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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This was the cover to some foreign edition, I neglected to note which one.
MAD #335, May 1995
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
Introduced by Rod Serling, a science-fiction series about a unit of the FBI that investigates the supernatural, particularly UFOs. The division is headed by Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) was the assistant director, and their boss. Mulder became convinced in the existence of alien life when he believed his sister was abducted at an early age.
The splash page, as well as all the panels throughout, are filled with aliens from various science-fiction TV shows, movies, and cartoons.
The first panel has then-New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Giants stadium is also located in New Jersey. Go figure.
The last panel features Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci of Good Fellas.
A couple issues later, on the letters page...
Cover to the Brazilian edition.
A CRACKED LOOK AT THE X-FILES
Cracked #305, January 1996
w: Rob Weske
a: Bruce Bolinger
When they say “Off-Beatle”, they really mean it. None of them look like the actual Beatles. They took everybody by surprise when they came to America and revived what was assumed a dead genre outside of cities, and I guess Jack Davis and the staff of Sick thought the Beatles would be just a passing fad and by 1966 nobody would remember them. Boy, were they wrong.
MOVIE SPOOF: A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
Sick #33, December 1964
w: Paul Laikin
It's funny they say “staff writer” as if to imply there's a bunch of people who work in an office together when it was just a cubicle where one person probably put several magazines together.
Jake Ehrlich=celebrity fixer/lawyer. Xavier Cugat=Cuban bandleader. C. Aubrey Smith=British cricket player. Jean Hersholt=silent matinee idol. Percy Kilbride and Maria Ouspenskaya=character actors who were old. Shelley Berman=more known now for Curb Your Enthusiasm was once popular stand-up comic.
Frankie Darro=child actor
Tommy Manville=socialite with 13 marriages
Willie Sutton=bank robber. The movies mentioned were known for being inconsequential.
MAD had many references to the Beatles over the years. This was a poster they had as an insert in MAD Super Special #25 in 1978, eight years after they broke up. Did the MAD staff think they were a new thing?
Most of the jokes about them were about their hair. This was a parody of the Breck shampoo ads that had paintings of famous models from the 30s to the 60s. The back cover of MAD #90 in October 1964.
Frank Frazetta only did a few jobs for them and they wanted him to be a regular but they could never work a deal about keeping the original art (contributors were able to just send digital files towards the end). Had he become one of the “usual gang of idiots” he might not have been known for his fantasy art.
Other jokes about the Beatles were just about their name.
More articles from the issue of Sick I showed the cover for at the beginning of this post.
The centerspread for this issue reads more like something you'd read in a fan magazine than something you'd see in a humor magazine.
Back cover for that issue.
Probably a coincidence they were bald for the cover of Help!
Probably also a coincidence the Beatles' next movie was called Help!
National Lampoon did a whole issue dedicated to The Beatles.
The grandfather wasn't actually reading Sick in the movie like above, but they very well couldn't use the photo of their manager with the competition.
LURKING GIRL
MAD #288, July 1989
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Angelo Torres
Movie about Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), a secretary from Staten Island that takes the initiative while her boss Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) is laid up and works on a deal with Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford).
New Dorp Lane is one of the main streets of Staten Island. Gorillas in the Mist was one of Sigourney Weaver's other movies. Ivan Boesky was one of the first people to be arrested for insider trading.
Tess is smarter and more ambitious than the people who work above her. Her boyfriend Mick (Alec Baldwin) doesn't treat her well and ends up cheating on her. Her co-workers set her up with a job interview with a man who turns out to be a sexual predator (Kevin Spacey unseen here, playing against type) and she fights back which gets her fired. The human resources director (Olympia Dukakis) gets her a job at another branch in the firm.
Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko from Wall Street makes a cameo in the first panel. Something Wild was a previous Melanie Griffith film. Nora Dunn and Joan Cusack are two of Tess' co-workers caricatured in the third panel. Olympia Dukakis' cousin Mike is in a picture in the last panel.
Tess gets a job at a different branch of the firm working under Katharine Parker, who ends up mentoring her and listening to her ideas. She proposes the idea of merging with a radio company but gets dismissed and told by Katharine to keep trying. Katharine breaks her leg skiing and takes a leave of absence, so Tess takes advantage of this time to pretend being the boss. While house sitting for Katharine, she sees Katharine was planning to propose Tess' merger idea as her own. Later that night, Tess crashes an executive meeting and meets Jack Trainer.
The middle panel has MAD editor John Ficarra, who was also from Staten Island.
The editors must have allotted four pages to the movie and then realized it wasn't enough, since most of the last half of the movie is condensed on the last page.
After a night of drinking, Jack takes Tess home. She attends the acquisitions meeting the next morning and when she gets there she finds she'll be working with Jack. He assures her nothing happened, and they agree to put it all behind them and work together. They become romantically involved, and he tells her there's someone else he plans to break up with. That other woman is Katharine Parker. When Katharine gets home, she finds out Tess has been assuming her position and crashes a meeting just as Tess and Jack are about to finish merging the company with that of Mr. Trask (Philip Bosco). Katharine accuses Tess of stealing her idea when she was the one who stole it from Tess. Katharine is sent packing and Tess is promoted.
The Year of Living Dangerously was another of Sigourney Weaver's earlier movies. Nostromo was the ship in Alien. In Dan Quayle's, campaign for Vice President, he said he looking like JFK would win him votes, but the most famous line in his debate was his opponent telling him “you're no JFK”
WKRAP IN CINCINNATTI
MAD #218, October 1981
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Angelo Torres
Sitcom about a radio station converting to a rock & roll format in their quest to climb from their spot as the lowest rated station in Cincinatti. It was managed by Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump), who brought in Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) to be the new programming director. Their secretary Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson) was lusted after by everyone else in the office. She was the smartest and highest paid person there despite doing the least amount of work and having several conditions.
The two disc jockeys at the station were Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) and Venus Flytrap ((Tim Reid). Andy's assistant was Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers). Two holdovers from the station's earlier format were ad salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner) and news reporter Les Nessman (Richard Sanders).
Les Nessman upset that he didn't have his own office was one of their recurring features.
Mary Tyler Moore, Ted Knight, Ed Asner, and Gavin MacLeod were all in the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and co-incidentally WKRP was from her production company.
WARP IN CINCINUTTY
Crazy #71, February 1981
w: Murad Gumen
a: Kent Gamble
John Travolta was in Urban Cowboy around then.
WKRAP IN SINSINNATTI
Sick #13o, December 1979
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling
And if you're still with us, here's a TV Guide cover by Jack Davis.
Bananas did WKLOD in Cincinatti which I used to have somewhere but can't seem to find. But remember, the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.
