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.
Updated daily. There's posts besides this one archived in the sidebar on the right, you clods!
if you're at a laptop or desktop, right-click and open link on pages and they'll be clearer and legible in a new window.
I SPY
NBC 1965-1968
The show wasn't this long. The uploader just needed to repeat it five times to get past their screeners.
WHY SPY?
MAD #111, June 1967
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
A month ago nobody would have said anything about the previous spelling of 'Kiev'.
Spy series previously mentioned in other parodies here, about Kelly (Robert Culp) and Scott (Bill Cosby) traveling around the world disguised as tennis pros.
One thing that made this stand out from other spy shows was that it was filmed in the actual countries they took place in rather than studio lots.
Producer Sheldon Leonard, who had been a character actor earlier (and is paid homage to on The Big Bang Theory) often made Stan Lee/Alfred Hitchcock-type cameos on the show.
Bill Cosby does a stand-up bit mentioning an I Spy shoot that would have seemed innocuous at the time but in hindsight is quite foretelling.
THE MEAN HORNET
Not Brand Ecch #9, August 1968
w: Stan Lee & Roy Thomas
a: Tom Sutton
I posted an article from Cracked about a year ago of The Green Hornet teamed up with Batman. There was a show based on the comic/serial/radio franchise from the same folks who did the Batman TV show at the same time, a sort of counter to Batman's 'camp' aesthetic.
Green Hornet was a masked superhero, the secret identity of Britt Reid (Van Williams). The TV theme was a jazzy version of Flight of the Bumblebee by trumpeter Al Hirt. Although most shows, including this one, were broadcast in color then, most people still had black and white TVs. The premise of this comic was that this show lasted one season and they're looking for a new outlet.
Britt was publisher of The Daily Sentinel. As Green Hornet his assistant/chauffeur was Cato (Bruce Lee). They crash NBC to try to get a job with Star Trek. They make a joke about how Spock and Sub-Mariner had similar ears. It's not a cheap ethnic joke to have Cato performing martial arts, just with Sulu.
They try to get a gig with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby on I Spy. Culp's character played tennis. Old Weird Harold was a character in Cosby's stand-up act. The Man from U.N.C.L.E was another spy show.
Cryin' Charlie was another of Cosby's stand-up characters, and I Started Out As a Child was the name of one of his albums.
Charlie Chan and Oddjob are just cheap Asian references. Lone Ranger and Green Hornet were created by the same people and it was later established that they were father and son. The lower right corner is what Hawkeye originally looked like in the comics.
The last panel features rerun mainstays Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton of The Honeymooners, Richard Boone of Have Gun, Will Travel, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy, and Lloyd Bridges of Sea Hunt.
GOLDFINGERBOWL
MAD #165, March 1974
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
From the MAD article 8 "James Bomb" Bomb Movies.
Third of the James Bond series. At the beginning, Goldfinger (Gert Frobe)'s assistant Jill (Shirley Eaton) is helping him cheat at cards by watching his opponent from afar through a telescope and telling him the guy's hand through an earpiece. James (Sean Connery) comes in, takes Jill's microphone to interrupt, seduces Jill, and wakes up the next morning to find she has been suffocated by being painted gold. Bond meets Goldfinger later, and sees Golfinger's assistant Oddjob (Harold Sakata) can kill will his hat. Later, Goldfinger's men are chasing Bond and he gets rid of them with the gadgets in his Aston-Martin.
Part of Goldfinger's "Operation Grand Slam", the plan to steal all the gold in Fort Knox (see, he loves only gold), involves killing James Bond first, but spares his life when he thinks other agents are watching. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) works for Goldfinger and is a pilot that knows martial arts. Her part of the plan is to gas all the Fort Knox guards.
Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were producers of the Bond films.
The next Bond film was Thunderball.
From A Cracked Look at 007 in #216 by Mort Todd and John Severin.
Robert Culp and Bill Cosby from I Spy and David McCallum and Robert Vaughn from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. are also present.
MAD #272, July 1987
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres
Comedy spy series cashing in on James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and the like. It had several incarnations and even a couple movie versions but right now we're just concentrating on the original.
In the 1980s, Nickelodeon started showing reruns of old TV shows, formerly the domain of UHF and independent stations, as their theme, and rebranding themselves as a retro channel. Around this time MAD started parodying reruns.
The show concentrated on Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 (Don Adams), Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), and The Chief (Edward Platt), and their goings-on at CONTROL against the enemy agents of KAOS. They had lots of comical gadgets such as a telephone made from Max's shoe.
There were lots of catchphrases such as "Would you believe...?" with Max making a grandiose proclamation and then bargaining it down to something more believable.
GET SMARTY
Cracked #281, July 1993
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
Other characters were Ludwig von Siegfried (Bernie Kopell) and Hymie the Robot (Dick Gautier)
"Don't tell me.../I told you not to tell me that" was another catchphrase.
What was the cutoff point when kids stopped knowing who Richard Nixon was?
Also in Cracked, from Sneaky TV Cigarette Commercials by John Severin, in #91, March 1971.
GET DUMB
Sick #51, March 1967
w: Calvin Castine
a: Angelo Torres
Agent 99 didn't have a name.
The men from U.N.C.L.E. were Yuri Kuryakin (David McCallum) and Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn). Their boss was named Waverly.
-John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) is from the series Danger Man.
-There was something that was supposed to be in that speech balloon in the second panel but fell off between layout and printing.
-Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Alexander Scott (Bill Cosby) were characters on I Spy.
There were a few ancillary items for Get Smart, including this record by Barbara Feldon.
Another piece by Jack Davis, an ad from TV Guide.
UPDATE:
From TV Scenes Worth Waiting For in Cracked #74, January 1969, art by Lugoze.
