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 Wizard of Oz is one of those things in everyone's DNA that everyone knows the story of, characters, situations, songs, lines, and phrases are part of the international lexicon. I probably haven't even seen it in nearly forty years and would recognize any reference, so would you. Therefore, I need not sum it up.
Oh, all right... In a nutshell, Dorothy (Judy Garland) is bored of her existence on a farm in Kansas, a tornado uproots her home, and she ends up in the land of Oz. Her house has landed on the Wicked Witch of the East, liberating all the citizens of Oz. She wants to get back home, and she's told by the Munchkins there that if she follows the yellow brick road she will meet the wizard (Frank Morgan), who will help her. Along the way, she meets the Tin Man (Jack Haley), Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who are seeking a heart, brain, and courage, respectively. They join Dorothy on her quest. The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), keeps trying to stop them every step of the way. They finally meet the wizard who acts all powerful and Dorothy's dog Toto, who was with Dorothy all along, rips a curtain to reveal the wizard is just a con man. He tells everybody what they've been looking for has been inside them all along. Dorothy repeats the mantra “There's no place like home” and wakes up on her farm. It was all a dream and the characters in her dream were all weird forms of farm hands and neighbors...
There, you happy now?
From Scenes We'd Like to See, back cover of MAD #123, December 1968, by Don Edwing and Jack Rickard.
MAD #128, July 1969
In this version, Auntie Em is Tiny Tim and Dorothy is Liza Minelli, who happened to be the real-life daughter of Judy Garland.
Aah, the old banana hoax. I learned about it from MAD. I don't know if they believed it or were in or it. Basically, while there were all kinds of rumors and conspiracy theories about what hippies did, they created one of their own. They said that you can get high by grinding the inside of the skins into a powder and smoking it. I also don't know if that's what they thought you did or you held a whole unpeeled banana up to your mouth and lit it, then inhaled it, like it was a cigarette or joint.
The main munchkin is Dustin Hoffman while others are Simon & Garfunkel.
Pat Boone is the Scarecrow.
George Hamilton is the Tin Man and Michael J. Pollard is the Cowardly Lion.
Ed Sullivan is the Guru. There's no poppy field barricade to his castle.
MAD #157, March 1973
Here's some variations on the yellow-brick road theme.
The shock one experiences when leaping through time is always funny to me. If I woke up in the world of 2024 having been in a coma since 1994, sure things would be hard to adjust to. So much would be completely different and I'd be surprised by a lot of changes. I might be surprised we have no World Trade Center and things cost twice as much but it's not like I'd be completely lost like characters in movies seem to be. Except maybe if I was left loose in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But still, I'll run into people I haven't seen since the nineties and we'll talk as if no time has passed. And I still have some of the same clothes and furniture I've had since 2000. And people still bring up a prank I pulled in 1991 as if it still has repercussions (it hardly had any back then).
THE WIZARD OF ODDS
MAD #300, January 1991
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Sam Viviano
The Good Witch is Vanna White. The Wicked Witch of the East is meant to be Leona Helmsley, a New York City real estate mogul. Among the Yupkins are Michael J. Fox, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda (in her Barbarella costume), Meryl Streep, and Sam Viviano. Imelda Marcos was first lady of Phillipines who had hundred of shoes.
The first panel has Reagan's budget director David Stockman and Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen of Wall Street. In the middle are Richard Gere and Julia Roberts as their characters from Pretty Woman.
The Witch of the South is Tammy Fake Bakker, wife of an indicted televangelist mocked for her excessive make-up. The wizard is a guy named Donald Trump, a millionaire with a big ego who was everywhere in the eighties and nineties. He seems to have disappeared from the public eye and nobody knows where he is now.
Cover to the British edition.
From Cracked's Sequels to Classic Movies, #180, September 1981, art by John Severin.
This article was longer ago now than this movie was then, so suck on that.
There was an updated musical called The Wiz with an all-black cast. It looks like the cover was commisioned far ahead of the interior and afterwards they figured it wasn't big enough for an interior parody.
WILLIES
MAD #149, March 1972
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison) has a dreary job at a factory that was apparently once owned by his late father and stolen by his boss Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine). He comes home to find his mother Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester) has thrown a surprise party for him. It is only her friends in attendance since he has none, and he leaves embarrassed, going to the backyard seeing some rats. His bedridden mother wants him to do chores around the house, including having to kill the rats.
Willard's boss is strict and has him come in on the weekends, and has hired a temp, Joan (Sondra Locke), to help him out. At home, he's secretly befriended the rats.
Willard takes care, feeds, and trains the rats, hiding them from his mother. He has to handle Mr. Martin's invitations to his party, but is not invited, so he has the rats crash it.
He brings his two favorite rats, Ben and Socrates, to work with him, then gets a call, and finds out his mother died. Her friend Charlotte (Jody Gilbert) was told to look after him and he kicks her out. He's told by a banker his mother owed taxes on the house and he has to pay them or lose it. Willard's at a loss for what to do until he overhears that one of his boss's clients is really rich, so that night he summons the rats to invade the guy's home and steals breaks in and steals money as the rats chase him away.
One day when Willard brings Ben and Socrates to work and puts them in the supply closet, but they escape, freaking out one of the employees and causing a ruckus. Mr. Martin runs in and bludgeons Socrates to death. Mr. Martin has also been trying to pressure Willard to sell his home to knock it down and build an apartment complex. Mr. Martin tries to convince Joan to pressure Willard but she won't do it, and he fires them both.
Willard can't stand anymore and goes to the Mr. Martin's office with his army of rats, demanding a raise and to be treated more respectfully. They swarm all over Mr. Martin and he jumps out a window. A newly confident Willard is through with the rats now. He's invited Joan to his house and they come back to invade it.
This sitcom was a vehicle for stand-up comic Gabe Kaplan, who had a show based on one single routine he did a few months earlier. The premise was that Gabe Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) is now a teacher and has returned to the school where he grew up ten years earlier, and now teaches the gang of juvenile delinquents that he once belonged to known as The Sweathogs. He lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn with his wife Julie (Marcia Strassman). When he's not teaching the Sweathogs, they often come to his home at night. The show opened and closed with Gabe giving one-liners like Groucho Marx or Henny Youngman.
The Sweathogs were Juan Epstein (Robert Hegyes), Arnold Horshack (Ron Palillo), Freddy “Boom-Boom” Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta)
Some of the running bits was Epstein bringing in faked written excuses to get out of tests signed “Epstein's Mother”, and the Sweathogs always saying “up your nose with a rubber hose” (sanitized for TV from Kaplan's original “up your hole with a Melo-Role”. The principal of James Buchanan High School was Michael Woodman (John Sylvester-White)
Woodman slightly resembled then mayor of New York Abe Beame.
From TV Spinoffs Yet to Come by Tom Koch and Harry North, in #206, April 1979
From MAD's “Whatever Became Of...” TV Characters Edition by Mike Snider and Bob Clarke, in #266, October 1986.
WELCOME BACK, KUTTER
Cracked #133, July 1976
a: John Severin
Another example of Cracked parodying the same shows and movies over and over.
HOW THE KOTTER GANG SPENT THEIR SUMMER VACATION
Cracked #137, November 1976
a: John Severin
From If the Carter Family Became TV Regulars in Cracked #150, art by...who else?...John Severin.
From The Final Episodes of Soured Sitcoms by Frank Caruso in Cracked #232, November 1987
This is only the first part. Tomorrow are Crazy and Sick's versions of the program.
