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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THE TOWERING STERNO
MAD #177, November 1975
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
Before the science-fiction genre inspired by Star Wars, then the action movie, then the now-popular superhero genre, the disaster movie was the big-budget all-star summer movie release, soap operas with disaster backdrops. There was the Airport franchise about jet planes malfunctioning, The Poseidon Adventure about a cruise ship malfunctioning, Earthquake. The Towering Inferno was about the world's biggest skyscraper catching fire.
Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) has designed the Glass Tower in San Francisco, and James Duncan (William Holden) is the developer of the building. The Glass Tower is 138 stories tall, part office, and part residential. Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) has arrived, we soon find out he lives there and is some kind of con artist, and there is a premiere party for the building. At the central security office headed by Harry Jernigan (O. J. Simpson), they notice there may be smoke in one of the rooms from faulty wiring. Doug returns to work where his girlfriend Susan (Faye Dunaway) is waiting for him.
James Duncan had his son-in-law, Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) do the electrical engineering, and cut corners that led to the faulty wiring. Everybody's getting ready for the premiere party, including the building's P.R. person Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner).
Michael O'Halloran (Steve McQueen) is called to put out the little fire while the party is going on above them. Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn) is one of the guests at the party. Duncan is angry at his son-in-law for wiring the building cheaply while Dan Bigelow is having an affair with his secretary Lorrie (Susan Flannery). Dan and Lorrie try to leave his office but can't now that the fire has started raging.
The party has been moved down below so that the fire can be controlled, though the attendees are unaware of its magnitude. Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones) was being wooed by Harlee Claiborne (those scenes aren't used here) and while escaping has to help move out some of the residents, including some children. Doug, having designed the building, knows ways to get out and with Lisolette gets the children through stairwells and elevator shafts. In the movie. Phillip (Mike Lookinland) is awakened while wearing headphones, in this parody, he keeps them on the whole time.
While plans are being made to rescue all the building attendees, Roger tells his wife Patty (Susan Blakely) he's escaping on his own, but finds he can't. Harlee and Lisolette are reuinited and he admits he was being nice to her all along to con her, but she sees that he's an honest man deep inside and doesn't care about all that now.
Everybody is being saved gradually by rappelling on a chair attached to a cable which is attached to a helicopter. It's women and children first, the first twelve through a lottery, and of course there are casualties. (In another scene from the movie not used in this, Roger pushes everyone out of the way and hangs on to the makeshift escape device, then plummets to his death. I can imagine when this played in a theater the crowd all cheered.)
Charlton Heston from Airport '75, which came out roughly around the same time, appears in the next to last panel.
Everyone still trapped in the building is saved from the sprinklers all being turned on and dousing the water out. Henry saved Harlee's cat from his apartment. After everybody's been evacuated, Michael warns Doug about the dangers of building more tall buildings.
Cover for German edition of MAD.
From New Musicals Based on Big Movies in #182, April 1976, by Frank Jacobs, also drawn by Drucker.
Ava Gardner isn't drawn here, but Gloria Swanson, who played herself in Airport '75, is, as well as Karen Black, and George Kennedy, who was the only person in all four Airport movies.
THE TOWERING INFERNAL
Cracked #126, August 1975
a: John Severin
Nitpicking, but Paul Newman and O. J. Simpson worked for the building and weren't fireman, so this cover shows how well people knew about a movie in advance back in pre-internet times.
Charlton Heston also makes an appearance in this parody, the “monkey” quote a reference to Planet of the Apes.
From Cracked #137, November 1976. art by Sururi Gumen
Tune in tomorrow for versions from Crazy and Sick.
SPACED 1999
MAD UK #185, c. 1977
w: Hitch Hitchings
a: Alf Saporito
Here's another look at the future of the past. This was a series about Moonbase Alpha, a nuclear waste storage site stationed there in 1999. An explosion sends the moon out of Earth's orbit and the series centers on situations involving worlds the station encounters.
The base was led by Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and John Koenig (Martin Landau), with Victor Bergman (Barry Morse), their science advisor.
The next to last panel has various British 70's TV personalities such as the casts of Are You Being Served? and the UK version of General Hospital. Barry Morse had also been on US's The Fugitive.
The other versions of Russell and Koenig that they see are Landau and Bain's characters from Mission:Impossible, their previous series. The “planet” is Lew Grade, producer. And the punchline is the characters are the Thunderbirds, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's show before this. The Andersons had done many sciene fiction shows before this, but this was the first to be done with live actors.
SPACE: 1998
Cracked #133, July 1976
a: Sururi Gumen
Allen Carter (Nick Tate) was the chief pilot of Moonbase Alpha.
The “instruments” gag was later used in Airplane!. An obvious joke anyone could come up with but funnier in the latter because it was in and out quicker.
Star Trek may have been considered a fly-by-night series in the seventies but sure came back with a vengeance. In a while we'll be devoting two entire weeks to the franchise.
SPACE $9.99 MARKED DOWN FROM $22.68
Crazy #20, October 1976
w: Len Herman
a: Ernie Colon
MAD #213, March 1980
w: Stan Hart
a: Harry North, Esq.
The previous James Bond film was promoted to cash in on the success of Jaws, even naming a character after him, and this next one was packaged to cash in on the success of Star Wars. It involves Bond (Roger Moore) sent to investigate the theft of the space shuttle Moonraker, only to find out its owner Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) has more sinister plans. Drax's main henchman is Jaws (Richard Kiel) and his earlier henchman is Chang (Toshiro Suga).
The mini-episode before the credits involves Bond back from his previous mission. The plane is hijacked, the pilot escapes, and he's pushed out by Jaws. Falling without a chute, James Bond manages to take the one of the escaping pilot. Jaws attempts to chase Bond but his chute won't open and his life is saved by landing on a circus tent.
Bond goes to investigate the appearance of the Moonraker's shuttle and is given a tour of the Drax corporation. On his tour of the facilities, their scientist Dr. Goodhead (Lois Chiles) shows him their centrifugal test ride, which is sabotaged by Chang. That night, he beds Drax's assistant Corinne Dufour (Corinne Clery) to get the plans for the ship.
The next morning, Drax finds out Corinne has let Bond get the secrets and releases his hounds after her.
Bond is riding by himself on a gondola in Venice and Drax has hired assassins to chase him down and kill him, he eludes the hitmen by revealing the gondola has wings allowing him to float on land. Bondhad discovered a vial earlier in a glass factory (not shown) and leaves it on a table while staying at the Drax complex. It's full of gas and breaks, killing the scientists working there. He later seduces Dr. Goodhead, knowing she is an undercover agent for the CIA. She knows he is also a secret agent and they decide to work together.
Chappaquidick was the name of an estate where the Kennedys had a party in the late sixties. Teddy drove a woman home, crashed into the ocean, and her drowning ruined his chances of ever becoming President
Bond is sent to Rio De Janiero to investigate the gas he discovered. It is secretly being manufactured by Drax's company there because that's where the orchid from which the gas is made grows. With the aid of their contact Manuela (Emily Bolton), he looks into it, Jaws attempts to kill him, but he is carried away by Carnival revelers. Jaws also makes an attempt on his life while he is riding a cable car with Dr. Goodhead.
Jaws falls off the cable car, lands below the controls, meets someone and falls in love with a woman who pulls him from the wreckage (Blanche Ravalec). Bond and Goodhead are taken away in an ambulance which is hijacked. He escapes an attempt on their life and ends up being chased through the Amazon, getting away on a parasail. Jaws eventually catches up to him and brings him to a lagoon, where he's attacked by a snake and kills it with the pen he was given at the beginning of the movie. The lagoon is part of Drax's laboratory where he comes out and reveals that he was the one to steal his own shuttle. His plan is to send that one shuttle into space with several ideal couples while using the gas he was developing to kill everyone on Earth, repopulate the species with the young couples, and create a Master Race.
Bond is then taken to headquarters where Goodhead has already been kidnaped. Using his hidden weapons, he is able to outsmart Drax and the rest of his crew, preventing Moonraker from launching. Jaws has a change of heart. They say it's because he's found love, but I think it's because he found out he won't be a part of this eugenics experiment. Bond and Goodhead have rescued Moonraker and the world's leaders have gathered to watch them return to Earth, but turn on the monitors and find them screwing.
Cover to British edition
And the German one
MOONWRECKER
Cracked #166, Januaru 1980
a: Sururi Gumen
The MAD parody didn't use the beginning of all James Bond movies with M (Bernard Lee), who always tells him what his latest mission is, and Q (Desmond Llewelyn), who provides the newest technology.
The MAD version also leaves out Chang's attempt to kill Bond while he's snooping around the glass museum in Venice. The Samurai was a recurring John Belushi character on Saturday Night Live.
From A Cracked Look at 007 by Mort Todd and John Severin, in Cracked #216, November 1985.
MOONROCKER
Crazy #59, February 1980
a: Murad Gumen
The henchmen is named Chang, even though they take off on the name Oddjob.
Skylab was a U.S. space station in the seventies that disintegrated when it landed back in the Earth's orbit and pieces landed on Earth.
