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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Monday, August 14, 2023
THE SIX MILLION DOLLARS, MAN
THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN
ABC 1973-1978
THE SIX MILLION DOLLARS, MAN!
MAD #172, March 1975
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
All children that were alive in the seventies know of The Six Million Dollar Man, how Col. Steve Austin (Lee Majors) got in a bad accident astronauting and was rebuilt by the government as a cyborg, costing six million dollars to make him robotic. His origin is explained in the opening credits.
”Verner Won Ton” is a play on Werner Von Braun, a former scientist for the Nazi party that was brought to the U.S. during our Space Race with Russia. 'Eastworld' is a play on 'Westworld', a movie about a robot amusement park long before it was a TV series. The tennis player is Bobby Riggs, referring to Billy Jean King, who beat him in the well-publicized Battle of the Sexes game.
Steve Austin's supervisor at the Office of Strategic Operations, a CIA stand-in, was Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson).
WFL was the World Football League. Mark Spitz was the Olympic champion swimmer.
Dr. Balsawood is Martin Balsam, who only co-incidentally was Steve Austin's doctor in the pilot episode.
From MAD's “Whatever Became of”... TV Characters Edition in #266, October 1986, by Mike Snider.
Cracked did several parodies and mash-ups, just as they did of a lot of TV shows and movies. Here are two:
THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN
Cracked #120, October 1974
a: John Severin
Mr.Phelps was the lead character on Mission:Impossible
THE FAR-OUT FOUR
Cracked #123, March 1975
a: Polly Titian (John Severin)
Gerald Ford and VP Nelson Rockefeller have enlisted the aid of Henry Kissinger, Steve Austin, Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin), and Kwai Caine (David Carradine)
Henry Kissinger had a reputation for being a ladies' man.
At one time, politicians actually did their job of getting things done rather than hating the other party. Billie Jean King is called “Billie Joe” here. I'm not sure if that was intentional or just out of ignorance.
But that's not all! Tomorrow a look at even more Cracked takes on The Six Million Dollar Man, including a Star Wars mashup!
THE $6,000,000 MAN-IAC
Crazy #18, July 1976
w: Len Herman
a: Ernie Colon
In the Mad parody, I think one of the guest villains, the German one, might be Herbert Lom. I'm not real sure of that, though.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Henry Kissinger as a superhero called Super K came from a Newsweek cover, drawn by Mad alum Joe Orlando.