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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THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! (1966)
dir: Norman Jewison
There was a time in the sixties when there were all these long big-budget comedies with everything but the kitchen sink and they were all trying to outdo each other with the longest title. Here, I'll let them explain the plot.
MOVIE SPOOF! MOVIE SPOOF!
Sick #48, November 1966
w: Bill Majeski
One of the many movies MAD (and sometimes Cracked and Sick artist) Jack Davis did a poster for.
THE LIFE OF YOUR RUIN
MAD #110, April 1967
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
“Man on the run”/”semi-anthology” show similar to yesterday's Route 66, centering on the guest cast that week. It was about Paul Bryan (Ben Gazzara), given 9-18 months to live (I've only seen a couple episodes. I don't know how they justified the premise after two seasons) and each week was a different episode about him traveling the world and living life to the fullest.
The billboard in the last panel refers to both Jantzen bathing suits and David Janssen, star of the similar show The Fugitive.
From TV Scenes Worth Waiting For, art by Luis Gomes Zegarra (Lugoze) in Cracked #74, January 1969
From Sneaky TV Cigarette Commercials, art by John Severin. In Cracked #91, March 1971. It was around this time that ads for cigarettes were banned from television and this article was about how shows would work their way around it.
ROUTE 67
MAD #70. April 1962
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker
Anthology show that took place on location mainly on the eponymous highway between Chicago and Santa Monica. It starred two guys, Tod (Martin Milner), and Buz (George Maharias), traveling along the open highway, but the stories and host would basically stand alone with them being the anchor characters.
The comic strip Mary Worth was similar in theme and set-up.
ROUTE SWEET SIXTEEN
Cracked #38, August 1964
a: John Severin
There was a pop song a few years earlier called “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”
Michael Anthony (Marvin Miller) was assistant to 'The Millionaire', who on that show of the same name, gave someone different a million-dollar check each week.
ROSEMIA'S BOO-BOO
MAD #124, January 1969
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move into the Branford Apartments in New York City. Their friend Hutch (Mauice Evans) warns them that their witchcraft, led by Adrian Mercato, was practiced in their apartment years ago. Later, when Rosemary is doing her laundry, she meets a neighbor Terry (Angela Dorian), who the Woodhouses later found out has committed suicide from jumping out the window, wearing a necklace made from tannis root that neighbors, the Castavets, had given her.
Rosemary and Guy befriend Minnie and Roman Castavet (Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer), who seem overly kind to them, as do the other neighbors, including Laura-Louise (Patsy Kelly). Rosemary is given the same tannis necklace Terry had been given.
Panels are full of devil and hell jokes. “Satan Place” is a reference to Peyton Place, a TV show Farrow had previously appeared on.
The chocolate mousse the Castavets have made for the Woodhouses has a weird aftertaste for Rosemary and gives her a weird hallicunatory dream. The couple had talked about conceiving and Guy turns out to have done the deed while she was sleeping. (We all know about Roman Polanski's dubious morals. I know that's putting it lightly, but I've been misconstrued in the past for saying more.)
The Frank Sinatra reference is about how Mia Farrow was married to her at the time, and he apparently controlled her on the set. They're featured prominently on the cover of the Drucker-drawn The New First Family below this article.
When Rosemary becomes pregnant and they give the news to their neighbors, the Castavets suggest they fire their obstetrician, Dr. Hall, and instead go to Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy). He's unorthodox for a doctor, not prescribing typical medications and asking her to ignore reading the usual texts, instead recommending his own potions. The potions emaciate her and cause her unbearable pain. Hutch has ideas about what's going on.
Hutch died before being able to meet Rosemary, but willed her a book about witchcraft that contains clues. One of the clues is an anagram, which she figures out with Scrabble tiles. Ahe finds a name in the book, Steve Mercato, is an anagram of 'Roman Castavet'. Steve is the son of Adrian Mercato, and putting two and two together, she figures out there is a conspiracy by everyone to take her baby. Guy forbids her to read the book and she suspects him to be on it too. She convinces Dr. Hill (Charles Grodin) to rescue her, he thinks she is delusional.
Rosemary blanks out and wakes up to find she has given birth. The baby is in the room next door and all of the neighbors are surrounding it. The baby is Satan.
I'm not sure what the Sessue Hayakawa reference is except that one of the neighbors is Asian. It may be a racist caricature and joke but the movie went there first with the stereotype of Japanese people always having cameras.
I've never heard this album so I'm not sure if it's a sequel to The First Family, a comedy album from a few years earlier about the Kennedys that you can find for $1 at any thrift store. It may or may not have people doing impressions of Louis Armstrong, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny, Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop, Kirk Douglas, Robert Stack, Cary Grant, Boris Karloff, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, or RFK Jr.'s father. Or maybe it's actually them.
GROSSANNE
MAD #287, Jume 1989
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Get ready for pages of fat jokes. Hey, it's not me doing the fat-shaming.
Roseanne was vehicle for comedian Roseanne Barr's working-class mother standup act long before the monomial cancelled loose cannon that became her legacy. The show was about Roseanne Conner. Her husband Dan (John Goodman) worked in construction and they had three kids, D.J. (Michael Fishman), Darlene (Sarah Gilbert), and Becky (Lecy Goranson). Roseanne's sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalfe) would drop in. They all lived in Lanford, Illinois.
The rabbit in the second panel may be a reference to Fatal Attraction, but more likely it's a joke about how the species of animal she's cooking for dinner gets increasingly bigger. Before this series, John Goodman had been in Raising Arizona.
GROSSEANNE
Cracked #244, May 1989
w: Rich Kriegel (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
Roseanne worked at a plastics company with her sister.
I don't know who everyone is in the last panel except Dan Rather, Bill Cosby, Peter Falk, and ALF.
GROSEANNE: THE SECOND HELPING
Cracked #291, August 1994
w: Greg Grabianski
a: John Severin
In the last few seasons the part of Becky was replaced by Sarah Chalke. Darlene's boyfriend David (Johnny Galecki) became part of the cast. Roseanne's second husband Tom Arnold is also under the table, he was co-producer of the show.
Dan no longer worked at a construction site and did the occasional odd job at home or ran his own contracting company.
