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.
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Yesterday we looked at the MAD and Cracked parodies of The Towering Inferno (click on “older post” or one of the several other methods), now here are takes from Crazy and Sick.
THE SOURING INFERNO
Sick #105, August 1975
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti
It's the ribbon-cutting ceremony for The Glass Tower, The world's tallest building, located in San Francisco, designed by Doug Roberts (Paul Newman), developed and owned by James Duncan (William Holden). Harry Jernigan is head of security supervising through monitored rooms up inside.
Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles are not in the movie. Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, Dean Martin, Danny Thomas, and Phil Silvers appear later on. I guess the artist just wanted to show he could draw them.
Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain), son-in-law of James Duncan, was responsible for construction, and used shoddy wiring when building it. The premiere party has started on the top floor. Among the guests are Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) and Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones). Duncan has invited Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn) in hopes to win favor and have more building contracts approved.
Publicist Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) is having an affair with his secretary (Susan Flannery) and they get trapped in his office. Everybody at the party has to leave the room and move to a lower floor, including Doug's girlfriend Susan (Faye Dunaway). Mike O' Halloran (Steve McQueen) is the fire chief called to put out the fire in the building.
The fire has spread out of control and everyone has to evacuate the building, mostly through makeshift ropes and helicopters.
Commercials for Hanes' Beautymist pantyhose with Joe Namath were a big ad campaign in the seventies,
After a lottery of who gets rescued first and everyone is finally saved, Chief O'Halloran gives Doug Roberts a lecture about how skyscrapers are a potential disaster.
THE TOWERING MESS
Crazy #11, June 1975
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Vance Rodewalt
This parodies the entire genre. Mostly The Towering Inferno with parts of The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and the Airport series.
Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters were in The Poseidon Adventure, Charlton Heston was in Airport '75 and Earthquake. This was years before Airplane was released as a parody of the genre, when they couldn't have been aware Kareem-Abdul Jabbar would have a major part.
Charlton Heston was best known for Moses in The Ten Commandments, so he had to have his crook with him.
A big scene in Poseidon was to have women give up their lingerie so it could be tied together to make ropes for everyone to climb up.
And a few years before Airplane!, the Zucker brothers sent up the genre in The Kentucky Fried Movie.
Mad #180, January 1976
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
Disaster movie had gimmick called "Sensurround". It made sounds with extra speakers sometimes at a pitch to simulate the earth shaking. Created especially for this but used for a few more movies before theaters all became multiplexes and got rid of gimmicks.
Before the quakes that people came to see, the cast is introduced. First was Stuart Graff (Charlton Heston), a former football player having marital problems with his wife Remy (Ava Gardner). He just came home from jogging to discover she has attempted suicide yet again.
There is a small quake but nobody thinks it's of any consequence. Stuart is having an affair with an actress, Denise Marshall (Genevieve Bujold) and drops off a football for her son Cory and goes over lines with her.
At the American Seismological Institute, they predict an even bigger earthquake will come along soon. They inform the Mayor and debate whether they should also break this to the public. Motorcycle daredevil Miles Quade (Richard Roundtree) has a track prepared for his next stunt. Lou Slade (George Kennedy) is established as a violent loose cannon cop who often goes outside his jurisdiction, but spends most time at a bar. Jody Joad (Marjoe Gortner) is manages a grocery store and is a National Guard volunteer called on standby for the upcoming earthquake [also not in the parody, he has a crush on Rosa (Victoria Principal), one of the customers, exposition for a later scene] Quade's people, one of which is Rosa, approach Slade at the bar and ask him to invest in the motorcycle act.
Remy asks her father (Lorne Greene) for help with her marriage. Stewart, also an architect, asks to make his building structurally sound. Then the quake hits and we see how it affects the characters we just met.
Lots of looting goes on now. [What's not used is Jody, who has been picked on throughout the movie now uses his power to get back at bullies. He arrests Rosa for looting (stealing a candy bar) and detains her for no other reason than to creepily possess the girl he's been ogling, he shoots the guys that were picking on him to impres her, she gets saved by cops] People are trapped in a skyscraper and are lowered down one at a time with a rope made from a combination of a fire hose and panty hose tied to a chair.
A dam though to have burst is intact (for now) [Not shown: Denise goes to the river to find her son unconscious. He had gone out right before the quake hit. They are rescued by Miles Quade's staff right before the dam bursts.] Walter Matthau under a pseudonym has an appearance as an oblivious barfly.
Stuart and Lou save people trapped in a building and let them out by breaking in underneath. Some of the people are swept away by an oncoming tide. Stuart now has to choose between his wife and his girlfriend. His wife is swept away and rather than go to the safety of his girlfriend he chooses to be swept away as well.
EARTHSHAKE
Cracked #125, July 1975
a: John Severin
The joke with Richard Roundtree at the end of the first page was that he was best known for playing Shaft.
