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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TWIT-STERS
MAD #349, September 1996
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Paul Coker, Jr.
In Twister, Bill (Bill Paxton) is a former tornado tracker who used to work with his ex-wife Jo (Helen Hunt), and has come to their site to get her to sign divorce papers so he can marry his fiancee Melissa (Jami Gertz), and they're stuck tracking the next tornado with Jo.
Note how many of MAD's mascots are caught up in the storm in this spread, including the apteryx getting its feathers blown off.
The beginning shows Jo experiencing a tornado as a child, which takes away her father and starts her lifelong obsession with them. Cut to the present of Bill on the current site where he used to work. He's retired and started a new job as a weatherman and his crew is glad to see him. He's only there to get Jo to sign divorce papers. Jo's finished Dorothy, a machine they've invented that will get into the heart of the tornado and be able to warn civilians in time. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) is a rival meteorologist with a similar prototype he's showing the press.
Melissa was curious about Bill's past exploring tornadoes on the ground but realizes how dangerous it is, and also realizes still a spark between Bill and Jo. She's constantly being interrupted by patients calling her as they drive through tornadoes.
Jo and her team of stoners and slackers go to visit her Aunt Meg (Lois Smith), an artist that's always glad to see them and feed them,. Over meals everyone discusses the most powerful tornadoes they've ever seen. Jo's made several Dorothy prototypes that keep breaking. A tornado eventually destroys Aunt Meg's house and injures her.
They comment how the movie could be improved with Wizard of Oz dialogue though the movie does reference it by calling their machine “Dorothy”
Meg's sculpture is left standing and looking they realize something similar to it could work as a makeshift Dorothy prototype which ends up working. Melissa can't relate to Bill's return to his former adrenalin-based lifestyle and leaves him, and Bill reconciles with Jo.
The parody continues with the Wizard of Oz parallel and has Helen Hunt waking up in her sitcom Mad About You with co-stars Paul Reiser, Anne Ramsay, Leila Kenzie, and John Pankow.
STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991)
dir: Nicholas Meyer
STAR BLECCH VI: THE UNINSPIRED CONTINUATION
MAD Super Special #83. September 1992
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Paul Coker, Jr.
The Enterprise is manned by James Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekhov (Walter Koenig), and Scotty (James Doohan). Sulu (George Takei) is captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) is the new helsman protege of Spock.
The Klingons are to make peace with Earthlings and join the United Federation of Planets and are set to diplomatically have dinner aboard the Enterprise, to the reluctance of Kirk, who distrusts Klingons for killing his son. They breaked bread with Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) accompanied by his daughter Azetbur (Rosanna DeSoto) and Gen. Chang (Christopher Plummer). After the Klingons return, a torpedo fires at their ship.
All evidence points to the Enterprise having fired at the Klingons, Though they swear it wasn't them. Kirk and McCoy board the Klingon ship to investigate. McCoy tries to save the life of wounded Gorkon and fails. Kirk and McCoy are put on trial for his murder. All that's known is the assassins were wearing magnetic boots.
Kirk and McCoy lose a show trial and are sent to a penal colony. Another prisoner, Martia (Iman) seduces Kirk and makes plans to break them out, then turns out to be a shapeshifter that betrays them. They find out the Klingons sabotaged their own ship, aided by Valeris, to insure there would never be peace between Earthlings and Klingons. The crew must also prevent an assassination attempt at a peace conference to further absolve their guilt. Everyone lives long and prospers once again.
STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989)
dir: William Shatner
STAR BLECCH V: THE FARCICAL FRONTIER
MAD Super Special #83, September 1992
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Paul Coker, Jr.
From MAD's Video Reviews in #293, March 1990, by Stan Hart and Sam Viviano. Note God is William Gaines.
STAR DREK V: THE FINITE FRONTIER
Cracked #252, March 1990
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: Rick Altergott
Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and McCoy are enjoying a shore leave, camping on Earth.
Their mission is cut short and they must now return to the Enterprise, newly refurbished by Scotty (James Doohan). Starfleet informs them they need to rescue an Earthling, Klingon, and Romulan, who are on Nimbus III for diplomatic talks but are being held hostage by Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), a half-Vulcan.
The hostage situation was staged so Sybok could lure the Enterprise and take it over to go to a nearby planet and meet God. Spock is ordered to kill him but can;t because he finds out Sybok is his half-brother. They are also being pursued by a Klingon ship.
The enterprise crew meets God, who is in fact not God at all, but an evil deity intent on acquiring the Enterprise, and it has also betrated Sybok. It gets angry when Kirk asks “Why would God need a spaceship?” Their fate is sealed until the Klingon ship that has been chasing them shoots down the entity calling itself God, They are captured by the Klingons but Spock convinces them to form an alliance.
The movie ends the way MAD portrays it, with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resuming their camping trip, and Spock having the sense of fun and spontaneity he lacked at the beginning.
FLAKIER
MAD #329, July 1994
w:Dick DeBartolo
a: Paul Coker
Spinoff from Cheers that lasted just as long. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was originally a guest star as one of Diane's boyfriends and became a regular character that got married, with his wife becoming a regular as well. On this show he has relocated from Boston to Seattle and is a call-in radio psychiatrist with a family and a maid.
Niles (David Hyde-Pierce) is his brother who is also a psychiatrist and intellectual. It is true that he has played similar roles in almost everything else. Martin (John Mahoney) is the blue-collar father who lives with Frasier. Daphne (Jane Leeves) has been hired for the upkeep of the house and to take care of Martin, despite his thinking he doesn't need to be taken care of. Roz Boyle (Peri Gilpin) works at the radio station producing his show and screening calls. Eddie is the dog filling the role in the time-honored sitcom tradition of pets who are just as smart as the rest of the cast. Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) fills the role in the time-honored sitcom tradition of former cast members from previous programs who show up sporadically in their spinoffs.
Niles, despite the time-honored sitcom tradition of unrequited and one-sided love for Daphne, has a wife Maris, who fills the role in the time-honored sitcom tradition of recurring characters you never see. Norm and Cliff, regulars from Cheers, also had invisible wives.
FROZEN
Cracked #297, March 1995
w: Greg Grabianski
a: Walter Brogan
-Kurt Cobain committed suicide two years earlier.
-"I'm Listening" was how Frasier always greeted callers on his radio show.
Kelsey Grammer is well-known for being a conservative.
Wilson on Home Improvement is another recurring character that's never seen.
We used to like him until ten years ago. Pretend it was ten years ago and we still like him.
THE CLODSBY SHOW
MAD # 255, June 1985
w: Larry Siegel
a: Angelo Torres
Sitcom about an upwardly mobile family in Brooklyn. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) was an obstetrician. His wife Claire (Phylicia Rashad) was a lawyer. Their children were Theo (Malcolm Jamal-Warner), Denise (Lisa Bonet), Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), and Rudi (Keshia Knight-Pulliam).
Cliff's office was on the bottom floor to make it convenient for plots.
Grant Tinker was President of NBC.
“When E.F. Hutton talks, everybody listens” was an ad campaign for that brokerage firm.
Ricky Schroeder was a kid from another successful NBC sitcom Silver Spoons.
The German edition of MAD always did all-new covers for their parodies.
THE SILLY COSBEY SHOW
Cracked #212, July 1985
a: John Severin
The last panel is a picture of Robert Culp, co-star of Cosby's previous TV series I Spy.
THE COZBY KIDS MEET THE A-TEEM
Cracked #217, January 1986
a: John Reiner
Family Ties used to follow The Cosby Show on NBC.
The A-Team was Murdock (Dwight Schultz), Hannibal (George Peppard), “B.A.” Baracus (Mr. T.) and Face (Dirk Benedict)
Bob Newhart's Newhart was around the same time, though not in direct competition with The Cosby Show.
THE COSBY SHOW
Cracked # 224, November 1986
a: John Severin
Occasionally Sandra (Sabrina LaBeauf), another daughter they added later, was a college student who would sometimes appear.
There was a special issue of Cracked that was supposedly taken over by Russians. This was from the article Communist Broadcasting System's New TV Lineup in #227.
Usually when a porn parody is done of a movie or TV show it doesn't extend beyond punning the name and making the box look slightly like the poster (so I've been told). There were at least two editions of Not the Cosbys that actually tried to duplicate the formula in the video itself. Here are the parts with the porn edited out.
UPDATE:
Noow... you see you put the thing in now you see you put it out there with the “blawwwww”.
When I posted things from this before people pointed out MAD could get so much more mileage out of him today. They also pointed out I don't mention his sexual predatoriness the way I do with some of the other actors I post. That's true. Lots of these pages don't age well. From MAD #266, October 1986, by Tom Koch and Paul Coker, Jr.
From TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in MAD #269, March 1987, by Tom Koch and Angelo Torres.
Director Mike Nichols is one of the people painted on the plane under Alfred E. Neuman's thumb.
Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) is a bombardier in World War II assigned to mission after mission and just can't take it anymore, finally getting a discharge from the war. The story is explained by flashbacks upon flashbacks.
On his way home, he is stabbed, this leads to the beginning where he initially requests a discharge because he's too crazy to fly. The doctor (Jack Guilford) explains the catch that keeps him for doing so. (see trailer above)
Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam) is supposed to have his squadron fly twenty-five missions, but he raises it to make himself look good. Major Danby (Richard Benjamin) is under his command. This increase is making it hard on Yossarian, something he confides in Chaplain Tappman (Anthony Perkins).
Cathcart has also worked out some kind of black market scheme with Maj. Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight) trading military items for items available in Europe. This results in Yossarian not having a parachute and crashing, then ending up in the hospital wanting to get out of the war.
Missing here is Captain Major (Bob Newhart) being promoted to Major because his name is Major, despite protests of not being qualified for the job.
Yossarian is fooling around with Nurse Duckett (Paula Prentiss). General Dreedle (Orson Welles) inspects the quarters because Cathcart and Korn (Buck Henry, also screenwriter) invited him to make him think they're doing a good job, and his wife is in the movie to show how horny the men can get. Dreedle's incompetent son-in-law (Austin Pendleton) is left out of the spoof.
While on R & R, the men mention that Cathcart has upped the missions yet again, and Yossarian falls in love with a local.
Dreedle pins medals on soldiers. When it's Yossarian's turn, he is completely naked in an attempt to seem too crazy for combat. Then he's in bed with his Italian girlfriend and has another flashback. This time it is more detailed and there is another soldier in the plane. One of the soldiers (Martin Sheen) attempts to kill Cathcart and Korn because he can't take it anymore, and is arrested. Milo Minderbinder conducts an air raid on the town because it's the only way he can get rid of an inventory he's stuck with.
As he wanders the streets, Yossarian finds out Nately has died. He has to tell the Italian girlfriend this and she gets mad at him and he has to escape.
Not parodied: Yossarian sees a hooker has been killed and he sees one of his fellow soldiers (Charles Grodin) was the one who killed her. As Yossarian urges the guy to turn himself in, it is he who gets arrested by military police for being AWOL.
Now we're back where the movie began, Yossarian is discharged on the condition that he “like” Captains Cathcart and Korn. In exchange he will be treated as a hero back home. On his way home he is stabbed. Here's where the actual movie and MAD part ways.
In the actual version, while recovering, he realizes it's a bad deal and jumps out the hospital window and escapes into the ocean. In MAD's version, he's brought back and treated by Hawkeye and Trapper John from M*A S*H (Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland).
M*A*S*H was 20th Century Fox's more successful comedy war film of that year. I'll eventually get to why it ended up not aging well, and how the TV series started out as a pale imitation but ended up surpassing it.
SCRATCH-22
Sick #82, March 1971
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jack Sparling
Here's a “review” that sums up most of what I just said.
Some of these portraits look like they were just traced.
“Catch-22” ended up becoming a word in the English language, and was later used in this piece from MAD #199 in June 1978, by Lou Silverstone and Sergio Aragones.
AN OFF-ROAD WEEKEND AT CATCH-22
Car Toons #90, June 1976
a: Dave Deal
I never read the book though I've heard the more recent series is more faithful to it.
UPDATE:
A sequel to MAD's earlier article was used in #235, December 1982.
