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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PASSION PLACE
MAD #95, June 1965
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Soap opera in prime-time TV, considered really steamy at the time, based on a book and two movies. This parody is presented like the play Our Town, as if a host were introducing the show and characters. Here it's Matthew Swain (Warner Anderson), who was editor of Peyton Place's newspaper. Two of the characters were Rodney Harrington (Ryan O'Neal) and Betty Anderson (Barbara Parkins).
The Carpetbaggers and Youngblood Hawke were two movies with similar themes around the same time, though maybe closer in nature to something like Dallas.
Constance McKenzie (Dorothy Malone) ran the local bookstore. Matt was a father figure to her daughter Allison (Mia Farrow).
Michael Rossi (Ed Nelson) was the town doctor. Two other characters were Leslie Harrington (Paul Langton) and Julie Anderson (Kasey Rogers).
Every male character had a liaison with every female character on the show at least once. Other characters were Catherine Harrington, George Anderson, Laura Brooks, and Norman Harrington. Mister McKenzie never existed. He's drawn as Robert Young.
PETTIN' PLACE
Sick #37, June 1965
w: Jim Atkins
a: Angelo Torres
“Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch” was an ad campaign used by Tareyton cigarettes. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor in Cleopatra are pictured.
From If TV Shows Were Written By the Ad Agencies in Sick #48, November 1966, writer and artist unknown.
THE JOE NASTY SHOW
MAD #116, January 1968
w: Larry Siegel
a: Jack Davis
One of the first confrontational conservative talk-show hosts, always having deliberately provocative guests and asking them loaded questions, paving the way for the likes of Morton Downey Jr. or Sean Hannity.
La La LaBore is based on Zsa Zsa Gabor
THE JOE PAIN SHOW
Sick #51, March 1967
w: Jim Atkins
a: Angelo Torres
AuH2O was the slogan for Barry Goldwater, Republican Presidential candidate in 1964. The guest is modeled after Granny Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies.
I have heard a rumor that someone on TV once said to a hippie “You have long hair, you must be a girl”, to which the hippie replied “You have a wooden leg, you must be a table”. Joe Pyne had a wooden leg, so I figure it was probably him. Either that or it was Al Capp, a cartoonist who was also a conservative pundit, and also a unidexter.
DUMB ADAMS' SCREEN TEST
Sick #112, October 1976
w: Jim Simon
a: Jerry Grandenetti
Kind of like Star Search or American Idol. Contestants were picked from the studio audience to re-enact scenes from a famous Hollywood movie with movie stars, and the winner was picked by a director to have a part as an extra in a movie.
The contestant plays opposite Clint Eastwood, though the show would never have actors of that caliber.
This was TV/comics writer Mark Evanier's description of how the show came about:
"He had one other series which almost no one remembers and which is not in any of the obits I've seen. In the early seventies, Adams made the rounds of talk shows and often brought out-takes from Get Smart, mostly of him and Don Rickles. They were hilarious and the reception gave him the idea to do a whole series showing out-takes…or bloopers, as they're sometimes called in a quasi-trademarked way. When he tried to put it together, he discovered that the union contracts made it prohibitive; that he'd have to pay or negotiate with dozens of people for each 30-second clip. In fact, the Screen Actors Guild told him that he technically shouldn't have been airing the Get Smart footage without paying actors, directors, writers, etc. Years later, the union rules were changed in a way that made the Dick Clark "Bloopers" shows do-able but at the time, it killed Adams's plan. Trying to figure out a way around it, he came up with the only possible solution: Create new out-takes just for the show! So in 1975, he hosted Don Adams' Screen Test, a kind of talent competition where the idea was to get aspiring actors, pair them in scenes with established stars and then have a lot of things go wrong. It didn't last long because, I suspect, the out-takes just didn't seem real. Which they weren't."
UPDATE:
from Sick#46, August 1966
Every single one of these shows was or will be covered on this blog. From Sick #46, August 1966. Founding Sick writer Dee Caruso was one of the main writers of Get Smart.
This cover had more to it. Even after the water damage you can see from the original they cut off a lot of what would have been Frankenstein's lab, and cropped out Igor for some reason.
THE BEN CASEY SHOW
Sick # 16, October 1962
artist: Bob Powell?
Sick often did their parodies under the guise of “reviews”. Which meant there was more text than the other magazines.
This Jack Davis illustration was originally in color and looks like it was meant to be a cover but they decided to abandon Igor and couldn't crop him out.
This was the original.
They did another parody a couple years later.
BEN CASES, TREE SURGEON
Sick #34, February 1965
w: Jim Atkins
a: Angelo Torres
Sick liked doing this show. Here's a part of Plan X for Next Year's TV by future MAD regular Don Edwing and Jack Sparling from #35 in March 1965
This is from an article called If TV Shows Were Written by the Ad Agencies in Sick #48, November 1966. Not sure who the artist is.
Jack Davis did a cover for another issue, #28 in May 1964. There was nothing about the show on the inside, though.
BENT CASEY
Car Toons #7, August-September 1962
A: Pete Millar
BEN CASINGS
Car Toons #13, August-September 1963
a: Wes Bennett
One of the original Dr. McDreamys had a few novelty songs made about him. Here's one of them.
UPDATE:
From Stupidity on Television in MAD #83, December 1963, by Stan Hart and Mort Drucker.
For a while, MAD had a feature called A Celebrity's Wallet. This was from #74, October 1962.
Raul Julia- Gomez
Anjelica Huston- Morticia
Christopher Lloyd- Uncle Fester
Elizabeth Wilson- Abigail Craven
Judith Malina- Granny
Carel Struycken- Lurch
Christina Ricci- Wednesday
Jimmy Workman- Pugsley
Christopher Hart- Thing
Cousin Itt- John Franklin
Dan Hedaya- Tully
THE ADNAUSEUM FAMILY
#311, June 1992
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
“The Addams Family started
When Uncle Fester farted
And now they're all r-t-rd-d
The Addams Family”
[da-da-da-da *snap-snap*]
--Anon
(I know we don't say that word anymore. Don't @ me!)
Movie based on the TV show from 25 years earlier, which was based on the Charles Addams cartoons from the New Yorker. The plot of the movie involves someone claiming to be the long-lost Uncle Fester coming to claim the Addams family fortune, but who is actually a con artist in disguise.
Madison Avenue is not only where all the advertising is but also co-incidentally where MAD was at the time.
In a scene not in the movie, Edward Scissorhands, who in his own movie is celebrated for his topiary skills, and here is inexplicably part of the Addams Family, gives the hirsute Cousin Itt a haircut. They also note the fact that talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael has a cameo in the movie.
Kirk and Spock beam into the mansion for one panel in MAD's oft-repeated joke “you're in the wrong movie”.
In the real movie, the actual Uncle Fester shows up at the last minute and here he's portrayed as the original Charles Addams drawing.
Saddam Hussein, Clarence Thomas, Leona Helmsley, Dan Quayle, and Al Sharpton are revealed to also be members of the family at the end. Those were the bogeymen of that year and were also an excuse for Mort Drucker to show his talent for caricature.
There was yet another remake last year, making it a reboot of a reboot of a reboot. I didn't see it but probably with almost all comedy for kids now, it contains the usual “jokes for adults that would go over kids heads” (meaning references to things from before 2000 and a few double entendres) that wouldn't be possible without MAD.
THE ADDLED FAMILY
Cracked #271, May 1992
w: Vic Bianco (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
The parody begins just how the movie begins.
Note that Jon Astin is one of the carolers, as are Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. I believe the others are supposed to be people but I'm not sure who.
This is actually taken from one of the original Charles Addams cartoons.
Present at the party are Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, Robert DeNiro as Max Cady, and Beauty and the Beast.
With their fortune legally taken away, they now have to live in a hotel until the real Uncle Fester shows up. In Parodyland, other monsters show up angry that they made a mockery of real movie monsters.
THE ADDAMS FAMILY
(1964-1966) ABC
Jon Astin- Gomez
Carolyn Jones- Morticia
Ted Cassidy- Lurch
Jackie Coogan- Uncle Fester
SICK VISITS A MONSTER FAMILY
Sick #38, August 1965
w: Jim Atkins
a: Angelo Torres
As I mentioned before, The Addams Family was a TV show before it was a movie. It wasn't done by MAD or Cracked but Sick had their version of it.
It is supposed to be Barry Goldwater in the plane, who ran for President with the slogan “AuH20”
The person in the final panel is Dr. Zorba from Ben Casey.
Besides originally being a series of gag cartoons, a TV show, a movie, a sequel, a Broadway musical, and a CGI movie, it was also a cartoon in 1973.
And there was a comic book of the cartoon.
UPDATE:
From TV Scenes That Make More Sense in Sick #47, September 1966, art by Angelo Torres
