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.
THE YOUNG BUMS
MAD UK #270, October 1984
w: Robert Seaville
a: David Stoten
Surreal sitcom from Britain that was a huge hit in the US when rerun on MTV, about four college students and their landlord. Rick (Rik Mayall) was the student who went through his leftist politics and anarchy phase and thought he was better than everyone, but secretly into mainstream entertainment like Cliff Richard (The Young Ones was named after an earlier movie and song of his). Vivian (Ade Edmondson) was the violent metal punk with a pet hamster named Special Patrol Group , Neil (Nigel Planer) was a hippie that was always ignored by the group, Mike The Cool Guy (Christopher Ryan) was publicly a ladies man and straight man of the group (he wasn't in the comedy circle the rest of them were part of). Jerzy Bulofsky (Alexei Sayle) was the landlord who dropped in time to time, drifting in and out of a Russian accent, and usually doing monologues from his stand-up routine.
Coincidentally, Bottom was the name of a show some of them did later on.
Neil was responsible for doing the cooking in the house, usually making things with lentils.
Rik Mayall was also one of the writers for the show.
Every week, there were two minutes with a musical guest, the reason it was rerun on MTV in the eighties.
The show would often be interrupted by talking animals and objects that had nothing to do with the plot. At the end is an appearance by Cliff Richard himself.
YELLOWSTREAK
MAD UK #247, November 1982
a: Dave Stoten
A lot of TV detective spoofs of the seventies put all the detectives together, usually because the premise was the detective had some kind of gimmick or trait. This is supposed to by about this premise taken to its most absurd conclusion as a detective called Yellowstreak, who's supposed to be Orson Welles as all their traits combined.
This article seems to pre-date right-wing rancor against “woke” by forty years, lamenting how detectives used to be like Sam Spade, then TV made them disabled (Ironside, Raymond Burr), black (Shaft, Richard Roundtree), female (Police Woman, Angie Dickinson), fat (Cannon, William Conrad), streetsmart (Columbo, Peter Falk), and old (Barnaby Jones, Eddie Albert). McCloud is in the background of the splash panel as well.
Winifred Atwell was a jazz/ragtime musician. I have no idea why she's referenced here.
There are appearances by Quincy, Efrem Zimbalist and Roger Smith from 77 Sunset Strip, and Starsky & Hutch. There seems to be a picture of James Garner in Quincy's lab. In the last panel Orson Welles looks more like Tim Curry.
I'm familar with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas from Street of San Francisco and Robert Wagner from Hart to Hart, but I must say I'm stumped by the two in the same panel as with Kojak. They must be the only non-American detectives.
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.
WITHOUT THESE WALLS (WE WOULDN'T HAVE A TV SERIES)
MAD UK #156, circa 1974
artist and writer unknown
I don't know what the obsession was in other countries with womens' prisons. We didn't really have anything until Orange Is the New Black. Sure, there were dozens of women in prison films in the U.S. in the early seventies, but those were about penal colonies, I mean ones more like jails. One popular one in England was Within These Walls.
Her Majesty's Prison Stone Park was run by Faye Boswell (Googie Withers).
The Deputy Governor of the prison was Charles Radley (Jerome Wills).
MINDLESS
MAD UK #257, August 1983
w: Robin Seaville
a: Dave Stoten
Series about two detectives in London, Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman) and Arthur Daley (George Cole). Like most duos, one is the prim and proper by-the book one, and the other is the sleazy ne'er-do-well. Dennis Waterman also sang the theme, being a professional singer as well. He had been in a series called The Sweeney, and his co-stars make an appearance in this splash panel.
There are also appearances by John Steed and Emma Peel of The Avengers, Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, Columbo, and Cannon, Eddie Shoestring, and Bergerac.
One of Terry's girlfriends was a stripper (Diana Malin).
Dave Harris (Glynn Edwards) was a bar owner. They knew a lot of shady characters with various nicknames.
Inspector Rycott (Peter Childs) was one of their rivals from the police.
MAD UK #189, c. 1977
w: Les Lilley
a: Clive Collins
The Generation Game was a game shoe that was a combination of Breat the Clock and Family Feud. Teams competed in physical activities to win prizes, but each team was a member of the same family. The original host was Bruce Forsyth, and his co-host was Anthea Redfern.
Certain racism was acceptable in the seventies, particularly overseas and particularly when it applied to martial arts. Sessue Hayakawa was an actor in Japan.
EASYENDERS
MAD UK #290, June 1986
w & a: David Robinson
EastEnders was inspired by Coronation Street, another long-running prime time soap there, and took place in Albert Square. Main characters were Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), her husband Den (Leslie Grantham), Lofty Holloway (Tom Watt), Sharon (Letitia Dean), Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard), Michelle (Sue Tully), and Nick Cotton (John Altman). Max Bygraves was an entertainer, the joke about his appearance is similar to Jimmy Stewart's appearance at the beginning of MAD's American Graffiti parody. Grange Hill was sort of their version of Degrassi Junior High.
Lou (Anna Wing) and Ethel (Gretchen Franklin) were two other characters.
Simon “Wicksy” Wicks (Nick Berry), Dot (June Brown), Arthur (Bill Treacher), Kat (Gillian Taylforth), Pete Beale (Peter Dean)
Stu (Kieran Parkes), Mary (Linda Davidson), Annie (Zara Posener). Debbie (Shirley Cheriton) was the show's rich character to everyone else's working class.
Hannah (Sally Sagoe), Dr. Legg (Harold Fenton). Frank Spencer was the lead character in the slapstick sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em played by Michael Crawford, better known as the Phantom of the Opera.
The show was considered their equivalent to Dynasty (as close as you can get with London's East End) and this parody ended with Alexis Colby (Joan Collins). Mark Fowler was an early EastEnders character written out after two months.
