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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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 NAKED GUN 2½: THE SMELL OF FEAR (1991)
dir: David Zucker
THE NAKED BUN 2 ½: THE SMELL OF BEER
Cracked #269, January 1992
a: Walter Brogan
It's weird they'd do a spoof of a spoof. They managed to make it less funny. And if you weren't familiar with the original source, you wouldn't even know it was a comedy from this.
The prologue begins with Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) at a dinner for President Bush Sr. and his cabinet, with the misogynistic hijinks of Drebin accidentally abusing Barbara Bush. The dinner is to celebrate an energy conference that is to happen the next day withAlbert Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths) to give a lecture about renewable energy. Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet) is the head of an oil company.
At the table are energy secretary John Sununu, Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife, Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and senator Edward Kennedy. Sununu's caption is a reference to how he flew around the country to expose forgeries of George Bush baseball cards from Bush's days as a college player.
There was an explosion at Meinheimer's lab which Frank Drebin, along with Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Nordberg (O. J. Simpson, before he was O. J. Simpson) helping to investigate. Jane (Priscilla Presley), who is now dating Hapsburg, was once a fiance of Frank's who broke off their engagement and is now a potential witness.
Life Stinks was Mel Brooks' attempt at doing a movie that wasn't a parody of anything. The sight gag in the third panel is a reference to one where the body outlines at the scene of the crime were shaped like Egyptian paintings.
Hapsburg and his henchmen plan to replace Meinheimer with a double (Earl Hacker) so Meinhemer's speech at the conference will now be about oil as a renewable energy source.
At the conference, someone manages to find the real Meinheimer who will give the speech, but Frank doesn't know that. He knows the real Meinheimer has a birthmark on his butt, so he will pull down the pants of the man he thinks is an impostor to show he's fake.
The next few pages show what it would be like if other movies used the Naked Gun formula, which is basically “What if these movies were parodied by Cracked?”
Airplane!, the first Zucker movie, used the “What is it?” gag a few times, and the Panic parody did the 'damn/dam' pun.
The more successful Naked Gun franchise evolved from the far superior TV series Police Squad!, which was more of a parody of 70s detective shows like Columbo or Cannon than a series of comedies about a clumsy cop. The latter flopped because the ways of watching television were much different forty years ago, and without paying attention, viewers didn't know that with the deadpan delivery and lack of laughtrack it was still a comedy using the Airplane! formula.
When the team of The Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams made Airplane!, it worked because such a way of parodying hadn't been done before, absurd lines delivered completely straight by actors who would've been in the very movies being parodied, and plots and background music that weren't comedic at all. By the time the Naked Gun movies were released, it wasn't surprising serious actors would do comedies and even though conventions were still being parodied, actors were mugging for the camera and there were “funny” situations.
POLICE SQUAD: O.J. ON THE ROCKS
MAD #344, April 1996
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
MAD parodied them too, or rather the movies and not the series. Again, treating it as if it weren't a comedy, but probably using it because O. J. Simpson played Nordberg.
O.J. Simpson, declared innocent, vowed to find “the real killers”. Behind him is lawyer Johnnie Cochran. Under the desk is Lisa Marie Presley, who was married to Michael Jackson.
In the first panel is a caricature of Rodney King, the victim of a police beating after trying to get both sides to make peace in the Los Angeles riots a few years earlier. The third panel has Leslie Nielsen narrating as Dracula from the Mel Brooks movie Dracula Sucks. The glove was supposedly planted as evidence. The running gag in the Naked Gun movies is that When Frank Drebin parks he drives into trees and hydrants.
First of two posts looking at our parodies of Laverne & Shirley. Originally characters from Happy Days, they were spun off into their own show which had more of a slapstick slant.
LAVOINE AND SHOILEY
MAD #194, October 1977
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) were two single young women who worked in the Shotz brewery in Milwaukee and lived in a basement apartment.Laverne's father Frank (Phil Foster) often dropped in on them, as did their upstairs neighbors Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David Lander). The Fonz from Happy Days (Henry Winkler) often came onto the show as well.
Frank owned a pizzeria/bowling alley and their landlady was Edna (Betty Garrett), The show also took place in the 50s like Happy Days and would cash in on nostalgia.
A recurring bit was somebody would say something about creepy guys or degenerates, and Lenny and Squiggy would happen to show up.
Carmine Ragusa, “The Big Ragu” (Eddie Mekka), was an aspiring dancer and choreographer. Funny they're referred to as 'easy' since that's how they were portrayed when they were the characters on Happy Days Fonzie set up on a double date with Richie.
“Vo-dee-oh-doh-doh” was how they would refer to sex since it was a network family sitcom and it was the seventies.
Another recurring joke was that every article of clothing of Laverne's had an L on the left breast, even a towel.
From TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in MAD #206, April 1979, by Tom Koch and Harry North.
I didn't write down the issue this was in, probably Frank Jacobs and Bob Clarke.
From If Frankenstein's Monster Did Guest Appearances on TV in Cracked # 151, July 1978, drawn by Howard Nostrand
From The Final Episodes of Soured Sitcoms in Cracked #232, November 1987, by Frank Caruso
LAVAIN & SURLY
Crazy #19, August 1976
w: Len Herman
a: Murad Gumen
“The beer that made Milwaukee famous” was Schlitz's ad campaign.
The network executive is drawn as Milton Berle.
The psychiatry patient is Ed Asner.
LAVOINE AND SHOILEY IN A MASSAGE PARLOR
Sick #116, August 1977
w: Joe Gill
a: Jack Sparling
Another Sick parody with no evidence of ever having seen the show and a way for Jack Sparling to go back to his cheesecake past.
The final third day now of one of the most parodied TV shows of the seventies. You can click on "previous post" for the last two. Everyone's favorite sitcom about growing up in the fifties that evolved into its own thing about the myth of the fifties with America's favorite greaser hoodlum.
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT "THE FONZE" AND MORE
Cracked #134, August 1976
a: John Severin
This was apparently the all-time highest selling issue of Cracked of all time. They knew what sold.
The Fonz (Henry Winkler) was cool and Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) was a nerd. That's the way it was.
In the earlier episodes The Fonz wasn't allowed to wear his leather jacket unless he was on his motorcycle, lest he seem scary, so the producers got around it by incorporating the motorcycle into any scene they could.
Within the reality of the show, was The Fonz copying people he saw on the screen or was he actually one of the people he was supposed to be based on?
a: Don Orehek
From If Frankenstein's Monster Did Guest Appearances on TV in #151, July 1978, drawn br Howard Nostrand.
Back cover to #157, January 1979, by John Severin
From If the Characters from Star Wars Appeared in Other TV Shows in #149, March 1978
From The Final Episodes of Soured Sitcoms in Cracked #232, November 1987, by Frank Caruso. Happy Days. The show was only on in reruns by then. Pat Morita, who played Arnold, was Mr. Miyagi, the teacher in The Karate Kid.
HAMMY DAYS
Crazy #23, March 1977
w: Sara Arthur
a: Murad Gumen
Like I said a couple days ago, the chronological fifties weren't really "the fifties" so I wouldn't include the Korean War in this. The other Cunninghams were his sister Joanie (Erin Moran) and his parents Marion (Marion Ross) and Howard (Tom Bosley).
Ron Howard had been in American Graffiti which, as far as I'm concerned, was the fifties.
The Fonz started out as an auto mechanic, but they soon dropped that.
Potsie (Anson Williams) and Ralph (Donny Most) were two of Richie's friends that were part of the regular cast. The tiger in the second panel was the mascot for Exxon oil (also designed by MAD artist Bob Jones)
Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) had a show that was a spinoff of Happy Days but sometimes came back. The age difference between them and the teenagers of Happy Days was whatever was convenient to the plot. The salesman is supposed to be Milton Berle.
Just like in this parody, the show eventually had to take place in the sixties. Chronologically, though. The sixties didn't really happen until the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, and "the sixties" didn't happen until around 1967 or 1968.
Crazy also did a Happy Days/Cinderella mash-up just like the one from Cracked that was reprinted yesterday. I don't know if it was a coincidence or plagiarized.
THE STORY OF FONZERELLA
Crazy #50, May 1979
w: Michael Pellowski
a: Walter Brogan
The fairy godmother is Sylvester Stallone. I don't know if it's as Rocky or as himself.
The cab driver looks like Telly Savalas with hair.
Characters would sing the first line of Chuck Berry's Blueberry Hill to denote they got lucky. Is the stepfather supposed to be Don Rickles?
Honorable mention: My friend Bobby and I did a comic called Acne Days when we were about twelve or thirteen. The plot was that The Fuzz lost his coolness when Fitchie and all the other teens were getting girls. Their secret was that they had zits. The Fuzz, trying to become cool again, ate a lot of chocolate so he'd get zits too, but ended up getting fat instead. We did a lot of zines in junior high and high school but unfortunately half of the comics we did were never reproduced and are lost forever.
UPDATE: HOPPY DAYS
Parody #2, June 1977
a: Vance Rodewalt
I still argue that the fifties were actually more like 1955-1964 and even if you go chronologically, 1950 was still part of the forties. That's the hill I'm willing to die on. But Happy Days stopped really being about the 50s after its first two seasons anyway.
In that last panel are McCarthy, McArthur, and Eisenhower
