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 Australia #316, January 1993
w & a: Steve Lopes
Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) was a soldier in Vietnam in 1969 who disobeyed the orders of his commanding officer Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), who became psychotic and demanded Luc shoot an innocent couple. During the scuffle, they kill each other, and in the current time of 1992 are re-animated into the perfect soldiers ala Robocop, under the supervision of Col Perry (Ed O'Ross). They have been deployed to handle a hostage situation, which is being covered by TV reporter Victoria Roberts (Ally Walker).
Luc has a clue about who he was and Victoria knows too much, so she's run away to escape the robo-soldiers who are now after her, with Luc also being chased and not far behind. Luc is capable of running the speed of any car and lifting it as well. They check into a hotel room for safety where Luc has overheated and takes off his clothes, recharges h9mself, and packs himself in ice. The soldiers are not far behind and shoot up the hotel.
Victoria's crew has been killed, and she and Luc have been framed for their murder. While they are arrested and put on a prison transfer bus with police escorts, Andrew's memory as a psychotic Vietnam sergeant is re-triggered, he breaks loose, and runs the bus off the road. Luc returns to his parents, who assume he was dead. Andrew finds him and this leads to a climactic fight scene.
Jacko was the Energizer spokesperson during the brief US obsession with Australia in the late eighties. Ivan Drago was Dolph Lundgren's character in Rocky III.
There are a couple of other scenes covered in this next one...
Cracked #277, December 1992
w: Rich Kreigel (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan
The hotel here is run by Norman Bates and his dead mother from Psycho. That's what you get when you have a hotel run by a guy and his mother in a movie.
An earlier fight scene ensues when they go to a diner and Luc keeps eating, but doesn't realize it costs money and confronts him, so he beats everyone up and trashes the place. They meet the doctor who developed the universal soldiers (Jerry Orbach) who figure out how he can be deprogrammed.
Although Green Card was an American movie than took place in New York and didn't have any Australian characters, its director was Australian and it had an early release there. The movie was a romantic comedy made by someone who had previously done movies such as Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, and looked more like those than a romantic comedy.
Brontë (Andie MacDowell) marries frenchman Georges Fauré (Gerard Dépardieu) so he can get a green card and she can get the apartment with a greenhouse, which she could only have on the condition that she's married. Their agreement is they never have to see each other after getting what they want. She later runs into him at his job as a waiter and at the apartment her nosy neighbor and doorman keep asking where the husband is.
Dépardieu had previously played Cyrano DeBergerac.
Brontë tracks Georges down since she needs him there for an appointment by the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, which is cracking down on sham marriages like this one, and they find they know nothing about each other, even their names.
INS is suspicious when agent Gorsky (Ethan Phillips) asks to use the bathroom and Georges can't find it. Brontë's lawyer (Robert Prosky) tells her the INS wasn't convinced and is coming back for a further inspection for two days, and they have to get up to speed and be on the same page. Once they get to know each other they find they have nothing in common. If anybody sees them in public and asks, he says he's to say he's an old friend in town for a political demonstration.
She's a vegetarian and he's a meat-eater. When they're grocery shopping, they run into her friend Lauren (Bebe Neuwirth) and Georges invites Lauren over for lunch. Later, Brontë has dinner with Lauren's family in hopes they'll donate their floral collection to her environmental group. Lauren shows up later with Georges as her date. He says he's a composer, they ask him to play something on their piano, and he embarrasses everyone with an avant-garde composition. Later, Brontë and Georges concoct a background story to tell the INS officers which includes faking pictures of themselves at various locales.
Brontë has a date with her real life boyfriend Phil and keeps Georges awake while he sleeps on the couch. He can't take it anymore and yells at them, and Brontë kicks him out. He spends the night on the floor outside the apartment. When they're discovered the next morning by Mrs. Kravitz (that's not really her name) they come up with a story that he locked himself out of the apartment. They then realize they have to go to the INS office for questioning, where they are grilled separately. He fails and gets deported, then they both realize they're really in love.
SICKLY MINUTES MEETS THE CORNBALL COMPANY
Australian MAD #284, January 1989
w & a: Robert Fidgeon
The Comedy Company was a sketch comedy show in Australia. Kylie Mole (Mary-Ann Fahey) was one of the most famous recurring characters, a teenager who often interviewed celebrities, similar to Jiminy Glick or Chris Farley doing The Chris Farley Show on SNL.
The cover gag refers to superstar Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan.
Correspondents on their version of Sixty Minutes were Ian Leslie, Richard Carleton, Jennifer Byrne, Mike Munro, and Jeff McMullen. The cast of The Comedy Company, besides the aforementioned Kylie Mole, were Siobhan Tuke, Glenn Robbins, Kym Gyngell, Tim Smith, Ian McFadyen, and Mike Mitchell.
Another character who continued outside the show was Con the Fruiterer (Mark Mitchell), who became an actual health advocate.
COL'N CARPENTRY
Australian MAD #307, December 1991
w & a: Steve Lopes
The show spun off to a separate sitcom, with the character Col'n Carpenter (Kym Gyngell) sharing a home with Michael (Stig Wemyss) and Linda (Kaarin Fairfax)
Australian MAD #307, December 1991
w & a: Steve Lopes
I asked for scans of British and Australian parodies if anyone has then, and got them in spades. So in addition to the month long break that wasn't my fault, it'll be another month to get to the posts I had planned. To you it only means pages by faves like Mort Drucker and John Severin will have to wait a while. But I'm not complaining. One good thing about foreign shows is that YouTube allows them to be shown in this country in their entirety so I'll know what's going on.
All Together Now was a sitcom about a has-been rock star who found out he had two kids and has to take care of them while trying to revive his career. The cast was Thomas Sumner (Steven Jacobs), Bobby Rivers (Jon English), Anna (Jane Hall), Tracy (Rebecca Gibney), Wayne (Bruno Lucia), and Dougy (Garry Who).
The punchline is a commentary about how in Australia pop stars are aften regulars on soaps like Kylie Minogue on Neighbours, Melissa Tkautz, and Craig McLachlan with his hit “Hey, Mona”.
