ZZZZPG

ZPG (1972)
dir: Michael Campus

ZZZZPG
Cracked #105, November 1972
a: John Zeverin (Severin)

ZPG stood for Zero Population Growth, an idea floating around at the time (still talked about at flat-earth levels) that was the basis for this movie, the concept of this dystopian science-fiction film (basically the only kind of science-fiction before Star Wars). In this future, the population of earth has become so uncontrollable that there is a moratorium on all births for thirty years, punishable by death.

Russ (Oliver Reed) and Carol (Geraldine Chaplin) are a couple who work at a twentieth-century museum and yearn to have an actual baby.

Walter Matthau as Kotch is in the opening panel. That movie is also spoofed in this issue.

There is an option for couples such as this who are allowed to adopt realistic dolls that won't eat, so won't burden an already overpopulated Earth. This isn't good enough for Russ and Carol, who want a real baby. (They conceive one in the movie but here they buy one on the black market). They have to hide the fact that theirs is real to not tip off the authorities or anyone who sees them and is required to turn them in.

Their neighbors, George (Don Gordon) and Edna (Diane Cilento) know they have a real baby and want to share or else they'll turn Russ and Carol in.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was about two progressive couples that tried everything new, building up to their attempt at a foursome. It received an X rating when released but today is tamer than any family film. Conversely, it's shocking what had G and PG ratings then.

Carol and Russ go underground and find their way to an island free from excess pollution, where they're free to raise a baby without consequences.

Parodies of the Planet of the Apes franchise, Rosemary's Baby, and Willard are also on this blog.

And that's all she wrote. I've run out of movie parodies for now, but more will probably show up eventually and I'll post those as I get them. I'm still around on all other major social networks for anyone wanting to find me, though I'm considering quitting Twixter soon, since a mass exodus seems to be afoot.

YOUNG SURESCHLOCK HOMELY

YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES (1985)
dir: Barry Levinson

YOUNG SURESCHLOCK HOMELY
MAD #263, June 1986
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

The origin of Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe), how he met Watson (Alan Cox), and their first major case.

The prologue to the movie has someone shot with a blowdart and being injected with a poison that makes them hallucinate, part of the case they end up breaking. John Watson enrolls in Brompton boarding school where he meets Sherlock Holmes, who guesses his name and identity based on his clothing and belongings, a foreshadowing of the deductions we know him for. At the beginning of the film, Sherlock is challenged by a classmate to find a hidden trophy, which he concludes is inside an antique vase based on clues he discovers while looking for it. He's expelled from the school for cheating by schoolmaster Rathe (Anthony Higgins) who is also his friend and fencing instructor. Rupert Waxflatter (Nigel Stock), a former professor of Sherlock's and eccentric inventor, kills himself while the victim of the same mysterious blowdart perpetrator. Dr. Waxflatter's niece is Elizabeth (Sophie Ward) is Sherlock's girlfriend, and with Watson they decide to solve the case and find what happened.

Sherlock seeks the aid of Lt. LeStrade of Scotland Yard (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) who refuses to help. In their search for what's been happening in town, Sherlock and Watson come across an Egyptianh sacrificial cult, who has just kidnapped Elizabeth.

They find Rathe has been the leader of the cult all along and create a distraction to destroy the temple while saving Elizabeth. Sherlock challenges Rathe to a duel and wins. Elizabeth is shot in all this. The case is solved and Sherlock Holmes goes home for the year, promising Watson that some day they'll meet again.

Jewel in the Nile was also parodied in that issue and both films have been compared to the Indiana Jones series.

A CRACKED LOOK AT YOUNG SCHLOCK HOLMES
Cracked #220, July 1986
w: Joe Catalano
a: Walter Brogan

It would be better to see more of this style from Walter Brogan than the Mort Drucker swipes they usually printed but I guess it's what they wanted. It would also be nice if I got some of these gags. But if “ifs and buts” were candy and nuts...

YOUNG BUMS (YOUNG GUNS)

YOUNG GUNS (1988)
dir: Christopher Cain

YOUNG BUMS
Cracked #243, March 1989
w & a: Rick Altergott

Western about the Lincoln County Regulators, “Dirty” Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney), “Doc” Scurlock (Keifer Sutherland), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Charlie Bowdre (Casey Siemasko), and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), ranch hands under the tutelage of John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) that all join Billy “The Kid” Bonney (Emilio Estevez). Tunstall has a feud with rival rancher Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance).

Lou Diamond Phillips' big breakthrough was as Ritchie Valens in La Bamba.

One of Murphy's hired hands, McCloskey (Geoffrey Blake), joins up with Tunstall, while Doc attempts to court Murphy's Chinese ward, Yen Sun (Alice Carter). Murphy's men kill Tunstall, leading his lawyer friend Alexander McSween (Terry O'Quinn) to arrange for the Regulators to be deputized and given warrants for the killers' arrest. Hotheaded Billy challenges Dick's authority as the group's foreman, as the Regulators attempt to take Murphy's henchmen in alive. Instead, Billy guns down several unarmed men, including McCloskey, whom he suspects of still working for Murphy. Newspapers paint the Regulators as a deadly gang headed by a larger-than-life outlaw, "Billy the Kid".With bounty hunters seeking them all over the West and unsure where to go, Chavez leads the others on a peyote trip.

One of the men on their warrants. Buckshot Roberts (Brian Kieth), tracks them down and a shootout ensues. Roberts barricades himself in an outhouse and kills Dick, and as a reaction, the rest of the Regulators shoot up the outhouse. This lead the others to go on the run, while an injured Doc goes his own way. Chavez reveals that Murphy's corruption led to the deaths of his mother and her Navajo tribe, and urges the others to abandon their need for bloodshed, but Billy takes charge as their new leader, determined to avenge Tunstall. Doc visits Yen Sun before rejoining the gang, and they kill the corrupt Sheriff William J. Brady (Danny Kamin) and his men. They meet with a furious Alex, who explains that their badges have been revoked. Though they are now wanted men, Billy insists that their actions will bring attention to Murphy's corruption. While Charlie revisits a brothel, Billy kills an arrogant bounty hunter, and the gang escapes to Mexico, where Charlie marries a local woman. Soon-to-be-sheriff Pat Garrett (Patrick Wayne) warns Billy that Murphy's men will make an attempt on Alex's life the following day.

At Alex's house in Lincoln, the gang is surrounded by Murphy's men and famed outlaw John Kinney. Realizing that they were lured into a trap, the Regulators survive an entire day's shootout. U.S. Army troops on the Houses take arrive, as does Murphy himself with Yen, who runs inside and is reunited with Doc. Murphy orders the soldiers to set fire to the house, while Alex's wife leaves unharmed and Chavez slips away. Trapped in the burning attic, the gang throws Alex's possessions out of the window, including a trunk with Billy inside, allowing him to surprise their attackers.

Young actors in the late eighties were often referred to as “the brat pack”, a reference to the previous generation of entertainers that was called “the rat pack”.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN--- UNSEEN

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
dir: Mel Brooks

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN—UNSEEN
Sick # 102, February 1975
a: Jerry Grandenetti

How do you do a parody of a parody? Sick thought of a novel way to do it. Their solution: you don't. This is just a parody of the Frankenstein legend. I've pointed out that in some of these magazines they do a spoof without ever having seen the target, here they admit it. They don't even try to make the characters look like Gene Wilder or Peter Boyle, or even have the monster be bald. It's even possible they may have had an article already and added the name to cash in on the release of the movie.

From If Movies Were Combined in Cracked #131, March 1976, art by John Severin

Crazy often used stock photos in their subscription ads. Here they used a still from Young Frankenstein.

THE ECCH FILES

THE X FILES
1993-2002 FOX

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

JUNE UPDATE 1: A HARD DAY'S HELP

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)
dir: Richard Lester

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.