WAR IS HELL

WAR IS HELL (1954)
MAD #14, August 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Wallace Wood

from Movie...Ads!, about how the advertisement makes a movie look more exciting than it really it is, back before people relied on hype months in advance from talk and entertainment shows.

THE SPECTACLE

MAD #14, August 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Wallace Wood

Fake movie from Movie...Ads! showing how studios use the best scenes from movies for their newspaper ads.

CLEAVEAGEPATRA

CLEOPATRA (1963)
dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

CLEAVAGEPATRA
MAD #88, July 1964
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Jack Rickard

From article Movie Ads with Behind the Scenes Gossip.

UPDATE:
CLEOPATRA PREMIERE
Sick# 25, December 1963
w: Treva Silverman & Dee Caruso
a: Bob Powell

Cleopatra was kind of the Star Wars of its time.

Eddie Fisher was Elizabeth Taylor's first wife.

From MAD #82, October 1963

THE CHINA SIN-DOME

THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979)
dir: James Bridges

MAD #211, December 1979
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is a reporter for a local news show in Los Angeles. She does fluff like singing telegrams.

The first page has William Holden and Faye Dunaway from Network which will be listed in due time.

One of Kimberly's pieces has her covering the nuclear power plant. She's given a tour by Bill Gibson (James Hampton).

The control room is below them which they're not allowed to film for security reasons. There are sudden vibrations in the ground and an alarm goes off. The control room assures them it is nothing. There doesn't seem to be the usual protocol and the cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) is secretly filming without anyone noticing.

Back in the newsroom, Kimberly assures them there was an accident and they have a story that needs to be the lead. The heads of the station tell her it would be irresponsible to air it without the facts. At the plant, they have done an investigation and found nothing wrong, letting Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) and Ted Spindler (Wilford Brimley) off the hook. The station, because the story they have the information on doesn't have the facts, has it locked in a vault to avoid a potential lawsuit, but Richard has stolen it and Kimberly must get it back. She goes to a bar to meet him and runs into Godell. Everyone at the plant is there celebrating that the investigation is over.

Kimberly goes to an anti-nuke demonstration hoping to get the film but when she gets there he has two experts with him who saw the film and told him what happened is dangerous. If the radiation had leaked into the earth it would go all the way through the earth (to the other side, China, thus the name of the movie).

(Missing from parody: they know Adams has the film. His assistant rushes to bring it to the meeting and they run him off the road).

Meanwhile, Godell rushes to the power plant. He wants to go on the air with an exclusive about how everyone is covering up the accident, chases everyone away at gunpoint, takes control of the plant and asks Kimberly to interview him. The executives stall him while they have a SWAT team break in and arrest him.

They come in and shoot him before they can reveal the information. He's dismissed by the executives as some disgruntled employee even though his co-workers know otherwise and Kimberly knows the truth.

A movie ad was used in William Shakespeare... Movie Critic in MAD #224, July 1981.

Crazy took their shot too.

THE CHINA SIN-DUMB
Crazy #56, November 1979
w & a: Murad Gumen

This movie premiered at almost the same time as a similar real-life nuclear meltdown at the Three-Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, PA, which led to a rise in nationwide anti-nuclear sentiment, as well as a higher profile for this movie.

Jack Lemmon dressing in drag in the top panel doesn't seem to have anything to do with the movie or this story other than to make a reference to his role in Some Like It Hot.

And just this month when the error of Asian stereotypes in the media is brought to our attention, it has to rear its ugly head.

Sick had The Chopstick Syndrome.

THE CHOPSTICK SYNDROME
Sick #129, October 1979
w & a: Dave Manak

Richard's assistant Hector (Daniel Valdez) isn't mentioned in the other two parodies.

Saturday Night Live did a sketch called The Pepsi Syndrome, where somebody spilling a a can of Pepsi in the control room at a power plant resulted in President Carter (Dan Aykroyd) and the cleaning lady (Garrett Morris) growing 50 feet tall and falling in love.

BORN FREE

BORN FREE (1966)
dir: James Hill

MAD #139, December 1970
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Bob Clarke

Poster from an article called Ads for Movie Revivals where they showed how re-releases of classic films could be catered to new audiences to make the films look depraved enough to compete with newer anti-establishment films and their looser standards.

BANANAZ

BONANZA
1959-1973 NBC

BANANAZ
MAD #73, September 1962
w: Earle Doud & Lou Silverstone
a: Mort Drucker

Long-running Western about the Cartwright family, headed by Ben (Lorne Greene) raising his three sons Adam (Pernell Roberts), Little Joe (Michael Landon), and Hoss (Dan Blocker) on the Ponderosa ranch.

From the Cracked article When Other Shows Copy the Rowan and Martin Comedy Format in issue #76, May 1969

Jack Davis did this cover for Sick #18, February 1963

From TV Scenes Worth Waiting For in Sick #39, illustrated by Angelo Torres.

From If TV Shows Were Written by the Ad Agencies (artist unknown) in Sick #48, November 1966

(“Stronger Than Dirt” was an Ajax campaign)

Jack Davis also did a TV Guide cover.

From Playdead magazine in National Lampoon, January 1973

Bonanza was also a comics series in the 60s.

THE BLECH HOLE

THE BLACK HOLE (1979)
dir: Gary Nelson

THE BLECH HOLE
Crazy #65, August 1980
w: Paul Kupperberg
a: Bob McLeod & Klaus Janson

Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lt. Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Durant (Anthony Perkins), Dr. Kate MacRae (Yvette Mimieux) are the crew of the starship Palomino, and about to return to Earth when they discover a black hole.

Also on the monitor, the robot VINCENT (Roddy McDowall) discovers the spaceship Cygnus, long-thought lost, which had Kate's father in the crew.

The crew minus Lt. Pizer, and including embedded journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine) investigates the Cygnus.

Everyone on the Cygnus was presumed dead, but they find commander Dr. Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell). The Palomino crew is skeptical of Reinhardt's theory that the Cygnus can fly through the black hole and are suspicious of that ship's faceless drones.

In the parody, the other side of the black hole is Disneyworld. Apt since The Black Hole was a Disney movie.

Crazy was published by Marvel, which is now part of Disney, so it comes full circle. Kind of like a black hole.

Missing from the parody is OLD BOB, voiced by Slim Pickens, an older prototype of the VINCENT robot.
There was also this ad in William Shakespeare...Movie Critic from MAD in # 224.