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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ZERRO, THE GAY BLADE
MAD #231, June 1981
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Zorro has existed since early last century from pulps to Saturday matinees to early television. He was a swashbuckler in Mexico famous for marking his victims with a Z with his sword. A movie was made with George Hamilton in which he had to choose between either passing the torch to his son or his brother, who he also played. George Hamilton had previously been in the Dracula spoof Love at First Bite.
The following was from MAD's Academy Awards Show
ED ZORROW CALLS ON MORRO
This Magazine Is Crazy #6, September 1958
a: Tony Couch?
Zorro was an early segment on TV's Disneyland. This comic parodies Person to Person, an interview show hosted by newscaster Edward R. Murrow.
All TV shows and movies mentioned in this post have also been parodied and are featured here.
ZAPPING
MAD #258, October 1985
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
In Zapped!, Scott Baio and Willie Aames play two teenagers who obtain telekenetic powers that make them able to take off womens' clothes. From Academy Awards for Teenage Films. That's right, they call them “films” and not “movies”.
YOUNG SURESCHLOCK HOMELY
MAD #263, June 1986
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
The origin of Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe), how he met Watson (Alan Cox), and their first major case.
The prologue to the movie has someone shot with a blowdart and being injected with a poison that makes them hallucinate, part of the case they end up breaking. John Watson enrolls in Brompton boarding school where he meets Sherlock Holmes, who guesses his name and identity based on his clothing and belongings, a foreshadowing of the deductions we know him for. At the beginning of the film, Sherlock is challenged by a classmate to find a hidden trophy, which he concludes is inside an antique vase based on clues he discovers while looking for it. He's expelled from the school for cheating by schoolmaster Rathe (Anthony Higgins) who is also his friend and fencing instructor. Rupert Waxflatter (Nigel Stock), a former professor of Sherlock's and eccentric inventor, kills himself while the victim of the same mysterious blowdart perpetrator. Dr. Waxflatter's niece is Elizabeth (Sophie Ward) is Sherlock's girlfriend, and with Watson they decide to solve the case and find what happened.
Sherlock seeks the aid of Lt. LeStrade of Scotland Yard (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) who refuses to help. In their search for what's been happening in town, Sherlock and Watson come across an Egyptianh sacrificial cult, who has just kidnapped Elizabeth.
They find Rathe has been the leader of the cult all along and create a distraction to destroy the temple while saving Elizabeth. Sherlock challenges Rathe to a duel and wins. Elizabeth is shot in all this. The case is solved and Sherlock Holmes goes home for the year, promising Watson that some day they'll meet again.
A CRACKED LOOK AT YOUNG SCHLOCK HOLMES
Cracked #220, July 1986
w: Joe Catalano
a: Walter Brogan
It would be better to see more of this style from Walter Brogan than the Mort Drucker swipes they usually printed but I guess it's what they wanted. It would also be nice if I got some of these gags. But if “ifs and buts” were candy and nuts...
THE WRONG LIONS
MAD #41, September 1958
a: Mort Drucker
A movie about World War II based on a book by Irwin Shaw, with Marlon Brando as Christian Dietsl, Dean Martin as Michael Whiteacre, and Montgomery Clift as Noah Ackerman.
MENTL
MAD #248, July 1984
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
Yentl (Barbara Streisand) is a young Ashkenazi woman living in a shtetl in Europe interested in studying the Talmud. Law and religion forbid woman from doing so, but she does anyway. Booksellers come to town attempting to steer her away from Talmudic texts and encourage her to read picture books instead, refusing to sell her books for men until she lies and says they're for someone else. Others in the community whisper concern among themselves that Yentl does not have a husband.
"בשן" means “in the tooth”. I don't know if that has any significance. “Not So Funny Girl” references Funny Girl, an earlier Striesand movie. An ad campaign for Levy's Jewish Rye had a picture of an American Indian with the slogan “You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's”
Yentl secretly studies the Talmud under her father. When he dies, she decides to travel to a Yeshiva and in order to do so disguises herself as a man.
Victor/Victoria was a comedy about a cross-dresser that came out around the same time
On her way to be accepted to the Yeshiva, Yentl meets Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) and takes the identity of her brother Anshel. They are both accepted and she moves in with his family. She has to share a bed with Avigdor while living with him, fooling them into thinking he is Anshel while developing feelings for him.
Avigdor is engaged to Hadass (Amy Irving). The guys all skinny dip and invite Yentl/Anshel along which she refuses to do lest she give up her ruse. Hadass's family calls off her marriage to Avigdor and believe “Anshel” to be a better suitor. “Anshel” goes through with it so she can be near Avigdor. She's gone in way over her head and continues to delay consummation of the marriage. It's complicated.
Nicky Arnstein was the name of the husband in Funny Girl. Isaac Bashevis Singer was the author of the story Yentl is based on.
“Anshel” teaches Hadass to be more liberated and gets her to go back to Avigdor. She reveals herself to really be Yentl before going off to the New World.
The song in the panel where Yentl strips down is a parody of the song from The Way We Were
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.
THE WRETCHES OF ECCHFLICK
MAD #276, January 1988
w: Frank Jacobs
a: Mort Drucker
Tells the story of three friends, widow Alexandra Medford (Cher), divorcee Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon), and single mother Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer), who all meet and are seduced by Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson).
Titles of other Jack Nicholson movies are on labels throughout.
The three women have a weekly meeting and over wine talk about who would be the perfect man. They don't realize that the new man in town is the man they conjured up. Daryl has bought the Lenox mansion, a historical landmark because witches had been murdered there centuries ago. They all first meet Daryl at a town concert that he interrupts snoring in the back row. Neighborhood housewife Felicia (Veronica Cartwright) knows that Daryl is really the devil and tries to warn everyone and nobody believes her. Her husband (Richard Jenkins) tries to calm her down. Later, Alexandra runs into Daryl who invites her over for lunch and seduces him. She finds him vulgar but is drawn to him.
Felicia falls down a flight of stairs at the recital, and in the hospital is convinced Daryl is responsible. He visits Jane, who played cello in the town recital, and teaches her to be uninhibited with her music. The three woman meet at the mansion, and initially angry after finding out Daryl's been seeing both Alexandra and Jane, and has the hots for Sukie, all play tennis and realizing he's magic agree to share him. Felicia is reporter for the town paper and has slut-shamed them in the newspaper, but at one of their bacchanalias Daryl tells them not to worry as he swallows cherries, which Felicia regurgitates in her house. Since the movie is directed by the man who made the Mad Max and Babe movies, the puking is somewhat stylized.
Felicia's character assassination of Daryl becomes too much for him and he gets his revenge by telekenetically killing her, which convinces the women to cut him off, which makes him angry. He casts spells on all the woman, and puts Sukie in the hospital. The women also find out they've been knocked up by him and hatch up a plan where they feign interest in him and move into his mansion. While he's gone, they cast a voodoo spell and get rid of him. A couple years later it shows them with their babies that Daryl tries to reach through the TV.
German cover
Interesting trivia: This was George Miller's first American production. He didn't know that everyone had trailers on shoots and he told them he didn't need it. The producers saw this as a sign of weakness and took and advantage of it by not giving him what he wanted, until Jack Nicholson fought on his behalf.
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.
