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.
Updated daily. There's posts besides this one archived in the sidebar on the right, you clods!
if you're at a laptop or desktop, right-click and open link on pages and they'll be clearer and legible in a new window.
YOUNG EISTRAIN
Australian MAD #287, April 1989
w & a: Warren Brown
His real name is Greg Pead, which is actually funnier than his stage name.
Showcase for Yahoo Serious, a comedian who had his fifteen minutes of fame here in the U.S. during our brief period of Ozploitation in the late eighties. Young Einstein concerns the exploits of Albert Einstein as a youth. How he developed carbonated beer and went to the city to patent his formula, had it stolen and thus in danger of having the bubbles create the nuclear bomb, and along the way he invented surfing and rock & roll, and had a romance with Marie Curie (Odile LeClezio).
MAD Australia #316, January 1993
w & a: Steve Lopes
Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) was a soldier in Vietnam in 1969 who disobeyed the orders of his commanding officer Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), who became psychotic and demanded Luc shoot an innocent couple. During the scuffle, they kill each other, and in the current time of 1992 are re-animated into the perfect soldiers ala Robocop, under the supervision of Col Perry (Ed O'Ross). They have been deployed to handle a hostage situation, which is being covered by TV reporter Victoria Roberts (Ally Walker).
Luc has a clue about who he was and Victoria knows too much, so she's run away to escape the robo-soldiers who are now after her, with Luc also being chased and not far behind. Luc is capable of running the speed of any car and lifting it as well. They check into a hotel room for safety where Luc has overheated and takes off his clothes, recharges h9mself, and packs himself in ice. The soldiers are not far behind and shoot up the hotel.
Victoria's crew has been killed, and she and Luc have been framed for their murder. While they are arrested and put on a prison transfer bus with police escorts, Andrew's memory as a psychotic Vietnam sergeant is re-triggered, he breaks loose, and runs the bus off the road. Luc returns to his parents, who assume he was dead. Andrew finds him and this leads to a climactic fight scene.
Jacko was the Energizer spokesperson during the brief US obsession with Australia in the late eighties. Ivan Drago was Dolph Lundgren's character in Rocky III.
There are a couple of other scenes covered in this next one...
Cracked #277, December 1992
w: Rich Kreigel (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
The hotel here is run by Norman Bates and his dead mother from Psycho. That's what you get when you have a hotel run by a guy and his mother in a movie.
An earlier fight scene ensues when they go to a diner and Luc keeps eating, but doesn't realize it costs money and confronts him, so he beats everyone up and trashes the place. They meet the doctor who developed the universal soldiers (Jerry Orbach) who figure out how he can be deprogrammed.
Twinge is actually a noun and not a verb, as in “I have a small twinge in my arm”, maybe they meant it as a combination of 'Twins' and 'cringe'. Much of this parody looks rushed, in parts that will be evident in a minute.
MAD #288, July 1989
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Twins is about two twins separated at birth as the result of a medical experiment to create the perfect human being by having a woman inseminated by six men. The perfect specimen was Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who was raised on a desert island another imperfect brother, Vincent (Danny DeVito) was a result of all the leftover DNA. The movie is about Julius finding Vincemt and their going on an adventure to find their real mother.
Many of MAD's movie parodies often begin with the audience in a theater on watching it at home and making comments about it. Here the splash panel is a drawing taken from the poster and the comments are all off-camera captions, suggesting Drucker didn't have time to draw anything else.
The parody is more about the actors' personalities and being twins but doesn't get into the plot about how Vincent owes a gambling debt and loan sharks are after him as well as a gangster after a device Vincent has in his possession. There's another plot where Julius has never been with a woman before and Vincent teaches him to cut loose. MAD gets their names mixed up too.
Vincent is a philandering letch who has a girlfriend, Linda, that's not used in this parody. Her friends tell her not to trust him. She has a sister, Marnie (Kelly Preston) who hates Vincent but meets Julius and develops a crush on him.
Julius goes to Los Angeles and seeks out Vincent at the orphanage where he was raised. They tell Julius how bad Vincent was, how he's probably in prison, he is for ignoring traffic tickets, and Julius finds him and bails him out. Vincent won't believe he's Julius' twin brother and keeps trying to ditch him. Julius keeps finding him by twin telepathy. Vincent gets tips from a the owner of a parking garage (David Caruso) that's a front for a chop shop and steals cars from them.
Also not in the parody: Vincent finds something in one of the cars he steals and finds out it's worth five million dollars. He has to go to Houston to get it. Julius finds out their biological mother is in New Mexico which is on their way but needs to take a shower first. Vincent sees this as an opportunity to abandon Vincent but just as he's about to leave he's visited by Linda and Marnie with a cake for his birthday. In New Mexico they go to the office of Dr. Mitchell Traven (Nehemiah Persoff), the doctor in charge of the experiment, to find their mother, but denies having anything to do with it until it makes Julius angry. All this time the loan sharks and a ganaster competing for the device are in pursuit of him. This road trip is about a third of the movie.
On the road, while the men and women are staying in separate hotel rooms, Vincent leaves and Marnie comes in, taking Julius' virginity. They have found out their mother, Mary Ann Benedict (Bonnie Bartlett), at an artists' colony. She was a famous artist who founded the colony but denies who she is because she assumes they are trying to scam her, saying Mary Ann is long dead.
Also not in the parody 2: Vincent becomes disillusioned he no longer has a mother and abandons everyone in the desert, driving to Houston to get his money. He finds out it's a fuel combustion engine and gets his money. The people giving him the money are there to steal it and abandon him but he doesn't care. The gangster that was after him tracks him down as does Julius, they outsmart the gangster, and Julius convinces Vincent to do the right thing and the the engine to its proper owner.
They use the reward to start a legitimate corporation. The mother sees this in the newspaper, realizes they were honest people, and reconnects with them.
TONIGHT LIVE WITH STEVE VIZARD
Seven Network, 1990-1993
Australian MAD #298, October 1990
a & w: Andrew Fyfe
Talk show from Australia with a set that looked almost a\exactly like Late Night with David Letterman, using the same format of his show, as well as the format of The Tonight Show.
The show's musical director was Paul “The Count” Grabowsky.
The difference between talk shows here was a serious news segment, which was presented by sidekick Jennifer Keyte. Here the guest is Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
STRICTLY ROMPER ROOM
Australian MAD #319, June 1993
w: Mark Juddery
a: Peter Wikinson
Mostly Australian month ends with two Australian movies most Americans have heard of, Strictly Ballroom and Romper Stomper, here mashed up.
Strictly Ballroom is about ballroom dancing hopeful Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio) upsetting the community by doing his own moves and upsetting the community by ruining his chances of winning the championship with his own moves. Romper Stomper stars Hando (Russell Crowe), leader of a Neo-Nazi skinhead group and profiles their downfall.
Among the skinheads are Telly Savalas and Sinead O'Connor, who caused a scandal that year by “sucker punching” Saturday Night Live, when as musical guest she ended her act by tearing up a picture of the Pope on television without telling anyone in advance.
In Ballroom, Scott abandons his original dancing partner Liz (Gia Carides) in favor of Fran (Tara Morice), who appears to be a beginner but turns out to come from a long line of flamenco dancers.
The characters in Alien³ all have shaved heads as well. It has been nicknamed Skinheads in Space.
PUNS AND CAVORTERS
Australian MAD #242, October 1983
w & a: Tim Hannaford
They really like the prime time soaps in Australia. This was about the feuding Palmer and Hamilton families. Its main star was Patricia “The Rat” Hamilton (Rowena Wallace). Its other stars were Fiona Thompson (Pat McDonald) and Jill Taylor (Kim Lewis)
John Palmer (Peter Phelps) and Angela Hamilton(Ally Fowler) were two of its other stars.
Australian MAD #224, July 1981
w: Dave Emerson
a: Jimmy Green
Not to be mistaken for the British series. This series, syndicated in the states as Prisoner: Cell Block H was a soap about a womens' prison in Australia. The parody doesn't mention everyone's names, so it's hard to identify everyone. The main cast was Meg Morris (Ellspeth Ballantyne), Lizzie Birdsworth (Sheila Florance), “Queen” Bea Smith (Val Lehman), Doreen Anderson (Collette Mann), Deputy Gov. Jim Fletcher (Gerard Maguire), Gov. Erica Davidson (Patsy King), Vera Bennett (Fiona Spence), Noelene Bourke (Jude Kuring).
There are marginal cartoons similar to Sergio Aragones' Drawn Out Dramas but about prison, though not by Aragones.
Norman Gunston was a talk show character in Australia.
Johannes Bjelke-Peterson was the premier of Queensland.
PHAR OUT
Australian MAD #246, April 1984
w & a: Darren Pracy
The movie begins with Phar Lap dead and his story told in flashbacks. He's brought in to New Zealand as his trainer Harry Telford (Martin Vaughn) and wife Vi (Celia Van DerBurgh) look on.
David Davis (Ron Leibman), the horse's owner, has no faith in him and demands Harry sell him, but Harry convinces him to give Phar Lap, initially called Bobby, a chance for a percentage of the winnings as long as Harry doesn't associate him with the horse. Phar Lap's stable boy Tommy Woodcock (Tom Burlinson) thinks he's being worked to death and gets fired for saying that, but is rehired when it's found he formed a bond with Phar Lap who wasn't eating without him. Phar Lap was originally renamed Far Lap because he went long distances but it had to be changed because seven letters was required to enter races.
Phar Lap loses the first few races but Tommy and his assistant Cashy (Richard Morgan) realizes he likes to come up from behind, which helps him win, bringing in prizes and saving everyone from bankruptcy. He becomes a contender for the Melbourne cup,and Dave Davis attempts to capitalize on Phar Lap's success with gambler Eric Connolly (John Stanton).
Harry is getting threats because Phar Lap's now a valuable commodity, and asks Dave for security, something Dave eventually agrees to. While Tommy Is talking Phar Lap out to practice, they are followed by a car and shot at. Jim (James Steele), the jockey, and the horse, stay in hiding until the day of the race, and almost show up late with all the police escorts.
The N.R.M.A. Isbasically Australia's equivalent to the A.A.A.
Tommy gets married. Phar Lap has seemingly run his course and Dave wants to sell him. Harry tricks Dave into thinking Phar Lap is lame so he can buy him for less money but he ends up winning the next race. Phar Lap is asked to race at Agua Caliente, the biggest race in Mexico, and Tommy and the crew go with them.
PERV-IT MATCH
Australian MAD #263, June 1986
w & a: Deane Taylor
Game show parodies are easier to encapsulate if you've never seen them, because the only recurring character is the one host, who was Greg Evans. It's also easy when the show follows the format of another show, since this was similar to The Dating Game, where a contestant asked three innuendo-laden questions to three potential suitors, picking the best one sight unseen.
Game shows must also be equally as easy for the creators, since they don't have to caricature anybody accurately except for the host.
