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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MAD #169, September 1974
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) is a cop that has been shot. We don't know when, why or how, but his life flashes before his eyes.
We start with Serpico graduating from the police academy an eager young cadet with big ideas when he joins the force, but little does he realize how corrupt the police force really is. It starts with small things, like policemen being given free food at restaurants.
In his graduation picture, he's depicted as Michael Corleone, his breakthrough role in The Godfather.
Serpico pursues a rape case, despite it not being on his beat. He sees the wrong people being arrested just so it looks like the cops are doing work.
Serpico is assigned to undercover work because of his unconventional way of dressing. His hippie life doesn't quite fit in as a cop and being a cop doesn't mix well with his casual ballerina girlfriend Leslie (Cornelia Sharpe) or their Greenwich Village artist friends.
He finds life for the police is more about taking bribes than fighting crime, he doesn't want to work in that particular precinct, but sees it's everywhere and wants to report it to higher-ups which he confides to his fiance Laurie (Barbara Eda-Young).
Serpico refuses to be on the take like his co-workers or take any of the money they offer him. With help of his former cop friend Bob (Tony Roberts) he wants to take this whole thing to the mayor's office. The liaison between the mayor and the police keeps saying they'll do something and never gets back to him. The mayor's office finally does get back to him and says there's nothing they can do. He realizes he has to go even higher since the city can't investigate its affairs internally.
Word gets around that Serpico is going to blow the lid off corruption within the police department and nobody will talk to him. He's threatened when he's transferred to Coney Island. The supervisor in his precinct is sympathetic though.
Serpico is reluctant to testify but eventually does. The movie is set up to have you believe he was shot by fellow officers, but it was in the line of duty. He's still pariah and a marked man in the hospital. He has policeman on guard which he requests they not do since they're more likely to finish him off for being a stool pigeon.
In this, he's finished off by Clint Eastwood
BESERKO
Cracked #119, September 1974
a: John Severin
There are various TV cops and detectives throughout this parody. Like in this second panel which features Kojak.
George C. Scott is Serpico's partner, probably as his character from The New Centurions
Capt. McClain (Biff McGuire) is a character that isn't used in the MAD parody. Columbo and Dirty Harry are wandering around random panels on this page.
Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in the last panel.
SERPIKETTE: COPESS ON THE BEST
Crazy #8, December 1974
w: Nina Mende & Marv Wolfman
a: Bill Skurski
SER-PIG-O
Sick #100, October 1974
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti
Yesterday saw the first part of the Kung Fu parodies I know of, here's the second half.
KUNG FOOEY
Crazy #1, October 1973
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Mike Ploog
TV series about Kwai Chiang Caine (David Carradine), a fugitive from justice in China, that now must flee in the American West in the late nineteenth century and stay one step ahead of his captors, and each time he came to a new town, there was a problem he would help the locals with. Each week he was in a different town with a different cast.
Caine always had flashback to his training as a Shaolin monk and learning the martial arts under the tutelage of Master Po (Keye Luke)
The next to last panel is a quote from The Desiderata, a poem that became a new-age self-help guide in the 70s
“Grasshopper” was Po's nickname for Caine.
Caine didn't believe in violence, but had to use kung-fu for self-defense, and it was the “money shot” in each episode.
KUNG FOOEY
Crazy #7, October 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Marie Severin & Herb Trimpe
This issue was supposedly articles rejected from previous issues of Crazy. The photo is of Marv Wolfman (who was also the editor).
Each show would begin with Caine as a child being told by Master Po he would finish his training once he was able to grab a pebble from Po's hands.
The man eating is portrayed is Frank Cannon, a TV detective who was a gourmet, which translates here to just being a glutton. Like in yesterday's Cracked parody, John Wayne also makes an appearance because it was the West.
“It's not nice to fool Mother Nature” was an ad campaign for Chiffon margarine.
The man at the end here is Fred Williamson.
From What Today's TV Programs Would Look Like If They Appeared in 2001 A. D. in Cracked #132, May 1976.
KUNG FOOEY
Sick #96, December 1973
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
Not a parody of the show, but of the kung-fu craze in motion pictures at the time, and included here because it was printed to make readers think it was a parody of the TV show.
“No tickee, no shirtee” and “an hour later, you're hungry again” were two of the racist tropes used in comedy at that time.
Sketch from The Carol Burnett Show which had lots of MAD's writers on staff. Some of them may have worked on this, who knows?
UPDATE:
From If TV Characters Aged While Their Shows Stayed the Same, art by Sururi Gumen, in Cracked #128, October 1975
