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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TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990)
dir: Steve Barron
TEEN-RAGE MOOLAH NITWIT TURTLES
MAD #291, December 1989
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Sam Viviano
Weird. Here's an example of the parody coming out before the movie. Oh well, they were faithful to it, though.
There's a big crime wave in New York City being reported on by April O'Neal (Judith Hoag). The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live in a sewer underneath, mentored by a rat named Splinter. Here he often refers to how TMNT were a large merchandising juggernaut.
Victims include Sam Viviano and Dick DeBartolo coming down from a subway platform. The Empire State Building is called the North Carolina State Building because that's where it was shot.
Splinter advises TMNT to practice martial arts before going out into the public. TMNT Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo order a pizza, their favorite food, while Raphael, the fourth one, is out on his own and sees vigilante Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) defeating the criminals. Raphael fights off Casey since he feels fighting criminals is his job. The Foot Clan has attacked April at the subway and the TMNT rescue her, taking her home and they hide when her boss Charles (Jay Patterson) comes to see her with his delinquent son Danny. (These scenes are parodied in a different order),
The Henson shop did the puppetry. The passersby in the second panel are MAD editors John Ficarra and Sara Fowler while the pizza is being delivered by Charlie Kadau.
At their manhole, Splinter explains the origin of TMNT to April. They were once normal turtles discovered in The Ooze (more about that in the sequel) which made them grow, and he decided to train them in the martial arts ala Yoda or Mr. Miyagi. Much of the Foot clan, led by Shredder, is children and has a hideout similar to Pleasure Island (thus the Pinocchio characters). They have captured Splinter. Danny has joined the clan but is starting to have doubts about it.
Casey rescues Splinter and Splinter fights Shredder, throwing him off the roof of a building. April, who had been fired, gets her job back and Charles is reunited with Danny.
The Beast from the Beauty and the Beast TV show, Ed Norton, and Phantom of the Opera are in the last panel
From Real vs. Real in #307, by Russ Cooper and Sam Viviano, September 1991.
German edition.
TOONAGE MUTANT NINJENK TURTLES
Cracked #255, August 1990
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: John Severin
The turtles' real names are used on the first page but spoofed here.
MAD left out the part where Splinter is captured, Raphael is in a coma, and they seek solace at April's rural home.
HUNT FOR LAST OCTOBER
MAD #297, September 1990
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
The movie had a disclaimer about how "none of this really happened", it was a time when we weren't sure what our relationship was with the Russians.
Typical of many of the late 80s and early 90s MAD movie parodies, it opens with the audience. In the crowd are the Spy vs. Spy spies, Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev, MAD publisher William M. Gaines, and Tom Clancy, who wrote the Jack Ryan novels on which this movie is based.
Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) at his CIA job is meeting with his boss Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) and they have signs of a submarine they've discovered. It is a Russian sub commanded by Capt. Ramius (Sean Connery) who has ordered the ship change directions.
Panel 3: James Earl Jones also did the voice of Darth Vader. Panel 5: Yakov Smirnoff, Russian comedian whose schtick was Russia vs. America and known for his catchphrase "What a country!"
At a meeting with higher-ups in intelligence the CIA plans to blow up the Red October (the Russian submarine) which they believe is invading the US, but Ryan has a hunch, from having net Ramius, that Ramius is not traveling to the US to invade but to defect. He is given a chance to act on his theory. Naval officers are trying to track the Red October, whose sonar is undetected.
Panel 2: General Halftrack from Beetle Bailey. Panel 5: In the later years of the Reagan years, it was revealed policy was driven by predictions from their astrologer. Panel 6:Kathie Lee Gifford was the spokesperson for Carnival Cruises and married to football player Frank Gifford.
Borodin (Sam Neill) is in on Ramius' plan to defect.
Panel 1: A pun on Groucho and Karl Marx is a common old joke. Panel 2: It was revealed then that government contractors were charging outrageous prices for ordinary objects. Panel 6: Three-Mile Island was a nuclear plant that was one of the first places to have a nuclear meltdown.
Ryan and his men make completed their mission of destroying the Red October, but not before bringing its crew to safety and helping them defect.
"A thousand points of light" was George H.W. Bush's campaign slogan.
From Reel vs. Real by Russ Cooper and Sam Viviano, in #307, December 1991
The German edition used the movie for their cover
THE HUNT FOR RAD CRACKEDOBER
Cracked #256, September 1990
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
Connery's character was also known as "The Schoolmarm" in his country. The kilt is because Sean Connery is Scottish. The name is a pun on Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the Exxon Valdez.
Seamen Jones (Courtney Vance) was US Naval operator.
Panel 3: 'License to kill' was James Bond's thing. Panel 4: George H. W. Bush hated broccoli. The submarine is the Yellow Submarine sub.
Donald Trump had the same traits 32 years ago. Some things never change.
I know in the heading I said this was alphabetical but I decided for Christmas Eve and Christmas I'd do a couple Christmas movies since they'll be coming up soon anyway, then I'll go back.
HOME A-GROAN
MAD #303, June 1991
w:Stan Hart
a: Sam Viviano
It was the third highest-grossing movie when it came out, so I'm assuming most of you saw it, or at least know it's about a kid that gets left at home for Christmas.
Marley (Roberts Blossom) is the guy all the kids are scared of, he's always by himself so they've made up all sorts of stories about he's a murderer. Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is pestering his parents Peter (John Heard) and Kate (Catherine O'Hara) as everyone is preparing for a trip to Paris the next morning. One of the burglars (Joe Pesci), is casing the house while impersonating an officer and has a telltale gold tooth. Kevin is constantly being picked on by his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray). After his parents accidentally abandon him, he takes advantage by eating ice cream and looking through his family's stuff. The burglars are spying on him, the other one played by Daniel Stern.
A storm knocks out the electricity overnight, causing everyone to oversleep, so they're all in a rush to male it to the airport on time the next morning forgetting Kevin. Kevin, who was punished the night before by being made to sleep in the attic, wakes up to find his family gone, fulfilling his wish. On the plane, the mother worries they forgot to do something then she realizes it was to get Kevin. Meanwhile, we see the burglars breaking into the other houses in the neighborhood. Buzz's pet tarantula figures later into the plot.
One of the kids is the comic strip character Henry
After they realize Kevin is missing, the mother rushes back home to get to Kevin, but since it's Christmas and all direct flights are booked, she has to go take all sorts of connecting flights in various cities. At one airport, she tries to bribe an elderly couple into getting their seat. A polka player (John Candy) overhears her predicament, happens to be going her way, and offers her a ride. Meanwhile, Kevin seeks solace in a church where he encounters Marley and finds he isn't so scary after all. He's a loner because he hasn't reconnected with his son.
-The airport ticket clerk was played by Hope Davis, who was not famous enough to be caricatured yet.
-The elderly couple are caricatures of MAD publishers William and Anne Gaines.
-Jim Bakker was a preacher indicted for fraud in the late eighties who I think is back.
-The other members of the polka band in the background are MAD staffers Nick Meglin, Dave Berg, and Dick DeBartolo. I believe the passenger in the fishing hat is art director Leonard Brenner.
Kevin overhears that the burglars are coming to his house next and he booby traps the house to defend it and foil them, by doing what you see here; swinging paint cans on ropes, rigging a door so an iron falls on one of them, pouring water on the steps so it turns into ice, burning someone's hat with a blowtorch, putting sharp glass under the windowsill [not shown: the tarantula from earlier gets loose and bites one of them]. His mother finally gets home and is glad to see Kevin. Here the John Candy role is combined with that of Uncle Buck, the role of his (and writer John Hughes') previous movie.
That's supposed to be Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in the first panel.
From Reel vs. Real in MAD #307, written by Russ Cooper.
HOMEBOY ALONE
Cracked # 262, May 1991
a: John Severin
This has a few things that weren't in the MAD parody.
A neighboring kid gets mistaken for Kevin when One of the McCallisters does a headcount.
Kevin runs into Marley when he's buying a toothbrush and runs away, and the cops run after him for shoplifting.
When John Candy's character meets Kate, he assumes she recognizes him.
More comparing violence against the burglars to cartoons.
The MAD parody doesn't point out that the burglars get caught and arrested.
HOME ALONE GOES PUBLIC
Cracked #263, July 1991
a: Don Orehek
THE ODDFATHER
MAD #155, December 1972
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker
Too many pages for me to put in one post, so I'll break it in two. The rest will be tomorrow. And of course the two sequels. I guess you could say this is Godfather week. Godfather half-week, really. Let's get to it.
The movie starts with the wedding of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)'s daughter (Talia Shire) in 1945. Here we meet the family while Don Vito is inside meeting "clients". At his side is Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), the family consiglieri, a kid of lawyer/fixer for them.
In the big panel on the bottom is Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), rehearsing how he will talk to Don Corleone.
Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has just left the war and has no plans to go into organized crime, like his brothers Sonny (James Caan) and Fredo (John Cazale). He aspires to be a Senator or Governor. He comes to the wedding with his fiancee Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). Inside, Don Corleone does a favor for a Mr. Bonasera (Salvatore Corsitto) but first must get the proper respect.
Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino) is said to be a stand-in for Frank Sinatra. He's a lounge singer and teen idol whose career has been made by the mob and has come to entertain at the wedding. Later, he asks the Don a favor. He wants a part in a movie but the producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) won't budge. Corleone has Tom fly out to Hollywood to pay Mr. Woltz a visit. Jack gives a tour of his property, including a stable with his prize racehorse, but still refuses to give Johnny Fontaine the part. In one of the most talked about scenes, he wakes up to find his horse's severed head in his bed.
I always found it weird that he's a big Hollywood producer and almost as unethical but he sleeps alone.
Don Corleone has refused to bribe judges and policemen and help fund the heroin operation for his rival Sollozzo of the Tattaglia family, so is subsequently gunned down and hospitalized. Michael, though not part of the mob is still family, and visits him in the hospital.
Not shown: Michael is shocked to find his father unprotected and has him moved to another room before there's a hit on him by the Tattaglia gang, the ones who attempted to murder him in the first place. As he leaves he's roughed up by cops who are the ones that cleared the hospital since they're on the take from the Tattaglias. In the movie, it's Michael who decides to avenge his father with hesitance from the family, not the other way around. They eventually agree to help him. The family, along with Clemenza (Richard Castellano) and Tessio (Abe Vigoda) help him with a plan to get back at Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and his crooked cop associate McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) by having dinner with them, ostensibly for business, and shooting them with a gun that's hidden in the bathroom.
They also left out a large part where Michael hides in Sicily until the heat is off him, he gets married there, and his wife dies in a car bomb that was meant for him. The original version had no subtitles, something they could have had fun with.
The Don returns from the hospital, Sonny gets a call from Connie in New Jersey that her husband Carlo (Gianni Russo) is beating her and rushes there to beat him, after having warned him before.
This was a set-up by Carlo to lure Sonny there. As Sonny rushes to his sister's house, he's killed by a rival gang at a toll booth. Don Corleone has had enough of this rivalry with the crime families all killing each other and calls for a meeting of the Five Families to guarantee Michael can come back to the U. S. safely, and in return Don Vito promises to let his politicians help with the Tattaglias' drug racket.
They leave out how Michael returns after a few years and goes back to Kay. Although he wanted no part of the crime business eventually he's ended up going back on that promise and Kay agrees to marry him with the promise she doesn't know what he does. As Vito is dying Michael becomes the new Godfather and moves the operations to Las Vegas, abandoning businesses in New York and getting into gambling, going "legitimate". He has all the rival gangs killed to eliminate competition, and has it done while attending his sister's child's baptism so he'll have an alibi.
The father dying plays out like it does in the movie, except Fredo's already in Vegas running the casinos. I guess MAD wanted to get him in there.
The Swedish edition had their own cover for this.
from New Musicals Based on Big Movies, written by Frank Jacobs in MAD #182, April 1976.
