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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This sitcom was a vehicle for stand-up comic Gabe Kaplan, who had a show based on one single routine he did a few months earlier. The premise was that Gabe Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) is now a teacher and has returned to the school where he grew up ten years earlier, and now teaches the gang of juvenile delinquents that he once belonged to known as The Sweathogs. He lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn with his wife Julie (Marcia Strassman). When he's not teaching the Sweathogs, they often come to his home at night. The show opened and closed with Gabe giving one-liners like Groucho Marx or Henny Youngman.
The Sweathogs were Juan Epstein (Robert Hegyes), Arnold Horshack (Ron Palillo), Freddy “Boom-Boom” Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta)
Some of the running bits was Epstein bringing in faked written excuses to get out of tests signed “Epstein's Mother”, and the Sweathogs always saying “up your nose with a rubber hose” (sanitized for TV from Kaplan's original “up your hole with a Melo-Role”. The principal of James Buchanan High School was Michael Woodman (John Sylvester-White)
Woodman slightly resembled then mayor of New York Abe Beame.
From TV Spinoffs Yet to Come by Tom Koch and Harry North, in #206, April 1979
From MAD's “Whatever Became Of...” TV Characters Edition by Mike Snider and Bob Clarke, in #266, October 1986.
WELCOME BACK, KUTTER
Cracked #133, July 1976
a: John Severin
Another example of Cracked parodying the same shows and movies over and over.
HOW THE KOTTER GANG SPENT THEIR SUMMER VACATION
Cracked #137, November 1976
a: John Severin
From If the Carter Family Became TV Regulars in Cracked #150, art by...who else?...John Severin.
From The Final Episodes of Soured Sitcoms by Frank Caruso in Cracked #232, November 1987
This is only the first part. Tomorrow are Crazy and Sick's versions of the program.
WEB*STAR
MAD #251, December 1984
w: Larry Siegel
a: Angelo Torres
Alex Karras, football player turned actor, went out of his range to play a football player turned sports announcer, George Papadopilus. Together with his wife Katherine (Susan Clark, his real-life wife) they're a newly wed couple in Webster who are the godparents of the child of the title (Emmanuel Lewis) that get custody after the death of Travis Short, the child's natural father. The show was inspired by the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes which had a similar premise of a rich white man acquiring custody of small black children, the star played by someone with a kidney disease that made the character eternally five years younger than the real actor. ABC saw this and said “Hold my beer”.
Alex Karras' most famous role before this was Mongo in Blazing Saddles and the parody makes a few background references to it.
Merlin Olsen was one of the first known football players-turned-actors with Father Murphy. Marv Thornberry, Dick Butkiss, Bubba Smith, and John Madden were other athletes-turned-actors who did commercials.
Jerry Silver (Henry Polic II) was Katherine's secretary.
WEBFOOT
Cracked #205, August 1984
a: O.O. Severin (John Severin)
Eventually Diff'rent Strokes moved to ABC and the two shows were teamed together.
From If TV Shows Were Combined, same issue.
George Peppard was Hannibal and Mr.T. was B.A. Baracus.
WAYNE'S HURLED
Cracked #273, August 1992
w: Lou Silverstone
a: John Severin
Based on the recurring Ssturday Night Live sketch about two teenagers in Aurora, Illinois, Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) who broadcast a public access show from Wayne's basement.
Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe) is a TV producer who is in bed one night with his girlfriend (Ione Skye) and while flipping through channels come across Wayne's World, which she is a fan of. He thinks how he can buy it. Wayne and Garth finish their show and hang out at the donut shop and Wayne keeps running into his ex-girlfriend Stacey (Lara Flynn Boyle) who still carries a torch for him. Later, Wayne and his friends hang out at the gasworks and he falls in love with singer Cassandra Wong (Tia Carrere)
Wayne learns Cantonese to get with Cassandra. Meanwhile Benjamin woos Noah Vanderhof (Brian Doyle-Murray), an arcade owner, as sponsor for Wayne's World, even though he hasn't even bought the rights to the show or even talked to Wayne. He eventually buys the show, gets them a set at the television studio that looks exactly like his basement, tells them to read off cue cards, but doesn't tell them the show's sponsored by the arcade.
Wayne gets around being told to read from the index cards while interviewing Noah by writing smug comments about him that only the audience can see but Noah can't. He's reprimanded for it, quits, has a falling out with Garth, then makes up.
Wayne and Garth find out from a security guard at a concert that a record executive is coming into town and figure out a way to cut into the sattelite feed in his limo. Wayne's plan is to get Cassandra on his show but to do that he has to get her back from a richer and better-read Benjamin who's seduced her and promised to make a music video. The movie has several different meta-endings where things work out both wrong and right for everyone.
Bill and Ted had movies around the same time, thus the ending here. I'm not sure what the Fred Flintstone reference is. Time travel, maybe? Alice Cooper had a bit part in Wayne's World.
BRUCE WAIN'S WORLD
Cracked #288, March 1994
w: Lou Silverstone
a: John Severin
Val Kilmer was also Batman in two movies. Some of these villains are based one real ones, some aren't.
The Riddler (Jim Carrey), The Joker (Jack Nicholson), Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Penguin (Danny DeVito) were the main Batman villains.
