JUNE UPDATES #3: THE REST

The last of the updates... for now. The shows are all highlighted linking to previous postsfrom before in case you need to know the characters' real names or the actors who played them, or are lost in some other way.

I finally found this Bananas article I mentioned last week.

WKRP IN CINCINNATI
CBS 1978-1982

WKLOD IN CINCINNATI
Bananas #44, circa 1981
w: Megan Stine & H. William Stine
a: Samuel B. Whitehead

Funny how in 1981 eight characters was considered “too many”.

I think I see John Chancellor, Chevy Chase, Wolfman Jack, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, John Denver, Dan Aykroyd as Beldar Conehead, and Howard Cosell.

STRAIT-JACKET (1964)
dir: William Castle

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JOAN CRAWFORD?
Sick #29, June 1964
w: Dee Caruso and Bill Levine
a: Gray Morrow

Sorry a reference to Joan Crawford is the closest thing I have this Pride Month.

The title of this is a play on the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The movie was about a formerly institutionalized woman accused of ax murders.

Back when movie theaters were actual theaters and not just the friend of friend of a rich guy's screening room you once saw, stars would publicize the movie at a screening rather than TV appearances and press conferences.

THE EXORCIST (1973)
dir: William Friedkin

THE EXORSICK
Sick #103, April 1975
w & a: Dom Rinaldo

I'm guessing this was an unsolicited contribution in their slush pile and they needed a few pages to fill, since I never saw the name before or since and the panels are all cut and reformatted to fit the page,

WACKY T.V. WEDDINGS
Trash #3. April 1978
a: Vic Martin

No seventies humor magazine would be complete without spoofs of these shows.

THE HOBBIT (1977)
dirs: Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass


Before the movies there was this made-for-TV special.

THE HABBIT
Trash #3, April 1978
a: Bill Cicaida

Based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkein

HOLLYWOOD RING-A-DING-DIN

SERGEANTS THREE (1962)
dir: John Sturges

HOLLYWOOD RING-A-DING-DIN
Sick #14, August 1962
w: Dee Caruso & Bill Levine

QUEEN FOR THE DAY

QUEEN FOR A DAY
NBC, ABC 1956-1964

QUEEN FOR THE DAY
Sick #2, October 1960
w: Dee Caruso & Bill Levine
a: Bob Powell

Game show hosted by Jack Bailey. Women would give very sad stories about financial and/or emotional hardships, competing for the title of Queen for a Day. The winner would be chosen by the audience, be honored and win prizes, usually from the sponsors.

PERRY MASONMINT

PERRY MASON
1957-1966 CBS

THE NIGHT THAT PERRY MASONMINT LOST A CASE
MAD #48, July 1959
w: Dee Caruso & Bill Levine
a: Mort Drucker

Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) was a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles. The criminal defense attorney was Hamilton Burger (William Talman) and the police detective was Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins).

Perry was assisted by Paul Drake (William Hopper) and his secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale).

The diagram on Della's head in the first panel is from the Anacin commercials' representation of a headache.

Cracked #10, August 1959
a: John Severin

From What Do TV Characters Do After the Show Is Over? in Cracked #45, August 1965, art by Bill Ward

From The Comedy Trend on TV in #50, March 1966, art also by Ward

PERRY MAZIN: THE CASE OF THE GUILTY CLIENT
Cracked #235, May 1988
w: Robert Loren Fleming
a: Bill Wray

Erle Stanley Gardner was the author of the books Perry Mason is based on. He is drawn here as Charles Bronson. The wall on the first panel has a picture of Lt. Col. Oliver North.

From TV Scenes That Make More Sense in Sick #47, by Calvin Castine and Angelo Torres.

NITEHEAT

NIGHTBEAT
1956-1960 ABC, SYNDICATED

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.

MAX WALLISS INTERVIEWS JAYNE WOMANSFIELD
Cracked #1, February/March 1958
a: Russ Heath

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

THE GRUNTLY-BLINKY REPORT

THE HUNTLEY/BRINKLEY REPORT
NBC 1956-1970 NBC

HUNTLEY-BRINKLEY REHEARSAL
Sick #28, May 1964
w: Dee Caruso & Bill Levine
a: Angelo Torres

Basically the NBC Nightly News from before there were all-news networks, when the three networks were the only source of national news. The program was anchored by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. This first parody is based on the premise of what goes on behind the scenes and implies the two of them are not as friendly with each other as it would seem.

Michele Morgan was a French actress at the time. There are other Michele Morgans but they weren't born yet. The picture parodies a still from Cleopatra.

GRUNTLY & BLINKY IN HISTORY
Sick #43, March 1966
w: Francis DiMenno
a: Angelo Torres

This second parody is about what the program would be like if it covered events of the Roman Empire. In the background of the last panel is Steve Reeves of the Hercules movies.

Panel 5: In the foreground is another Cleopatra reference.

Sponsors were Wilkinson razor blades and Timex watches, the latter had John Cameron Swayze as their spokesperson.

Ringo Stella is a parody of Ringo Starr. They went with the angle of how all rock stars were men who looked like women and did drugs.

Publius Ruth in the Yankee uniform I thought was a caricature of Jonathan Winters since he was a big celebrity then, but now I get that it's Babe Ruth. Duh. The fourth panel is supposed to be Charlton Heston as Michaelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy. Hertz Rent-a-Car's campaign had someone coming out of the sky and landing in a car with the slogan "Let Hertz put you in the Driver's seat".

From Channel Femi-Nine in Cracked #38, August 1964. Art by John Severin.

From Teens All Over the TV Dial in Cracked #52, June 1966. Art also by Severin.

There was a comedy record parodying the program from a group called the Hardly Worthit Players.