THE RIGHT STIFF

THE RIGHT STUFF (1983)
dir: Philip Kaufman

THE RIGHT STIFF
MAD #247, June 1984
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Story of the first seven men into space, Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen), Deke Stayton (Scott Paulin), Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid), and John Glenn (Ed Harris).

It starts with Chuck Yeager, an Air Force test pilot breaking the sound barrier in 1947.

The ape in the splash panel and throughout is Ham, the first being in space, and the book he's reading is Fear of Flying, a popular novel in the seventies.

The government has news about how the Russians have gone into space and have to beat them right away by sending a person into space. President Eisenhower (Robert Beer), then-Senator Johnson (Donald Moffatt), and Werner Von Braun (Scott Beach) try to figure out who to recruit for their space race. They think of acrobats, stuntmen, and settle on the military. First they recruit John Glenn as frontman for his prominence as a game show contestant.

The potential astronauts go through tests measuring their strength and stamina, and analyze their bodily fluids. After all their tests, they are ready to face the press.

Several attempts are made to launch the rockets before a person is put inside and all fail. Some of the astronauts fool around with women but John Glenn doesn't approve, They agree to stick together so they can have the upper hand.

Alan Shepard, the first person in space, has to pee. Meanwhile, the rest of the press has descended the Shepard house bothering his wife Louise (Kathy Baker). After they send Gus Grissom, the second man into space, he doesn't get quite the same fanfare to the chagrin of his wife Betty (Veronica Cartwright). The government has to catch up with the Russians by sending someone into orbit now and get John Glenn to do it. They don't think he'll make it back.

While all the astronauts are treated as heroes and being welcomed in Texas, where stripper Sally Rand does a fan dance for all of them. Yeager is at an Air Force base. The space program is over and Yeager wants to fly the highest altitude now. He crashes but survives.

John Glenn became a U.S. Senator. Reagan was ridiculed when he was running for President because he had been in a movie called Bedtime for Bonzo.