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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YOUNG BUMS
Cracked #243, March 1989
w & a: Rick Altergott
Western about the Lincoln County Regulators, “Dirty” Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney), “Doc” Scurlock (Keifer Sutherland), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Charlie Bowdre (Casey Siemasko), and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), ranch hands under the tutelage of John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) that all join Billy “The Kid” Bonney (Emilio Estevez). Tunstall has a feud with rival rancher Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance).
Lou Diamond Phillips' big breakthrough was as Ritchie Valens in La Bamba.
One of Murphy's hired hands, McCloskey (Geoffrey Blake), joins up with Tunstall, while Doc attempts to court Murphy's Chinese ward, Yen Sun (Alice Carter). Murphy's men kill Tunstall, leading his lawyer friend Alexander McSween (Terry O'Quinn) to arrange for the Regulators to be deputized and given warrants for the killers' arrest. Hotheaded Billy challenges Dick's authority as the group's foreman, as the Regulators attempt to take Murphy's henchmen in alive. Instead, Billy guns down several unarmed men, including McCloskey, whom he suspects of still working for Murphy. Newspapers paint the Regulators as a deadly gang headed by a larger-than-life outlaw, "Billy the Kid".With bounty hunters seeking them all over the West and unsure where to go, Chavez leads the others on a peyote trip.
One of the men on their warrants. Buckshot Roberts (Brian Kieth), tracks them down and a shootout ensues. Roberts barricades himself in an outhouse and kills Dick, and as a reaction, the rest of the Regulators shoot up the outhouse. This lead the others to go on the run, while an injured Doc goes his own way. Chavez reveals that Murphy's corruption led to the deaths of his mother and her Navajo tribe, and urges the others to abandon their need for bloodshed, but Billy takes charge as their new leader, determined to avenge Tunstall. Doc visits Yen Sun before rejoining the gang, and they kill the corrupt Sheriff William J. Brady (Danny Kamin) and his men. They meet with a furious Alex, who explains that their badges have been revoked. Though they are now wanted men, Billy insists that their actions will bring attention to Murphy's corruption. While Charlie revisits a brothel, Billy kills an arrogant bounty hunter, and the gang escapes to Mexico, where Charlie marries a local woman. Soon-to-be-sheriff Pat Garrett (Patrick Wayne) warns Billy that Murphy's men will make an attempt on Alex's life the following day.
At Alex's house in Lincoln, the gang is surrounded by Murphy's men and famed outlaw John Kinney. Realizing that they were lured into a trap, the Regulators survive an entire day's shootout. U.S. Army troops on the Houses take arrive, as does Murphy himself with Yen, who runs inside and is reunited with Doc. Murphy orders the soldiers to set fire to the house, while Alex's wife leaves unharmed and Chavez slips away. Trapped in the burning attic, the gang throws Alex's possessions out of the window, including a trunk with Billy inside, allowing him to surprise their attackers.
Young actors in the late eighties were often referred to as “the brat pack”, a reference to the previous generation of entertainers that was called “the rat pack”.
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.
STAR TRACKS
Cracked #127, September 1975
a: John Severin
Welcome to part two of twelve days we look at parody versions of the Star Trek franchise. We start with The Original Series that the spinoffs and movies evolved from. Yesterday were parodies from MAD, Sick, and Muppetmagazines. Today here are the Cracked ones. There are even more series than the ones parodied in the two weeks ahead and there continue to be more as we speak.
The premise of the show is explained in the opening. It's basically the first week of first year nerdspeak at this point, though I may explain aspects as if nobody's ever heard of the show before. It took place three hundred years into the future aboard the Starship Enterprise, exploring and discovering new worlds. Part of the main crew mas Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), executive officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Doctor “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Lt. Commander Scotty (James Doohan), Lt. Sulu (George Takei). Klingons and Tribbles were frequent aliens that appeared on the show.
Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) are missing from this parody.
The last panel has Soupy Sales, Jonathan Winters, Bill Cosby, Don Rickles, Fess Parker, Jim Nabors, Joey Bishop, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Dan Rowan, Robbie the Robot, and Phil Silvers.
From If the Fonz Guest Starred on Other Shows in #137, November 1976.
From If Michael Jackson Had Starred In... in #207, October 1984, art by John Severin.
Hurry-Ups in #228, July 1987, art by Rick Altergott.
From Cracked Collectors' Edition #103, July 1995
This was done in anticipation of the new series in #232, November 1987
The second panel features Daniel J. Travanti, Veronica Hamel, James B. Sikking, and Bruce Weitz of Hill Street Blues. The third is a refernce to Lost in Space.
The German humor magazine Kaputt reprinted the Cracked material and had a cover.
There have been several sketches on Saturday Night Live, most notably when William Shatner was at a convention telling fans to get a life. Here was there first.
SLUDGE HAMMER
Cracked #234, March 1988
w: Rick Altergott
The show was itself a parody of cop shows. The self-titled star (David Rasche), his partner was Dori Dorreau (Anne-Marie Martin) and their supervisor was Capt. Trunk (Harrison Page)
The coke dealer they mention is Stacy Keach, who had a show of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Pop star Peter Gabriel also had a song called Sledgehammer around the same time. The wall in the last panel has pictures of Bill Bixby, Jackie Cooper, and creater Alan Spencer. Marvel Comics did an adaptation of the comic (see below).
Cracked editor Mort Todd is caricatured here. There's often the implication that the articles were all drawn at the offices of the magazine, and in other articles it's implied that the magazines even had offices.
RED MEAT
Cracked #241, December 1988
w: Vic Bianco (Lou Silverstone)
a: Rick Altergott
Buddy cop movie with Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a Soviet policeman teamed up with Art Ridzik (Jim Belushi), coming to Chicago to arrest drug kingpin Victor Rostavilli (Ed O'Ross), leader of a notorious drug gang. Ivan has been hired to extradite Viktor and remains in Chicago even after Viktor is now under the authority of Chicago police having committed crimes there.
The movie begins in Russia and is in Russian showing the story of Ivan and Viktor there.
The movie then switches to Ridzik in Chicago before they meet at the airport and discuss the difference between the two places.
Hudd & Dini was a feature in Cracked similar to Spy vs. Spy about prison escapees.
They find out Viktor is transporting cocaine back to the Soviet Union. They question one of his men, Ivan not knowing the proper police protocol. They question Viktor's American wife, Cat Manzetti (Gina Gershon), who leads them into an ambush by Viktor's gang in a parking garage.
One member of Viktor's gang is injured and must go to the hospital. The two cops question him and there is a shootout there. A member of the gang is disguised as a nurse and gets shot up, Manzetti is assassinated after escaping. Ivan has gotten possession of the key Viktor was using to a locker at a bus station that had the path to the cocaine he was going to bring back, and Ivan has hidden it inside a lamp in the hallway of the fleabag hotel where he's staying. The Russian gang invades the hotel to retrieve the key.
Viktor steals a bus and escapes, so Ivan and art also commandeer a bus and chase him. His bus is hit by an oncoming train and they get out of their bus shooting him. Ivan goes back home, bonding with Art at the airport before saying goodbye.
LEONERD 6
Cracked # 236, July 1988
w: Joe Catalano
a: Frederick (Rick) Altergott
Considered one of the worst movies ever made, and one of the biggest flops of all time. Cosby was co-writer and producer and he himself disowned it. But as we all know, still not the worst thing Bill Cosby ever did.
Leonard Parker (Bill Cosby) is a secret agent who has been retired and is now a restaurateur, but brought out of retirement by his boss (Joe Don Baker). The adventures of him as a spy are in the non-existent parts 1-5. He is estranged from his wife Joan (Victoria Rowell). His daughter Allison (Pat Colbert) is drawn as Lisa Bonet here. Medusa (Gloria Foster) is the villain of the movie, a vegetarian who hypnotizes animals. Cosby was spokesperson for Coca-Cola and Jell-O at the time and the movie contained many product placements. His daughter his engaged to a man older than him.
Medusa has vegetarians guarding her headquarters, which Leonard fends off with meat.
LA BUMBA
Cracked #244, May 1989
w: Terry Gentile
a: Frederick (Rick) Altergott
Bio pic of musician Ritchie Valens, his rise to the top, and eventual demise.
In the late 50s Richie Valenzuela (Lou Diamond Phillips) and his family are fruit pickers in Southern California. He is an aspiring teenage guitarist and has nightmares of dying in a plane crash. His brother Bob (Esai Morales) has just been released from prison. He's earned enough money to buy a home for the family. Richie's first day in high school he meets future girfriend Donna (Danielle von Zemeck). Her father doesn't like her seeing him because he's Latino and plays music.
Richie's mother (Rosanna DeSoto) becomes his manager and rents out a veteran's hall for him to play his music and he becomes a hit. His brother is jealous of his success. Bob Keane (Joe Pantaliano) is President of Adelphi Records and sees Richie as a star. He won't play without the rest of the band but eventually gets convinced and also gets convinced to shorten his name. La Bamba, based on a traditional Mexican folk song, wouldn't become a hit for him until later.
Record stores used to have booths similar to photo booths, where you could cut your own record. Even by 1987 a reader wouldn't know that.
Bob takes Richie to a bordello to get laid, but he's only interested in Donna and more interested in the band playing there. This is where he first hears La Bamba and things click. He wakes up on the land of an Indian shaman. Later, he gets a gig in Philadelphia on American Bandstand.
Ritchie is now a famous musician and Bob is getting increasingly frustrated trying to get the attention of their mother showing he's taking an art correspondence class. At a family get together, they get into a fight, and mend fences before he's killed on tour in the airplane accident with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.
Everybody knows the plane crash really went like this...
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
dir: Steven Spielberg
MAD #236, January 1983
w: Stan Hart
a: Jack Davis
So now I'll sum this up for the three people on earth that never saw this movie.
In a California suburb, some kids are having a party, and while Elliot is outside. He hears a noise in the shed, throws a ball into it, and it returns.
After Elliot (Henry Thomas) gets his family to investigate and they find nothing, he still believes something's out there and stays overnight. He leaves a trail of Reese's Pieces to lure E.T. into his room, then shows him around. E.T. starts mimicking his gestures. The next day, he stays home from school pretending to be sick by putting the thermometer under the light to look like he has a fever.
Elliot's brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and sister (Drew Barrymore) come home from school and he makes them swear before he shows them the alien. The mother (Dee Wallace) comes home and they hide it in the closet.
E.T. is left at home alone while Elliot returns to school. That day they're dissecting frogs and the teacher's showing the class how to anesthetize them first. E.T. finds beer in the refrigerator and gets drunk. Since he shares a psychic link with Elliot, Elliot gets drunk too and frees all the frogs. At home, there's an old movie on TV of a guy grabbing a girl and kissing her, so Elliot does that too. E.T. figures out where he is and how to communicate with his home planet, making a primitive phone out of different objects around the house. (Not shown: Gertie comes home, dresses up E.T. like she would a doll, and teaches it to talk), Elliot and Mike come home, find out E.T. wants to get back, and help it make a more detailed phone. Elliot cuts himself on a sawblade and E.T. heals it with his glowing finger.
Mike and Elliot come up with a plan on Halloween to take E.T. out into the woods so he can communicate with his home planet and return home. In order to smuggle him out of the house past their mother, they put a white sheet over him, and tell her it's Gertie dressed as a ghost. As they're walking E.T. outside, he sees people in costume and briefly thinks a kid dressed as Yoda may be one of him.
Elliot takes E.T. out into the woods on his bicycle. He can't make it so E.T. makes it fly out there. Elliot spends the night and the next morning E.T. is missing. The other kids find him and he is mistaken for dead.
The people who have been scouting the area throughout the movie are revealed to be government scientists have finally found the alien they've been looking for and take over the house to study the extra-terrestrial, as well as Elliot to make sure he hasn't been contaminated by it. The alien is assumed dead, but some dying flowers come back to life, so they know E.T. now has too. Now there's a chase as the scientists and police go after the kids as they rescue E.T. and bring him out into the woods to get back home. In this, it's the same spaceship Richard Dreyfuss left Earth on at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
This issue had Don Martin's take on the movies that were parodied in that issue.
My age is starting to show when I don't even know how people listen to music anymore. All I know is it's a digital file in some form, but what's most relevant to this is I know people don't use boom boxes anymore and someone born after 1990 might not know what one is. I don't mean to condescend, but sometimes it even surprises me what people born in 1970 don't know. And Don Martin didn't get boom boxes right either back when they were a thing, so there's plenty of finger pointing in both directions.
E.T. had a glowing stomach when he came back to life. I had this issue when it came out and I remember my father saying, "They gave a 'writer' credit for that?"
First Cracked cover with E.T.
One of the few times they used new material in one of their annuals.
EaTing
Giant Cracked #34, December 1982
a: John Severin
Elliot called his brother "penis breath"
The ERA was the Equal Rights Amendment, an attempt to guarantee both genders equality under the Constitution, never ratified.
Another reference to the Parkay commercials, which I posted in the Close Encounters parody, link on right.
Cracked #217, January 1986
w: George Gladir
a: Rick Altergott
E.T. mania had pretty much died down by 1985 but nobody ever said Cracked was hip.
American Express, 9 Lives, Pepsi, Bic
Honda, Michelob, AT & T
E. Z.
Crazy #93, February 1985
w: Paul Kupperberg
Love Canal was a housing development built in thr late 70s that turned out to be over a toxic waste dump.
Stay tuned for even even more E.T. parodies tomorrow.
UPDATE:
E.T.'S REPORT: MY EXPERIENCES ON EARTH
Cracked #192, January 1983
a: Don Orehek
