LURKING GIRL

WORKING GIRL (1988)
dir: Mike Nichols

LURKING GIRL
MAD #288, July 1989
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Angelo Torres

Movie about Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), a secretary from Staten Island that takes the initiative while her boss Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) is laid up and works on a deal with Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford).

New Dorp Lane is one of the main streets of Staten Island. Gorillas in the Mist was one of Sigourney Weaver's other movies. Ivan Boesky was one of the first people to be arrested for insider trading.

Tess is smarter and more ambitious than the people who work above her. Her boyfriend Mick (Alec Baldwin) doesn't treat her well and ends up cheating on her. Her co-workers set her up with a job interview with a man who turns out to be a sexual predator (Kevin Spacey unseen here, playing against type) and she fights back which gets her fired. The human resources director (Olympia Dukakis) gets her a job at another branch in the firm.

Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko from Wall Street makes a cameo in the first panel. Something Wild was a previous Melanie Griffith film. Nora Dunn and Joan Cusack are two of Tess' co-workers caricatured in the third panel. Olympia Dukakis' cousin Mike is in a picture in the last panel.

Tess gets a job at a different branch of the firm working under Katharine Parker, who ends up mentoring her and listening to her ideas. She proposes the idea of merging with a radio company but gets dismissed and told by Katharine to keep trying. Katharine breaks her leg skiing and takes a leave of absence, so Tess takes advantage of this time to pretend being the boss. While house sitting for Katharine, she sees Katharine was planning to propose Tess' merger idea as her own. Later that night, Tess crashes an executive meeting and meets Jack Trainer.

The middle panel has MAD editor John Ficarra, who was also from Staten Island.

The editors must have allotted four pages to the movie and then realized it wasn't enough, since most of the last half of the movie is condensed on the last page.

After a night of drinking, Jack takes Tess home. She attends the acquisitions meeting the next morning and when she gets there she finds she'll be working with Jack. He assures her nothing happened, and they agree to put it all behind them and work together. They become romantically involved, and he tells her there's someone else he plans to break up with. That other woman is Katharine Parker. When Katharine gets home, she finds out Tess has been assuming her position and crashes a meeting just as Tess and Jack are about to finish merging the company with that of Mr. Trask (Philip Bosco). Katharine accuses Tess of stealing her idea when she was the one who stole it from Tess. Katharine is sent packing and Tess is promoted.

The Year of Living Dangerously was another of Sigourney Weaver's earlier movies. Nostromo was the ship in Alien. In Dan Quayle's, campaign for Vice President, he said he looking like JFK would win him votes, but the most famous line in his debate was his opponent telling him “you're no JFK”

THE WONDROUS WOODSTOCK MUSIC FESTIVAL

WOODSTOCK (1970) dir: Michael Wadleigh

THE WONDROUS WOODSTOCK FAIR
MAD #134, April 1970
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Sergio Aragones

The festival itself was a year prior to the filmed version. A chronicle of one of the first outdoor rock concerts and became synonymous with the 1960s and counterculture. Her's a parody of the Thomas Hood poem.

WOODSTOCK REVISITED
MAD #257, September 1985
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Sergio Aragones

Here's what would happen 15 years later, to the tune of 'We Are the World'.

CRACKED GOES TO WOODSTOCK
Cracked #83, March 1970
a: John Severin

THE BLUNDER YEARS

THE WONDER YEARS
1988-1993 ABC

THE BLUNDER YEARS
MAD #291, December 1989
w: Stan Hart
a: Sam Viviano
Inspired by Stand by Me and Jean Shepherd specials about growing up in the past, this was a similar series about a guy looking back at his sixties childhood. It starred Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage). He wasn't seen in the narration, his voice as an adult was Daniel Stern. His brother was Wayne (Jason Hervey), sister Karen (Olivia d'Abo), and parents Jack (Dan Lauria) and Norma (Alley Mills). His best friend was Paul (Josh Saviano) and girlfriend Winnie (Danica McKeller).

The TV in the background has photos from sixties events but also pictures from MAD parodies by Mort Drucker and Angelo Torres.

THE BLUNDER YEARS
Cracked #239, October 1988
w: Joe Catalano
a: Walter Brogan

In the late eighties there was a whole spate of movies where children and adults switched bodies. One was Vice-Versa with Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold.

WONDER BROAD

(THE NEW ADVENTURES OF) WONDER WOMAN
1975-1979 ABC/CBS

WONDER BROAD
Goose #3, December 1976
artist and writer unknown

Like with the masthead, none of the staff of Goose is listed except for being credited as “A Bunch of Dirty Old Men”. The lettering looks like it may have been Tony Tallarico.

Wonder Woman was one of many TV shows GenXers like myself saw when placed in front of.what was then called “the electronic babysitter”. It was co-developed by Stanley Ralph Ross, who created the comics camp look for the Batman series the network was hoping to duplicate here. It was based on the comic that had existed since 1941. She and her alter ego of Diana Prince were played by Lynda Carter, who became one of TV's sex symbols of the 70s.

She had a magic lasso and was from Paradise Island, which she traveled to in her invisible plane. Her mother was Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons (played by Cloris Leachman, Carolyn Jones, and Beatrice Straight in different seasons. This could be either one of them, since it doesn't look like any of them)

BLUNDER WOMAN
Sick #122, August 1978
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling

Chapter in a longer story called Plan X From Planet Nerd.

WOMAN WONDER
MAD #10, April 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bill Elder

This parody of the comic is ironically more faithful to the TV series than those other two parodies, despite being tenty-one years before the show, and before most people even had television.

Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) is Diana Prince's boyfriend.

No comment about that last panel in re: how women were treated in the 50s (let alone the 70s or now even). They attempted to sell this to television using a different approach. This pilot was written by MAD's Larry Siegel.

WKRAP IN CINCINNATTI

WKRP IN CINCINNATTI
1978-1983 CBS

WKRAP IN CINCINNATTI
MAD #218, October 1981
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Angelo Torres

Sitcom about a radio station converting to a rock & roll format in their quest to climb from their spot as the lowest rated station in Cincinatti. It was managed by Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump), who brought in Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) to be the new programming director. Their secretary Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson) was lusted after by everyone else in the office. She was the smartest and highest paid person there despite doing the least amount of work and having several conditions.

The two disc jockeys at the station were Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) and Venus Flytrap ((Tim Reid). Andy's assistant was Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers). Two holdovers from the station's earlier format were ad salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner) and news reporter Les Nessman (Richard Sanders).

Les Nessman upset that he didn't have his own office was one of their recurring features.

Mary Tyler Moore, Ted Knight, Ed Asner, and Gavin MacLeod were all in the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and co-incidentally WKRP was from her production company.

WARP IN CINCINUTTY
Crazy #71, February 1981
w: Murad Gumen
a: Kent Gamble

John Travolta was in Urban Cowboy around then.

WKRAP IN SINSINNATTI
Sick #13o, December 1979
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling

And if you're still with us, here's a TV Guide cover by Jack Davis.

Bananas did WKLOD in Cincinatti which I used to have somewhere but can't seem to find. But remember, the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.