JANUARY UPDATES 2

Here we go with another batch before I get to what I already had planned when my computer shut me out of all my files.

CHEERS
1982-1993 NBC

BEERS
Elvis Shrugged #1, February 1991
w: Dennis Worden
a: Scott Jackson

Elvis Shrugged used someof the material meant for Barf when publisher Todd Loren was murdered. I know Dennis Worden and don't know exactly why he was writing for them. He's better than that and opposite them politically. Maybe he felt an obligation when the publisher picked up his hilarious Stickboy after his falling out with previous publisher Fantagraphics.

THE CONTINENTAL
1952-1954 CBS, SYNDICATED

THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL
Bughouse #3, July-August 1954
artist unknown

COOL HAND LUKE (1967)
dir: Stuart Rosenberg

HOT HAND DUKE
Wild! #2, June 1968
a: Henry Scarpelli

This parody conflates the crew distracted by seeing the woman washing her car and Luke using the task of fetching the warden's pet from the car as his first escape attempt.

THE COSBY SHOW
1984-1992 NBC

THE NIL FLAWSBY SHOW
Barf #3, September 1990
w: Herb Shapiro and Todd Loren
a: Dave Garcia

THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER
1969-1972 ABC

THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S DA-DA
Sick #78, September 1970
w: Guy Thomas
a: Jack Sparling

THE COWBOYS (1972)
dir: Mark Rydell

SICK MOVIE REVIEW: THE COWBOYS
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)

Moshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader known for having an eyepatch. Ralph Nader, before he was a presidential candidate, wrote about unsafety of consumer products first exposing the auto business.

CROCODILE DUNDEE
dir: Peter Faimann

Australian MAD #272, July 1987
w: Adam Searle
a: Zmud

Like I mentioned before, the Australian version of MAD often does versions of movies not parodied here, yet they did one of Crocodile Dundee, which had already been parodied in the American version. Perhaps the country felt it was their domain, since Paul Hogan was already a well known personality there before making a big splash in the US and launching our brief period of Austro-mania in the late eighties. Apologies for the political incorrectness that doesn't translate as well over the borders.

DRAGNET
1951-1959,1967-1970 NBC

DRAGNET LETTER
Cockeyed #4, c. 1956
author unknown

BLUE-EYED KOOK

COOL HAND LUKE (1967)
dir: Stuart Rosenberg

MAD #120, July 1968
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is arrested and sent to prison camp for busting parking meters (it isn't clear whether it's to steal money or if he's just cutting them up for pleasure. In the parody they're gumball machines.) We're introduced to the camp, where the owner (Strother Martin) introduces himself, and the prisoners all introduce themselves. Luke mouths off, and brushes off the time he'll spend there as just another couple years in his life. There are references to Vietnam in this article even though the movie takes place in the forties or fifties.

When they are all in their bunks at night the floorwalker (Clifton James) tells them the rules and what punishments will put them in “the box”, a wooden hut that is basically solitary confinement. The next morning, they work on a road crew, clearing the roads. Their boss (Morgan Woodward) is a guy that wears sunglasses and carries a shotgun. We meet Dragline (George Kennedy) and Society Red (J. D. Cannon). A prisoner goes in the box as exposition.

Hud, Harper, Hombre, and The Hustler were other movies that starred Paul Newman.


While working on the road, the prisoner are turned on seeing a woman nearby washing her car.

The prisoners all think Luke's out of line and Dragline, their leader, challenges him to a fight, for which he keeps getting up. That and a card game (For which he earns the nickname “Cool Hand” Luke) earn him their respect.

Luke's mother (Jo Van Fleet) comes on visiting day and it's the last he'll see of her. Dragline makes a bet with the other prisoners that Luke can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in an hour, which he does. Him lying on the table afterwards as if crucified is one of the many examples of Christian symbolism they allude to in the parody which they imply makes it arty but more than fifty years later is fairly secular.

Not in parody: A rainstorm forces the prisoners all back in the truck. Luke refuses to go. When they're back that night. Luke finds his mother has died, and he's forced to go into the box because they don't trust him not to escape after the funeral's over. At work on the crew, Luke works his way up to king of the gang when he leads them in paving the tar on a road quicker than expected.

Now back to the parody.

A party they have to celebrate the Fourth of July also doubles as making noise to saw an escape hatch into the floor. Luke and another prisoner break out through the floorboards. The other prisoner is caught climbing the fence, but Luke makes it into town, until he gets caught, but not before exhausting one of the bloodhounds to death. When he's brought back to work, he's put in chains. Then the tagline of the movie is used.

Also not featured: His next escape. He cuts the chains with an axe and uses chili powder to get bloodhounds off the scent of his trail. When he's gone Drag gets a magazine in the mail that has a picture of Luke with two women and everyone cheers him on. When he's caught and brought back a second time, he's forced to dig a ditch and fill it back up again as punishment, breaking him down, but like the fight earlier, he gets back up again.

Back on road crew duty, Luke is told to fetch things from the truck. A guard shoots a turtle and Luke has to put it in the truck. When he does he drives away and Dragline jumps in with him, and he's taken the keys to the other trucks so he can't be chased. They abandon the truck when they get into town and agree to split. Luke sees an abandoned church and prays to God.

Dragline runs having turned Luke in, but Luke is shot. As he is, he goes off smiling, and dies in the hands of authorities. In the movie, they all reminisce about what a legend Luke was back at the camp.