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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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.
NIGHT TIME TAKES A MAD LOOK AT A ROCK VIDEO
MAD #254, April 1985
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Harry North
Similar to the Person of the Year articles they did, parodying Ted Koppel interviewing Bob Pittman of MTV and Quincy Jones.
I think this was a misspelling of the name 'Pia Zadora' rather than a pun on it, considering the other names aren't changed.
LITTLE ANNIE FANNY
Playboy, c.1965
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Will Elder, Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta
The topless bathing suit was something in a fashion show designed by designer Rudi Gernreich, though it was used in comic strips and comedy sketches more than it was ever worn in public. Annie's manager Solly Brass was patterned after Phil Silvers.
Among the cops here are caricatures of Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis from Car 54, Where Are You?. Raymond Burr from Perry Mason is the lawyer featured here.
The other lawyers are E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed of The Defenders.
The Nazi here is George Lincoln Rockwell.
In one of Chris Elliott's appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, he came on to plug his real appearance on Miami Vice.
JUDGE DRECK
MAD # 338, August 1995
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Frank Frazetta had done two jobs for MAD much earlier. They wanted to use him as one of the 'usual gang of idiots' and he was willing, but they could never agree on ownership of the original art.
Based on the British comics series, Judge Dredd takes place in the future world of Mega-City where all the police are also the judges, juries, and executioners, and Dredd (Sylvester Stallone) is one of the law's most dedicated servants. He has been framed for murder by his brother Rico (Armand Assante). Fergie, the small-time hacker Judge Dredd arrests without trial (Rob Schneider) has a much larger part as the sidekick he's inadvertently stuck with..
Judge Dredd's partner is Judge Barbara Hershey (Diane Lane). The council that oversees them is led by Chief Justice Fargo (Max Von Sydow), who mentored Dredd as a young cadet. Judge Dredd now oversees cadets himself. Rico, who was a former judge, escapes from the penal colony and returns to Mega City, breaching the many security codes necessary, and goes on a murdering rampage. Judge Dredd is wrongfully arrested for that rampage.
”Contract With America” was Newt Gingrich's proposed Republican legislative agenda. Eric and Lyle Menendez were two brothers convicted of murdering their parents in the 90s
Hershey acts as defense for Dredd in his trial, apparently judges are allowed trials but citizens aren't. Fargo retires from the council. Griffin (Jurgen Prochnow) has replaced Fargo, and Rico demands The Janus Project, a dead cloning experiment, be revived, which would allow him to clone a whole army of vigilante judges. Meanwhile, Hershey still believes Dredd is innocent and with the aid of a cadet who specializes in photo analysis, finds out Judge Dredd and Rico were brothers as part of the Janus Project.
The shuttle where Judge Dredd and other arrestees including Fergie is shot down by a gang of cannibals who capture them. Not used in the parody is that Fargo, who also believed Dredd, shows up at the last minute to save him and tells him about the Janus Project before dying, arming Dredd with the information he needs when he returns to the city. Judge Dredd and Rico fight at end Rico's reign as well as his trying to take over the city with the Janus Project. Hershey fights Rico's assistant Dr. Hayden (Joan Chen).
When it's all over and Dredd's name is cleared, he has the chance to be promoted to a higher office, but continues his work as the judge he was. This movie is being compared to the O. J. Simpson trial. Pictured are Judge Lance Ito overseeing Marcia Clark and Robert Shapiro. Also in the foreground is witness Kato Kaelin.
