THE GREATEST TV SHOW EVER MADE

THE GREATEST TV SHOW EVER MADE
Cracked #161, August 1979
a:John Severin

Another comic, just like yesterday, where Cracked did what they did throughout most of the 70s and 80s by doing several parodies at once,usually combining them, they did movies last time, this time they set their sights on TV shows.

One of the tropes of Laverne and Shirley was Shirley's stuffed kitten.

They used Robin Williams as Mork from Mork and Mindy every chance they could, doing about five parodies and three specials with him.

For some reason Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) of M*A*S*H are married in this. Maybe they would be in post-Korea civilian life.

They also had Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) of Fantasy Island.

Cheryl Ladd, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith, the second wave of Charlie's Angels. Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) of The Odd Couple, which was off the air by then. Lorne Greene as Commander Adama on Battlestar Galactica, Ed Asner was Lou Grant in his own show by then. Archie (Carroll O'Connor) and Edith (Jean Stapleton) from All In the Family.

Mike Wallace of Sixty Minutes when they were more known for investigative reporting than profiles (they still do both). Back to Battlestar Galactica with Richard Hatch as Apollo. John Travolta had left the role of Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter by then though Valerie Bertinelli was still Barbara on One Day at a Time.

Mork's commander was named Orson. Linda Lavin was Alice.

Fonz was another person they put in Cracked every chance they could. The only other two series of Don Rickles I know of were The Don Rickles Show and CPO Sharkey.

ALAS

ALICE
(1976-1985) CBS

Alice was a sitcom based on a movie directed by Martin Scorsese called Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The movie wasn't really a comedy. The thing they both had in common was that they were about a single mother raising her young son while working in a diner while aspiring to be a country singer. That and Vic Tayback. The show mostly took place at the diner.

ALAS
MAD #198, April 1978
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres

The waitresses all work at Mel's Diner. The two others besides Alice (Linda Lavin) were Flo (Polly Holiday) who was a flirt and Vera (Beth Howland) who was stupid. Her son Tom (Philip McKeon) was always hanging around.

Mel(Vic Tayback)'s name switches from Mule to Smel in this. I don't know if this was bad editing or if they couldn't decide which was the better pun.

“Kiss my grits” was Flo's big catchphrase.

Alice later gets a visit from the mother of her dead husband.

And Mel gets a visit from an old college buddy that they fix up with Alice.

They decide it's time to change with the times.

Linda Lavin had an affiliation with MAD a little more than a decade before this.




ALUCE
Cracked #182, November 1981
a: John Severin

By this time Flo spun off into her own series.

One of the occasional recurring customers was a guy named Henry (Marvin Kaplan).

A new customer at the diner appears to be James Garner.

James Garner turns out to really be the health inspector.


MALICE
Crazy #25, May 1977
w: Len Herman
a: Kent Gamble

Sorry about the speech balloons being cut off in some of these panels. They were printed that way.

ALICE!
Sick #121, June 1978
w: Joe Gill
a: Jack Sparling

This was the only one of these magazines that had them on the cover.

They used the same concept as the MAD parody of the diner being held up.

Sorry, the smudges were there already. They thought they apprehended the crooks, but the crooks ran away.

This is the first time anything we've covered has been parodied by MAD, Cracked, Crazy and Sick. The blog's first royal flush.

UPDATE:

The first page to the Cracked parody was missing and I said if I got it I'd put it up which is what I did. It's up above.

UPDATE 2:

from TV Moments We'll Never See in Bananas #60, circa 1983.