JANUARY UPDATES 1

Took a while longer than I thought to comeback but here I am again. And having been gone for so long I have a buttload of updates that'll last a whole month now. So let's start, shall we?

Usually, I start with a trailer or clip to the show or movie being parodied, but in these cases I already did that, so each heading is a link to the post it's updating. The post also summarizes the plots and premises, which I usually do, but since the link has most of the info, I won't get into it much here.

THE A-TEAM
1983-1987 NBC

THE F-TEAM
Bananas #66, circa 1983
w: Jovial Bob Stine
a: Sam Viviano

ALIEN NATION
1989-1990 FOX

ALIEN RATION
Barf #2, July 1990
w: Herb Shapiro
a: Ken Landgraf

Barf was Revolutionary Comics' short-lived entrance into the humor magazine field. They were primarily known for Rock n Roll Comics and various spin-offs. They were cut short when the publisher Todd Loren was mysteriously murdered in the early nineties, further fueling conspiracies they were known for espousing as well.

Alien Nation was both a movie and TV show. This loosely parodied the latter.

ALIEN³ (1992)
dir: David Fincher

Australian MAD #319, June 1993
w & a: Andrew Goodall

The Australian version of MAD, in addition to parodying their own movies and TV shows (a lot coming down the pipe soon), did a few parodies of US movies that weren't covered here. The numbering of their editions didn't start at #1, they were trying to coincide with the American edition.

BLOODY MAMA (1970)
dir: Roger Corman

BLOODY MOMMY
Sick #78, September 1970
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jack Sparling

Movie about the life of Kate “Ma” Barker (Shelley Winters) her four sons. She vows to take care of her family and take what she feels is rightfully hers after a traumatic childhood, and involves her four adult sons in her crime sprees.

Herman (Don Stroud), becomes engaged to Mona (Diane Varsi) who joins the Barker family.

They kidnap a local millionaire for ransom. Here it's a young Nelson Rockefeller.

BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
d: Arthur Penn

THE TRUTH ABOUT BONNIE AND CLYDE
Wild! #3, November 1968
writer and artist unknown

Bonnie Parker's character wrote poems on the side, this was was probably parodying that.

CANDID CAMERA
1948-2014 CBS, NBC, ABC, SYNDICATION

CANDID CAMERAMA Loco #1, August 1958
a: Chic Stone

Here's a weird one. It steals the story from the Trump version of someone accidentally setting their life savings on fire while trying to see inside a mailbox. Plagiarism aside, there's an 'insurance machine' and it's somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. This is another example of an editor deciding that since MAD's panels are full of sight gags, they need to have a lot too, to the point where the sight gags distract from the actual plot of the story.

SNEAKY CAMERA
Sick #6, June 1961
artist unknown

CANDID CAMERA CONSCIOUS
Sick #10, December 1961
artist unknown

CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS
1949-1955 DUMONT

CAPTAIN KIDDEO, SPACE BUM
Bughouse #3, July-August 1954
artist unknown

AILING NATION

ALIEN NATION (1988)
dir: Graham Baker

AILING NATION
Cracked #244, May 1989
w: Vic Bianco (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan

The Newcomer aliens were quarantined for three years and are now integrated into the rest of humanity. Matt Sykes (James Caan) is a cop, and his partner Sam “George” Francisco (Mandy Patinkin) is one of the Newcomers, and they must investigate a grocery store robbery on their beat.

2 This leads to another case led by criminals Strader (Jeff Kober) and Harcourt (Terence Stamp) who like many criminal masterminds in movies, have public reputations as legitimate businessmen.

Newcomers have different diets from Earthlings.

There's another storyline where Sykes has been ignoring the wedding of his estranged daughter. The wrong movie referenced here is to The Godfather, where James Caan plays a character informed his sister is being beaten by her husband.

Seawater is like battery acid to the Newcomers.

A caption is missing that could possibly advance the plot. Or maybe not.

Strader and Harcourt were behind a plot to produce a drug that's addictive to Newcomers.

They corner Harcourt, who takes much of what's left of the drug. (in the parody, he transforms into Spock and The Hulk).

Sykes and Francisco have been rewarded by the police force, who is so proud of their work they hire aliens from other franchises as cops.


It was also a TV series.

ALIEN NATION (1989-1990) FOX

Gary Graham- Matt Sykes
George Francisco- Eric Pierpoint
Susan Francisco- Michelle Scarabelli
Emily Francisco- Laura Woodland
Buck Francisco- Sean Six
Cathy Frankel- Terry Treas
Albert Einstein- Jeff Marcus
Byron Grazer- Ron Fassler
Beatrice Zepeda- Jenny Gago
Burns- Jeff Doucette
Sgt. Dobbs- Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs

AILING NATION
Cracked #253, May 1990
w: Archie Falbo (John Arcudi)
a: Walter Brogan

One of the big differences, besides different actors, is that it concentrated more on the characters' family lives.

The Welcome Back, Kotter reference has to do with the fact that the same actor played Freddy Washington on that show. (His name on this show is Dobbs)

The Newcomers on the actual show also have “funny” names like this.

One of the characters is a neighbor that's a female Newcomer who has a “will they or won't they” relationship with Sykes.

An ongoing joke on the show is the weird food the Newcomers eat.

Fault's child is Spock.