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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YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN—UNSEEN
Sick # 102, February 1975
a: Jerry Grandenetti
How do you do a parody of a parody? Sick thought of a novel way to do it. Their solution: you don't. This is just a parody of the Frankenstein legend. I've pointed out that in some of these magazines they do a spoof without ever having seen the target, here they admit it. They don't even try to make the characters look like Gene Wilder or Peter Boyle, or even have the monster be bald. It's even possible they may have had an article already and added the name to cash in on the release of the movie.
From If Movies Were Combined in Cracked #131, March 1976, art by John Severin
Crazy often used stock photos in their subscription ads. Here they used a still from Young Frankenstein.
WITHOUT THESE WALLS (WE WOULDN'T HAVE A TV SERIES)
MAD UK #156, circa 1974
artist and writer unknown
I don't know what the obsession was in other countries with womens' prisons. We didn't really have anything until Orange Is the New Black. Sure, there were dozens of women in prison films in the U.S. in the early seventies, but those were about penal colonies, I mean ones more like jails. One popular one in England was Within These Walls.
Her Majesty's Prison Stone Park was run by Faye Boswell (Googie Withers).
The Deputy Governor of the prison was Charles Radley (Jerome Wills).
WORSTWORLD
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Bob McLeod
Before Michael Crichton created the blockbuster franchise of movies about robot dinosaurs gone rogue with Jurassic Park, he created a movie about robot humans gone rogue with Westworld. This was a science-fiction film about the Delos corporation, the business behind Romanworld, Medievalworld, and Westworld, amusement parks where you can live out your fantasies in one of these worlds that simulated life in the historical past.
The movie begins with a commercial for the Delos corporation hosted by Ed Wren (Robert Hogan) introducing the audience to these parks and interviewing exiting guests for their reactions to visiting these parks. Then we see Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) flying in to Wetworld and being served by a stewardess who may or may not be a robot, showing how lifelike the simulations at the parks really are.
Everything at Westworld is realistic. The food, the lodgings, the bars, the prostitutes, but only with conveniences up to a hundred years old. You can have gunfights but you can tell the difference between a robot and a real person because the guns are programmed not to work on real people.
Technicians are supervising everything in all the parks to make sure everything goes smoothly and recalling any models that don't work. Things start to go wrong when Peter kills one of their models in a gunfight (Yul Brynner) and it keeps coming back.
Peter shoots the gunslinger yet again and is sent to jail for it. He's able to blast his way out and he and John flee to the desert. (Not shown: Robots start disobeying guests and rebelling in Medievalworld). Peter and John return to town and John is shot and killed by the gunslinger, who chases Peter out into the desert again. We see it from the gunslinger's point of view.
Peter escapes into the laboraratory, then to Medievalworld, where all the guests and technicians have already been killed. Peter destroys the gunslinger by throwing sulfuric acid on him and setting him on fire, which finally defeats him after several attempts to get up.
references are made to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Henry Kissinger.
MAD #168, July 1974
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker
Katie Morosky (Barbara Streisand) is a political crusader working at a radio station in the 1940s. After a broadcast she goes out for drinks with her co-workers and runs into Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford), a passed out sailor on leave, who she once know in college.
For a few years Streisand was married to Elliott Gould, in the lower left panel.
The movie flashes back to their college days, when Katie spoke on behalf of the Communist party talking about the dangers of Hitler overseas to a mocking crowd.
Katie is working at a restaurant Hubbell, his friend J.J. (Bradford Dillman) and their girlfriends (I'm not being sexist by not naming them. They weren't named in the movie either) and make fun of her with their WASPishness and opposing political views. Despite this, Katie and Hubbell still hit it off at a college dance. In the forties, Katie brings home a sleeping Hubbell.
Katie's friend was played by James Woods, not well known enough to get the Drucker treatment yet.
During the backdrop World War II in New York City, the film shows how Katie and Hubbell's relationship consummates and blossoms. Hubbell is a sailor in the war but is really an aspiring novelist, which keeps them together despite political differences. She makes friends with his friends, which include old college mates.
Katie and Hubbell have arguments, then make up, and eventually move to Malibu where Hubbell becomes a screenwriter. It's during the Red Scare, all of Hollywood is under investigation, and Hubbell tells Katie to keep her political thoughts quiet for the sake of his career.
In the movie, they make a passing joke about how Katie would dress as Karl Marx at the costume party, which MAD must have missed.
The two finally realize politics is tearing their marriage apart and they get divorced. Fast forward to the sixties when the two meet again in New York City with he a TV writer and she still a political activist.
THE HECK WE WERE
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Steve Gerber
a: Robert Graysmith
THE DULLTONS
MAD #165, March 1974
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
The Waltons was a long-running show about a family during the Depression, opening each week with the family getting together on the porch bringing home a newfangled radio.
It starred John “John-Boy” Walton (Richard Anderson), a writer, his father John Sr. (Ralph Waite), mother Olivia (Michael Learned), grandfather Zebulon (Will Geer), and a lot of siblings.
Ike Godsey (Joe Consley) ran the general store.
Each show ended with an exterior shot of the house with each member of the family saying goodnight. Besides the aforementioned cast members, there was Grandma (Ellen Corby), “Jim-Bob” (David Harper), Mary Ellen (Judy Norton), Erin (Mary Elizabeth McDonough), Jason (John Walmsley), Ben (Eric Scott). Kami Cotler. Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are on the radio here.
From Obituaries for TV Show Characters in MAD #194, by Frank Jacobs.
From The MAD TV Coroner's Report by Stan Hart in #227, December 1981.
Cover for German edition.
THE WALLED-INS
Cracked #115, January 1974
a: John Severin
Often a present-day John-Boy (Earl Hamner, creator of the show) would narrate the episode.
The TVA, The Tennessee Valley Authority is what brought electricity and plumbing to rural areas. John-Boy was Earl Hamner's alter ego.
From What Today's Program's Would Look Like if They Appeared in 2001 A.D. in Cracked #132, May 1976, also drawn by John Severin
From If The Fonz Guest Starred on Other Shows in #137, November 1976, illustrated by Don Orehek.
From If Frankenstein Did Guest Appearances on TV from #151, July 1978, drawn by Howard Nostrand.
Carol Burnett's take on the show.
THE WALNUTS
Crazy #3. March 1974
a: Marv Wolfman
w: Marie Severin
Dusty's Trail was a sitcom with Bob Denver that was basically Gilligan's Island set in the Wild West.
THE BRAWLTONS
Sick #118. December 1977
a: Jack Sparling
From an issue-length look at TV narrated by various TV personalities, including Dr. Joyce Brothers.
