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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THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION (1957)
dir: Stanley Kramer
THE CANNON WITH THE PASSION
Humbug #4, November 1957
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bill Elder
This is a war film taking place during the Napoleonic era, and is about British Royal Navy Officer Trumbull (Cary Grant) ordered to carry a cannon from Spain and deliver it to Britain before it can be captured by the French. It is currently in the possession of Miguel (Frank Sinatra) who will hand it over if they help conquer the city of Avilla. During the transport, the two men are at odds over Miguel's girlfriend Juana (Sophia Loren), who has an interest in Trumbull.
In the crowd in the first panel are bobbysoxers from Sinatra's earlier days as a teen idol. The next to last panel has an ad for bodybuilder Joe Weider.
One of the Spanish rebels is modelled after Marlon Brando in The Wild One
There was a rivalry between Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in their days as crooners.
They also parodied the movie in the previous issue of Humbug, portraying how the cannon would have been pulled by doubles.
From Scenes We Never Got to See by Albert Meglin and Wally Wood in MAD #42, November 1958.
Before Sixty Minutes, Mike Wallace did a bunch of his own interview shows with the alternating titles Night Beat and The Mike Wallace Imterviews, sponsored by Philip Morris cigarettes and known for its tough in-depth reporting.
MIKE MALICE INTERVIEWS MOTHER GOOSE
MAD #38, March 1958
w: Dave Berg
a: Mort Drucker
The joke here is, of course, that Wallace's hard-hitting interviews are always with the most prominent figures of the day, and this is with the most innocuous person you could think of, but as evidenced after this, many nursery rhymes were in fact the equivalent of issues like communism and poverty two hundred years earlier.
from Go West, Old Format in MAD #41, September 1958, by Albert Meglin and George Woodbridge.
Jayne Mansfield was a sex symbol of the fifties and sixties who many say was a parody of a sex symbol. Elsa Maxwell was a gossip columnist who looked nothing like her. She collaborated often with her husband, bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.
A character from Harvey Kurtzman's Hey Look! makes an appearance in the lower left, and readers probably didn't know that even then.
Natalie Wood was mostly a child star at that point, Mae Busch did silents and was long dead, and Etta Kett was a comic strip character, and I don't know what they would have in common. Marjorie Main was a character actress around that time. Most known as Ma Kettle.
NITE-HEAT
Sick #2, October 1960
w: Dee Caruso & Bill Levine
a: unknown
LA PARISIENNE (UNE PARISIENNE) (1957)
dir: Michel Boisrond
These are just a few bits of different things. I chose La Parisienne as the overall movie title since that's the film that establishes Brigitte Bardot's persona as “French girl clad only in a towel”. None of the films she was in are particularly dirty, they just were considered that when they were released compared to the pre-ratings motion picture code. They were shown at 'art houses'.
The first is the cover of Cracked #10, August 1959, by Will Elder. There was a time when Harvey Kurtzman left MAD and artists could either be on Team Gaines or Team Kurtzman. When Kurtzman's magazines all failed, his artists weren't welcome back at MAD (at least for the time being) and got work at its competitors, such as with this cover.
This was the inside front cover of the issue, supposed to be the other side of the building.
And here's the story titled in this blog entry.
Cracked #5, October 1958
a: McCartney (Bill Ward)
Bill Ward was a pin-up artist for magazines from the same publisher as Cracked, so he became their glamour girl artist. Note that the T has been manually changed to an E. They probably changed it so the pronunciation would be understood. Back then they would have had to have a typographer in a union write out all the dialog instead of right here like I'm doing now and it would have been very expensive to fix.
inside front cover to MAD #43, December 1958, illustrated by Kelly Freas. Parody of American Express Travellers' Cheques.
from Scenes We Never Got to See in MAD #42, November 1958, by Albert Meglin and Wallace Wood
Here's the trailer in French for those who understand the language. (I took four years in high school and I don't remember much myself).
HAVE GUN, YOU BETTER TRAVEL
Humbug #7, February 1958
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Jack Davis
Western about the adventures of gunfighting mercenary Paladin (Richard Boone). Boone had previously been Dr, Konrad Styner on Medic. When possible, he would settle problems intellectually.
Seymour Mednick was Humbug's attempt at a mascot, though it was only used as a go-to name.
HAVE GUN, WON'T TRAVEL
Cracked #5, October 1958
a: McCartney (Bill Ward)
From Endings for Old TV Shows in Cracked #11, October 1959, by Paul Laikin and Jack Davis
From How Different TV Cowboys Get Their Man in #27, November 1962, art by John Severin
HAVE GRUNION, WILL TRAVEL
Zany #4, May 1959
a: George Peltz
UPDATE:
From Go West. Old Format in MAD #41, September 1958, by Albert Meglin and George Woodbridge
FROM ETERNITY BACK TO HERE
Mad #12, June 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bernie Krigstein
Bernie Krigstein is considered one of the masters of comics, you can see a huge influence in Daniel Clowes' work. He only did a handful of stories for EC, and only two for MAD, one being this parody of From Here to Eternity.
Film about three men and their stories about lives as soldiers at an army base in Hawaii before the Pearl Harbor attack. Private Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) transfers to another base on his own free will, in this he was commanded, but it is suggested he join their boxing team, which he refuses. His passion is playing the bugle, and he carries the mouthpiece for it wherever he goes.
Sgt. Warden (Burt Lancaster) is having an affair with the wife (Deborah Kerr) of his immediate officer Capt. Holmes (Phillip Ober).
The scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach was the only thing I knew about this movie prior to yesterday, which I'm sure is true for most people. Warden is actually present for other scenes, but as you'll see, the kissing on the beach part is necessary for the rest of the parody.
At a club later, there's a fight between Maggio (Frank Sinatra) and stockade Sergeant "Fatso" Judson (Ernest Borgnine). Warden is there to break it up, and Judson vows he'll get back at Judson some way eventually. Life is made worse for Pruitt who still refuses to box.
This was the first movie role for Frank Sinatra, who previously had only been a teen idol known for always being surrounded by girls.
At a "members only" club (whorehouse under 50s family code standards) called New Congress, Prewitt meets one of their "entertainers", Lorene (Donna Reed) and they start a relationship. In this, Mrs. Kipfer (Barbara Morrison), owner of the club, is actually Capt. Holmes trying to convince Prewitt to box for them.
They leave out the part where Maggio continues to disobey orders and does end up in the stockade under the jurisdiction of Fatso who beats him as he continues to disobey orders. He escapes and collapses to his death. Prewitt blames Maggio's death on Fatso, stabs him in an alley while they're both on leave, and Prewitt goes AWOL, hiding in Lorene's house.
The parody has Watson continuing to try to recruit him for their boxing team, though the movie has the other privates as the ones trying to get him.
The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Pruitt, still AWOL, has asked Lorene to marry him, which she will do if he will give up his career in the military. When they get news of the attack, Prewitt decides to go back into the army.
The last page spares what really happened in the movie, showing what would happen if there were no war, even though Prewitt was killed trying to come back into the army, and he did explain at the begin he no longer boxed because of an accident.
This is from Scenes We Never Got to See by Albert Meglin and Wallace Wood in MAD #42, November 1958.
FROM HERE TO THERE
Riot #1, April 1954
w: Stan Lee
a: Al Hartley
This seems to concentrate solely on Pruitt's refuse to re-enter the boxing ring. There's a bit on Warden screwing around with Mrs. Watson but mostly it's about the boxing part.
FROM HAIR TO EH-TERNITY
EH! #6, August 1954
a: Dick Ayers
Seems to be about the soldiers before the war or as if they weren't in the war or something like that.
Your Show of Shows did a parody of this movie too, back when TV shows did comedy sketches that were more than 5 minutes long and did 39 shows a year.
