YELLOWSTREAK

YELLOWSTREAK
MAD UK #247, November 1982
a: Dave Stoten

A lot of TV detective spoofs of the seventies put all the detectives together, usually because the premise was the detective had some kind of gimmick or trait. This is supposed to by about this premise taken to its most absurd conclusion as a detective called Yellowstreak, who's supposed to be Orson Welles as all their traits combined.

This article seems to pre-date right-wing rancor against “woke” by forty years, lamenting how detectives used to be like Sam Spade, then TV made them disabled (Ironside, Raymond Burr), black (Shaft, Richard Roundtree), female (Police Woman, Angie Dickinson), fat (Cannon, William Conrad), streetsmart (Columbo, Peter Falk), and old (Barnaby Jones, Eddie Albert). McCloud is in the background of the splash panel as well.

Winifred Atwell was a jazz/ragtime musician. I have no idea why she's referenced here.

There are appearances by Quincy, Efrem Zimbalist and Roger Smith from 77 Sunset Strip, and Starsky & Hutch. There seems to be a picture of James Garner in Quincy's lab. In the last panel Orson Welles looks more like Tim Curry.

I'm familar with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas from Street of San Francisco and Robert Wagner from Hart to Hart, but I must say I'm stumped by the two in the same panel as with Kojak. They must be the only non-American detectives.

SHAFTED

SHAFT
CBS 1973-1974

SHAFTED
Crazy #4, May 1974
w: Len Wein
a: Mike Ploog

Not the films, of which there were three, but the TV series. Since many of NBC's mystery series were revolving TV movies, CBS decided to do the same thing and brought Shaft to the small screen, alternating with the Jimmy Stewart series Hawkins. The Shaft series also featured Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, the big black dick who was sex machine to all the chicks.

There was an unwritten rule in the seventies that if one TV detective was parodied, they all had to be, hence the appearances by Ironside, Columbo, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, and Ironside on the cover. They're on the inside too.

Shaft's boss was Lt. Rossi (Ed Barth).

In Isaac Hayes' theme, a popular song in its own right, he describes Shaft as “a mean mother--” and is then interrupted before he can say the f-word. 3

Shaft's Big Score was the title of one of his movies.

LONGSHOT

LONGSTREET
1971-1972 ABC

LONGSHOT
MAD #153, September 1972
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

The early seventies saw the era of the detective with the disability and/or gimmick. Longstreet's was that he was blind. This explains the story of Mike Longstreet (James Fransiscus), an insurance investigator, as told by his associates. The real Longstreet lost his eyesight from a bomb in a champagne bottle. His seeing eye dog was named Pax. His co-workers were Nikki (Marlyn Mason) and Duke (Peter Mark Richman).

The other two detectives are Ironside (Raymond Burr) and Cannon (William Conrad)

TV'S DEFECTIVE DETECTIVES
Cracked #102, August 1972
a: Jack Barrett

The other detectives at this gathering are Mannix (Mike Connors), Ironside and Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell), Nichols (James Garner), Cannon, Columbo (Peter Falk), and Sarge (George Kennedy). There is more than one cowboy in the splash panel, perhaps the other is McCloud?

Jack Webb as Friday from Dragnet also appears to be present.

THE GREAT NIELSON AIRWAVE WAR

THE GREAT NIELSON AIRWAVE WAR
Cracked #138, December 1976
a: McTurk (John Severin)

They spelled Nielsen wrong. Maybe that was on purpose though. That was how they measured ratings when there were only three networks. Maybe they still do.

This was around the time Cracked started to do combinations of TV shows and movies so they could keep doing as many as they could over and over again and use celebrities to sell copies. First here is Peter Falk as Columbo.

The first casualty is Redd Foxx of Sanford and Son. The other detectives are Dennis Weaver as McCloud and Angie Dickinson in Police Woman.

The ABC bunker has Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams of Laverne and Shirley, Lindsay Wagner as The Bionic Woman, Henry Winkler as Happy Days' Fonz, and Starsky (David Soul) & Hutch (Paul Michael Glaser).

John Travolta from Welcome Back, Kotter, Steve Austin of The Six Million Dollar Man, Edith (Jean Stapleton) and Archie (Carroll O'Connor) from All in the Family, Jimmie Walker as J. J. from Good Times, Cher, and McGarrett (Jack Lord) and Danny (James MacArthur) from Hawaii Five-O.

UPDATE:

I discoveredm there was a cover to this which I just added and put at the top.

THE ABC MISERY MOVIE

THE ABC MYSTERY MOVIE ABC 1989-1990

THE ABC MISERY MOVIE
MAD #290, July 1990
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres

Oh, and just one more thing...

After posting all the Columbo parodies yesterday (see older post) and mentioning its revival, reader Daniel Frank pointed out I forgot this one. I decided to make it a different post rather than an update because this was sort of its own thing.

A decade after NBC had Columbo as one of the rotating shows for their Sunday night NBC Mystery Movie with McCloud and MacMillan and Wife, ABC revived the formula bringing back Columbo (Peter Falk) alternating with B. L. Stryker (Burt Reynolds) and Gideon Oliver (Louis Gossett, Jr.).

The murder victim here is Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) of Murder, She Wrote, a crime series on CBS.

COLUMBUM
Cracked #247, September 1989
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan

I had this up briefly yesterday and took it down because I felt it would be more appropriate here.

The murder in Columbo always happened at the beginning of the show, and we know how it happened. He often mentioned his wife which we never saw, but she later had her own series.

The murder victim is Lt. Col. Oliver North.

CLODUMBO

COLUMBO
NBC 1968-1978

The copyright holders are really protective, so it's hard to find clips.

TV series about detective (Peter Falk) whose unassuming appearance makes suspects think he's not as smart as he looks. The fact that he appears “stupid” is comedy gold for the parody magazines.

CLODUMBO
MAD #156, January 1973
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres

He talks a lot and in a roundabout way too.

The witness is a caricature of Robert Culp.

Peter Falk was one of a long line of celebrities who wrote in showing themselves reading their appearance in the magazine.

One of his ways of solving a crime was his line “Just one more thing...” after what seemed like the end of his questioning.

Columbo had no words to his theme song, so one was written for him in Singable Theme Songs for TV Shows by Frank Jacobs and Angelo Torres in MAD #168, July 1974.

COLUMBORE
Cracked #110, August 1973
a: John Severin

The other two detectives in the last panel are Clint Eastwood and Jack Webb.

The two cops in the middle panel are Don Knotts and Fred MacMurray.

WHAT ARE THE OLD TV AND MOVIE DETECTIVES DOING TODAY?
Cracked #121, November 1974
a: John Severin

Cracked also did a piece about Columbo's retirement.

COLUMBOOB
Sick #96, December 1973
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Tony Tallarico

The woman entering the office is feminism spokesperson Gloria Steinem.
Steinway is a piano brand.
“Should a gentlemen offer a women a Tiparillo” was a cigarette ad campaign.

There was an ad campaign for Right Guard deodorant where two people shared a medicine cabinet.

Back then feminism was even more misunderstood than now and people who wrote things like this believed women really wanted to stay stereotypical housewives underneath it all.

UPDATE:

COLUMBO
cover for Kaputt, German version of Cracked,