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.
Updated daily. There's posts besides this one archived in the sidebar on the right, you clods!
if you're at a laptop or desktop, right-click and open link on pages and they'll be clearer and legible in a new window.
UNSOLVED MISERIES
MAD #304, July 1991
w: Andrew J. Schwartzberg
a: Jack Davis
Kind of an updated version of In Search Of while also a precursor to true crime podcasts. It started out as a series of specials that were mini-documentaries, then a regular series hosted by Robert Stack. It dealt mostly with paranormal events like UFOs, ghosts and Bigfoot sightings, with the occasional murder coldcase. Each show began with a disclaimer stating they weren't an actual news program, like in the introduction here.
I don't think they knew how prescient their throwaway joke of “Trump University” (which didn't exist yet) would be.
BLUNDER SIEGE
MAD #319, June 1993
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
The USS Missouri is being decommissioned from the navy and there is a going away party organized for the captain by Commander Krill (Gary Busey). Krill's flown in the entertainment, which includes rocker Bill Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones) and a Playmate named Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak). Krill has had his own caterers flown in and doesn't approve of anything being prepared by the ship's cook Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) and has locked Ryback in the kitchen's meat locker while the party goes underway.
The sailor talking to Popeye in the bottom first panel is Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny.
At the party, where Krill is part of the show in drag, all the men suddenly take over the ship and order all the sailors off. Strannix was using his rock act as a cover for being a renegade sailor and the other supposed entertainers were really mercenary soldiers all along. Ryback gets the private that was guarding the meat locker to let him out. Jordan Tate, who didn't know she was caught up in this, is found alone in a room . At the Pentagon, They realize something was going on.
Ryback is actually a demoted Navy SEAL in the past and now must defeat Strannix with the help of Tate. Strannix has taken over the ship because he's a disillusioned naval officer. He plans to blow up Honolulu and the military has sent teams to stop him. Ryback has taken it upon himself to take back control of the ship.
Ross Perot was a third-party Presidential candidate in 1992 who financed his campaign himself. Around this time Kathie Lee Gifford was doing commercials for Carnival cruises using “If My Friends Could See Me Now” from Sweet Charity as its jingle.
People joked around then that action stars like Seagal, Van Damme, and Stallone were getting flabby and past their prime.
UNDER SLUDGE
Cracked #279, March 1993
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan
PUNS AND CAVORTERS
Australian MAD #242, October 1983
w & a: Tim Hannaford
They really like the prime time soaps in Australia. This was about the feuding Palmer and Hamilton families. Its main star was Patricia “The Rat” Hamilton (Rowena Wallace). Its other stars were Fiona Thompson (Pat McDonald) and Jill Taylor (Kim Lewis)
John Palmer (Peter Phelps) and Angela Hamilton(Ally Fowler) were two of its other stars.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III: THE SACRED SANDS OF TIME (1993)
dir: Stuart Gillard
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJERK TURDLES III: THE SACRED SEQUEL OF DUMBNESS
Cracked #281, July 1993
w: Andy Simmons
a: Walter Brogan
As with a lot of Walter Brogan parodies, I can't tell exactly what's going on, but I'll try.
Kenshin (Henry Hayashi) is the son of a feudal lord in sixteenth century Japan, and objects to war and goes alone to his temple while Walker (Stuart Wilson, drawn here as Prince Charles), an English trader, supplies him with arms. Kenshin finds a scepter, touches it and is transported to the present.
In the present, April O'Neil (Paige Turco) is about to leave on vacation and visits the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles, Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and Leonardo, to give them gifts. She gives that scepter to Splinter, the TMNTs' rat master, but touches it and ends up switching places with Kenshin, sending her back to Japan.
Kenshin refers to the Turtles as “kappa”, and is confused, but knows enough English to have explained to him what happened. Donatello calculates they have to go back in time to save April but have a few days before the power of the scepter goes away. April's boyfriend Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) shows up wanting to kick ass but has to stay behind to stay and watch the warriors the Turtles have to switch places with when they go back in time. April is back in Japan being tried for witchcraft.
The other Turtles go to the castle of Kennshin's father Norinaga and rescue April and also free Whit, a prisoner resembling Casey. In the woods, the Turtles, April, and Whit are attacked by villagers mistaking them for Norinaga's forces. Here's where I get confused.
STIFFS
Cracked Monster Party #22, Winter 1993
w: Andrew Osborne
a: Walter Brogan
Dating game show in the 90s hosted by Mark DeCarlo, similar to The Dating Game except it took place after the date and it was unchaperoned. It was also much raunchier and innuendo-ridden with them rating each other on the sex.
This version, being from Cracked's spinoff, starred all horror characters and was hosted by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) from Silence of the Lambs.
A sponsor for the show in most outlets was 1-900 numbers, phone sex services where you would pay by the minute to to to someone, a predecessor to Pornhub only with audio instead of video.
One of the female contestants here is Mina Harker, a character played by Winona Ryder in what was then the most recent adaptation, though it doesn't seem to resemble her. The male contestants are Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise, and Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sara Jessica Parker of Hocus Pocus also seem to be bachelorettes.
1-900 numbers weren't just used for sex. There was also LaToya Jackson's Psychic Hotline.
Studs was parodied on The Simpsons and The Ben Stiller Show.
STAR BLECCH: DEEP SPACE SWINE
MAD #321, December 1993
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
This Star Trek series took place around the same time as The Next Generation, in a station of the Gamma Quadrant of the Milky Way with the goal of the United Federation of Planets being the peacekeepers between the Cardassians and the Bejorans. The crew was Capt, Benjamin Cisco (Avery Brooks), Major Nerys (Nana Visitor), Engineer Miles O'Brian (Colm Meaney), Quark (Armin Shimerman), Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig), Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), and Jake Sisco (Cirroc Lofton).
Lots of Star Trek and Star Wars characters in the background, and coincidentally Worf from TNG would later be in this show as well.
Odo (Rene Auberjonois), a shape shifter, is absent from the two-page spread, but appears in the first panel here.
References in the last panel are made to Time Trax, Space Rangers, and Babylon Five.
Cover to the Mexican edition. This actually should have been yesterday or maybe it was a movie tie-in but what can you do.
STAR WRECK: DEEPLY SPACED-OUT NINE
Cracked Collectors' Edition #103, July 1995
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan
I think the other character in this parody is Louise Fletcher, whose series, VR5 was canceled by Fox. Sometimes these caricatures are too rushed to identify.
Joey Buttafuocco was famous for an extra-marital affair with a teenage girl who shot his wife. The screen has Dukat (Marc Alaimo), leader of the Cardassians, the hostile race occupying the Bajorans.
SENSELESS IN SEATTLE
MAD #324, January 1994
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) is a recently widowed architect who makes a new start of things after his wife dies, moving from Chicago to Seattle. On the other side of the country in Baltimore, Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) is engaged to Walter (Bill Pullman) but having doubts about their relationship (Food allergies and sleep apnea! What a dud!) His architect partner is Jay (Rob Reiner) and her friend at her newspaper is Becky (Rosie O'Donnell). Sam's son Jonah (Ross Malinger) phones a call-in radio psychologist on his behalf and Annie hears the show.
Sam is getting on with his life and his started seeing Victoria (Barbara Garrick) who Jonah can't stand. Jonah tries wants to set Sam up with the proposal letters he's been getting since calling into the radio show, particularly one from Annie, which Sam dismisses because they're all long distance and it's just a little boy trying to set him up. Annie uses her newspaper connections to find out more about him and track him down.
Annie follows Sam through the country as he goes on vacations. Jonah tries to set them up by having them meet atop the Empire State Building like An Affair to Remember, which he dismisses again, but Jonah flies out on his own anyway. Sam, in Seattle, notices Jonah is missing, finds out he's in New York, goes to get him, and meets Annie.
Cameo appearance here by Macaulay Culkin, whose Home Alone 2 was also about a child walking the streets of New York unsupervised.
SIXTY SECONDS
MAD #210, October 1979
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
This news show has been on every night... uh... like clockwork. MAD has done several parodies of them over the years. This first one was of the show in general with the original reporters Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Morley Safer.
SIX MINUTES ON “THE RETURN OF THE DRAFT”
MAD #215, June 1980
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
They parodied the show again using journalist Harry Reasoner.
SIX MINUTES LOOKS AT NUCLEAR POWER
MAD #233, September 1982
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
Their Sixty Minutes parodies started to become almost a recurring feature similar in MAD, similar to their “[---] of the Year” articles. The show also had reporters that came and went, like here they had Ed Bradley.
AN ANDY ROONEY “60 MINUTES” EDITORIAL WE'D LIKE TO SEE
MAD #239, June 1983
w: John Ficarra
Andy Rooney had a humor opinion piece at the end of the show in the early 80s. Mike Wallace had a mini-scandal when he was caught on tape commenting the fine print in housing contracts would be hard to read “over watermelon and tacos”
SICKY MINUTES LOOKES AT SEX AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA TODAY
MAD #260, January 1986
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
As you could see for their letters columns, the targets of MAD were usually in on the joke and you could argue their jokes may have been compromised as a result, but two places where they never pulled any punches were with smoking and religious hypocrisy.
Diane Sawyer was a correspondent for the show. The opening panel has North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.
The next to last panel has a caricature of Phyllis Schlafly, anti-feminism architect.
Jerry Falwell, precursor to today's “war on wokeness” pundits.
Bob Guccione, as publisher of Penthouse, was Hefner's “hold my beer” competitor.
SIX MINUTES LOOKS AT SMOKING
MAD #292, January 1990
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
Meredith Vieira was another reporter for Sixty Minutes.
The bellboy was a TV mascot for Philip Morris cigarettes.
Old Gold cigarettes had commercials with a box that had a woman's legs. What this aricle fails to mention is that decades before this Mike Wallace did cigarette commercials.
Morton Downey, Jr. was one of the last of the cigarette smoking talk-show hosts.
Sixty Minutes has covered all sorts of subjects in its long run, including the inner workings of MAD. This is from 1987, and they mention how MAD was an institution that had been around for years. This report is now older than the first issue of MAD was then.
SICKLY MINUTES
Cracked #277, December 1992
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan
Lesley Stahl became one of their regulars. Covering the George Bush Sr/Bill Clinton/H. Ross Perot presidential race This has Howard Stern, Bart Simpson, and Madonna as correspondents just in case you forger this was 1992.
>
Gennifer Flowers was one of the women who claimed Bill Clinton had an affair with her.
The first panel has Jesse Jackson and the second has Mario Cuomo.
