, and Sidney Poitier. They didn't need to change the name of Lex Barker. For Planet of the Birds it's Mia Farrow, Edward G. Robinson, Rhonda Fleming, Gloria Swanson, Art Carney, Claudia Cardinale, and Patty Duke.

Helen Goss, Audrey Totter, Billy Halop, Conrad Nagel, Zero Mostel

The Simpsons did a musical based on it.

There were two remakes. Before Star Wars, it was THE science-fiction series, branching out into other media, and it was inevitable there'd be a TV show of it, which we'll look at tomorrow.