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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The program started out as a spinoff of Happy Days so The Fonz often made appearances on many of the early shows.
Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams), two single women, worked at the Shotz brewery in Milwaukee. Laverne had a monogrammed L on every article of clothing.
Laverne's father Frank (Phil Foster) was the owner of a pizza parlor and bowling alley.
Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David Lander) were the creepy upstairs neighbors who would happen to show up any time anyone mentioned greasy losers or something being gross. Squiggy is the only one they use in this parody.
LEVERNE AND SHURLEY
Cracked #145, October 1977
a: John Severin
Here's the second of their parodies. Rocky was one of the properties they claimed as their own that they would use on their covers to sell copies.
Okay. Here's Lenny as well.
To show Lenny and Squiggy were degenerates, they were shown as being into comic books and cartoons, but look at people like you and me now (Don't think I'm leaving out girls). They never actually showed Lenny and Squiggy's apartment.
Another supporting character was Carmine Ragusa a/k/a The Big Ragu (Eddie Mekka)
Here's Rocky Balboa in an example of Cracked's slash fiction.
Lucy and Ethel from I Love Lucy and Ralph and Norton from The Honeymooners are some of Rocky's students, despite their being from a different era.
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Charlie's Angels was another entity Cracked would try to fit into every one of their movie and TV parodies, especially with Farrah Fawcett-Majors being the biggest TV sex symbol of the mid-70s
From If King Kong Guest Starred on TV in Cracked #140, March 1977, illustrated by Howard Nostrand
Eventually Laverne and Shirley left the brewery and joined the army.
LEVERNE AND SHURLEY
Cracked #166, January 1980
a: John Severin
Shirley had a stuffed kitten, Boo Boo Kitty, she would hold onto at home.
Their landlady was Edna Babish (Betty Garrett)
Eventually they all moved to Los Angeles and the show took place there. Frank DeFazio and Edna Babish married and started a business. Cindy Williams left, even though the show continued to be called Laverne and Shirley, and was replaced by Rhonda (Leslie Easterbrook), a vapid actress. The show jumped a few years and took place in the sixties.
I LOVE LUNY
MAD #269, March 1987
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
I say in the heading sometimes the parodies have words we don't use anymore. Language and what's acceptable evolves. That happens when you post things that are old. Sorry, folks.
This was part of a series MAD did called A Bad Case of the Re-Runs and this time they focused on a show that's been run over and over and over again and made a pretty penny for the families. In case you were born under a rock, it was a slapstick comedy series about Lucy Esmeralda Ricardo (Lucille Ball), dim wife of Ricky (Desi Arnaz), a famous bandleader, and her inability to be a wife for him or her efforts to become part of his act unbeknownst to him. Their neighbors were Ethel (Vivian Vance) and Fred Mertz (William Frawley).
They made a lot of jokes about Ricky's thick Cuban accent. Here the singer trying out for his band would become President of Cuba a few years later in reality. Since he was a Marxist, they used the old joke about Karl/Groucho.
From Casual Format in Cracked #10, August 1959, writer and artist unknown.
I LOVE LOOSELY
Eh! #7, November-December 1954
a: Dick Ayers
This is loosely based on the show involving them living them in a rural area and they have several kids. The show was produced by their own company, Desilu Productions.
There are puns on Guy Lombardo and Kay Kyser. I guess Stan Lummox is supposed to be someone as well.
I LOVE LOOSELY
Crazy#4, March 1954
w: Stan Lee
a: Howie Post
DAYTIME TELEVISION
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Dick Wright
Let us take a trip to before the invention of cable television, when there were only three channels (plus some places with additional syndicated ones, usually on UHF). Actually, daytime terrestrial television fifty years ago wasn't entirely different than it is now.
Dinah Shore had been a singer who in the seventies had a daytime talk show.
Spiro Agnew was Vice President until 1973 and implicated in the Watergate scandal. The other people he mentions were others involved. "Impudent snobs" was from one of the speeches he gave looking down on what his base considered the elite.
Dr. Joyce Brothers had a show called Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers.
The original host of Jeopardy was Art Fleming.
The original host of Hollywood Squares was Peter Marshall. The panelists on this version are Wally Cox, Karen Valentine, Jan Murray, John Davidson, Paul Lynde, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver, Vincent Price, and Charlie Tuna. The latter was an animated spokesperson in commercials for Star-Kist Tuna.
Reruns of I Love Lucy were prevalent on daytime TV. Walter Cronkite was on in the evening. The panelists on What's My Line? are Arlene Francis, Henry Kissinger, Telly Savalas as Theo Kojak, and Dick Van Dyke.
As a bonus, we get to see what the Marvel Bullpen looked like around then.
Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall, was known for audience members trying to outdo each other with the most outlandish costumes in the hopes of attracting enough attention to be picked to be a contestant.
Bob Eubanks hosted The Newlywed Game to see how much married couples knew about each other. Most notorious for a wife once being asked where she and her husband wife make whoopee and her responding "in the ass".
There used to be couple dozen or so daytime soaps simultaneously running, now I think there are only four. General Hospital is one of them.
Mike Douglas was another entertainer who eventually became a talk show host back when talk shows were the twilight of a full career and the domain of daytime television.
