JUNE UPDATES #3: THE REST

The last of the updates... for now. The shows are all highlighted linking to previous postsfrom before in case you need to know the characters' real names or the actors who played them, or are lost in some other way.

I finally found this Bananas article I mentioned last week.

WKRP IN CINCINNATI
CBS 1978-1982

WKLOD IN CINCINNATI
Bananas #44, circa 1981
w: Megan Stine & H. William Stine
a: Samuel B. Whitehead

Funny how in 1981 eight characters was considered “too many”.

I think I see John Chancellor, Chevy Chase, Wolfman Jack, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, John Denver, Dan Aykroyd as Beldar Conehead, and Howard Cosell.

STRAIT-JACKET (1964)
dir: William Castle

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JOAN CRAWFORD?
Sick #29, June 1964
w: Dee Caruso and Bill Levine
a: Gray Morrow

Sorry a reference to Joan Crawford is the closest thing I have this Pride Month.

The title of this is a play on the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The movie was about a formerly institutionalized woman accused of ax murders.

Back when movie theaters were actual theaters and not just the friend of friend of a rich guy's screening room you once saw, stars would publicize the movie at a screening rather than TV appearances and press conferences.

THE EXORCIST (1973)
dir: William Friedkin

THE EXORSICK
Sick #103, April 1975
w & a: Dom Rinaldo

I'm guessing this was an unsolicited contribution in their slush pile and they needed a few pages to fill, since I never saw the name before or since and the panels are all cut and reformatted to fit the page,

WACKY T.V. WEDDINGS
Trash #3. April 1978
a: Vic Martin

No seventies humor magazine would be complete without spoofs of these shows.

THE HOBBIT (1977)
dirs: Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass


Before the movies there was this made-for-TV special.

THE HABBIT
Trash #3, April 1978
a: Bill Cicaida

Based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkein

FEBRUARY UPDATES

One-time MAD artist Bruce Stark did a bunch of TV Guide covers I haven't included before and almost all were parodied by MAD as well.

Bill Daly, Suzanne Pleshette, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz, Pat Finley, and Bob Newhart in the first incarnation of The Bob Newhart Show.

Gavin McLeod, Lauren Tewes, Ted Lange, Bernie Kopell, Fred Grandy, and Jill Whelock of Love Boat

Not sure where this is from. Probably a TV Guide article about reruns. It has Dan Blocker and Lorne Greene from Bonanza, Jack Webb from Dragnet, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner from Star Trek, Alan Alda and Loretta Swit from M*A*S*H, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney of The Honeymooners and Lucille Ball as her character from I Love Lucy.

Richard Chamberlain was in Shōgun. This is more typical of what almost all TV actors make now.

Newhart cast members Bob Newhart, Julia Duffy, Peter Scolari, Mary Frann, Tom Poston, Tony Papenfuss, William Sanderson, and John Voldtstadt.

Ad in TV Guide by Sam Viviano with Henry Winkler, Rita Moreno, John Ritter, Penny Marshall, and David Lander. That's supposed to be Michael McKean though you'd only get that in the context.

I've mentioned before how Jack Davis was the official Monkees artist.

In 1984, the Motion Picture Association sent this flier by Davis to theaters announcing their new PG-13 rating and how some releases that already had a PG rating would be changed. Films included would be Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Woman in Red, Gremlins, and Red Dawn.

Drawing by Mort Drucker, maybe for self-promotion, since it's from 1985 and the references span several years. Roger Moore as James Bond, Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, Goldie Hawn as Private Benjamin, Tina Turner, Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, Clint Eastwood, and Jane Fonda with her aerobics videos.

Unused publicity drawing for Animal House, or maybe it was for the Delta House TV series but shelved when they realized they wouldn't have the character of Bluto.

LEVERNE & SHIRLY

LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY
1976-1983 ABC

The second part of our look at takes on Laverne and Shirley, this time concentrating on all the versions Cracked did. They often did more than one.

LEVERNE & SHIRLY
Cracked # 136, October 1976
a: Sigbjorn (John Severin)

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.

14 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.