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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One of those “unless you've been living under a rock” shows I need not describe further. I've even used clips from it here as examples of parodies. It's a shadow of its former self but remains an anchor show for Fox, not only the longest-running prime time show but the only show that's been there since the beginning of the network if you include the interstitials from The Tracey Ullman Show. The first few years it was everywhere with Bart hyped as star of the show.
MAD never did a proper parody of it, but they did a special Simpsons issue.
The audience member in the Andrew “Dice” Clay panel is Saturday Night Live cast member Nora Dunn, who refused to be on the show the week he hosted.
Maggie eventually talked on one episode, voiced by Liz Taylor. The spread contains caricatures of both MAD staff and Simpsons crew members.
People with Facebook still “Simpsonize” themselves in their profile pictures twenty years after such a thing started as a fad.
Who these people are is pretty self-explanatory.
I'm always pointing out “things you couldn't do today”, and even The Simpsons has some of that and makes reference to it.
Some of the MAD staffers have pointed out that Al Jaffee was the only one who could do the Fold-In. They tried to have other artists do it and it never worked. In this issue his genius went further by setting you up to think the fold-in would be one thing...
...but turn out to be something else.
For a long time The Simpsons aired opposite The Cosby Show occasionally taking digs at it, and even basing a character on him.
CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE SIMPERSONS
Cracked #258, November 1990
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Gary Fields
The bylines are a play on Matt Groening's name.
THE SIMPLESONS
Cracked #257, October 1990
w: Rich Kriegel (Lou Silverstone)
a: Gary Fields
WHEN ALL TV REFLECTS THE SIMPSONS INFLUENCE
Cracked #260, January 1991
w: George Gladir
a: John Severin<
Letterman's NBC show had a segment called “Stupid Pet Tricks” where people would bring on their pets as problem solvers.
As everyone knows, the O.J. Simpson trial was also going on in the 90s, so it was inevitable that everyone and their mom would make this analogy.
THE SIMPSON
Cracked #295, December 1994
w: Greg Grabianski
a: Don Orehek
Detroit is full of crime and the police force and has handed responsibilities over to Omni Consumer Products (OCP). OCP President Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) demonstrates a new robot officer at a board meeting, which ends up killing one of the executives.
Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer), an executive on the rise, also has an idea for a robot cop, but it needs to be a cyborg. RoboCop is called different names here. Meanwhile, at a warehouse, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) and his partner Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) are attempting to pursue crimelord Clarance Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) and his accompiles but Murphy is killed in action.
OCP uses Officer Murphy to create their RoboCop. Scene are shot from his point of view of his being built, then he's ready to join the police force and they're getting ready to strike. (A union going on strike because their jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence. Like that would ever happen.) The RoboCop is programmed with three prime directives: 1) serve the public trust 2) protect the innocent 3) uphold the law. He turns out to be a perfect shot. After that is a montage of him stopping a series of crimes.
This parody has an appearance by Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise.
RoboCop stops a disgruntled Congressman who thinks an election was rigged against him. (A riot because a politician thinks an election was rigged. Like that would ever happen.). While on patrol, he arrests Emil (Paul McCrane), who recognizes that he was Murphy. Later he runs into Anne Lewis, who also recognizes that he was Murphy. He puts two and two together, and because he has a video recording of his beat and a database of everyone, ambushes the station and loads the information he has into the main computer, finding out about his past.
Dick Jones was unhappy that Bob Morton upstaged him at their board meeting with a better idea for a cop and has Clarence Boddicker kill him. They turn out to be partners where OCP is developing a new city where Clarence will get to be crimelord. Murphy and Lewis are back in the warehouse where he was shot and she is rehabilitating him, realigning him and feeding him his diet of baby food. Clarence and his men (Ray Wise, Jesse D. Goins, Calvin Jung) are out to kill him because he knows too much. In the chase Emil is run over and his car hits a can of toxic waste.
Nancy Allen was also in Dressed To Kill
Emil comes crawling for help but nobody wants to touch him. The gang attempts to kill RoboCop/Murphy but he manages to overcome all attempts. He crashes OCP's board meeting telling them the jig is up for Dick Jones and has the evidence, but he can't do anything because of the secret fourth prime directive—he can't do anything to an employee of OCP. But as soon as Jones is fired, RoboCop immediately defenestrates him.
Ronny Cox was also in St. Elsewhere, which we'll get to in a couple months.
The Mexican version had their own cover.
As did the German edition.
ROBOCOP-OUT
Cracked #233, January 1988
w: John Arcudi
a: Mark Pacella
John Arcudi wrote for the actual RoboCop comic as well.
Yet another Eddie Murphy/Beverly Hills Cop reference.
CYBORGS UNLIMITED
Cracked #234, March 1988
w: George Gladir
a: John Severin
RoboCop spawned sequels, toys, comics, and cartoons, but sometimes they didn't quite get the satirical aspect.
RAMBULL III
MAD #283, December 1988
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
The third part of the Rambo saga. They got rid of First Blood from the title and it this point this was the biggest budget of any film thus far, and the setting this time was the Soviet-Afghan war before we became involved.
John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is visited again by his old army partner Col. Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) and Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) for another top secret military mission, fighting the Soviets. He's found stickfighting in Bangkok and they attempt to recruit him, but he is now living in a monestary and dismisses them, saying he has retired from warfare.
Funny how they joke here and further on about how old Richard Crenna was when Stallone is now so much older. More about that later.
Rambo has a change of mind and heart when Trautman is captured by the Russians. He goes to Pakistan, but the CIA will disavow his existence if anything happens to him. Once there he's led to a Mujhadeen village with the help of Mousa (Sasson Gabai). The village's leader Masoud (Spiros Focas) doubts his toughness but he proves worthy in their fighting games.
The Real McCoys was a sitcom with Crenna in the early 60s. Tabloids not reporting intrnational conflicts may be a joke here but not far off from reality with news now being a la carte.
Masoud is also aided by Hamid (Doudi Shoua), the boy who wants to be like Rambo.They help Rambo through a minefield where he is wounded and cauterizes the wound himself.
Rambo finds Trautman where he is about to be tortured and rescues him. They both escape the Soviets by hijacking a helicopter and outsmarting then with the Mujhadeen army.
Cracked often featured the movie on the cover before seeing it, to be timed with the release of the movie, then have their parody a few issues later. It was a sales strategy.
RAMBOZO III
Cracked #241, December 1988
w: Joe Catalano
a: Walter Brogan
Brigitte Nielsen, Sylvester Stallone's ex-wife, was also an action star.
Cracked also used the “don't try this at home” joke.
IF RAMBO FOUGHT OTHER WARS
Cracked #238, September 1988
w: George Gladir
a: John Severin
CRACKED INTERVIEWS RAMBOZO
Cracked #238, September 1988
w: Joe Catalano
a: Rob Orzechowski
Having not seen the movie yet, the assumed this would also be set in the jungle like its predecessor and not in the desert.
There was a reboot of the Rambo series that I never saw. I don't know what to expect since it was made in 2018. Sylvester Stallone was then 72.
