MAVERSHTICK

MAVERICK (1994)
dir: Richard Donner

MAVERSHTICK
MAD #331. October 1994
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker

Bret Maverick (Mel Gibson) comes to the town of Crystal River to earn the $3,000 he needs for the $25,000 entry fee to a national poker championship. He goes to a saloon to play poker with Angel (Alfred Molina) and Annabelle Bransford (Jodie Foster), another con-artist who becomes his foil then lover then foil again.

In the splash panel, way on the left, is Whitefish Will, a character from a childrens' book Drucker also illustrated. The woman with the axe is Carrie Nation, predecessor to today's internet scold.

Later, a fight breaks out and Maverick chases them all away by showing what a fast draw he is, which intimidates his fellow players and lets him win. Not revealed in the parody, the fighters were provocateurs he payed to instigate a fight. That night, Annabelle seduces Bransford which he stops, as he realizes it was a ploy to steal his wallet. The next morning, he takes a coach to the riverboat poker championship where he meets Annabelle again, who is also competing, and Zane Cooper, a former Marshal (James Garner, the original Maverick from the TV show this is based on) who will be supervising the game.

The stagecoach driver dies, stranding the three of them. In another scene cut out of this parody, they run into a town that was looted by robbers pretending to be Indians and promise to get it back. After doing so, they run into a real Indian tribe and Maverick sacrifices himself.

The tribesmen are actually friends of Maverick and only pretending to be warriors, and after Maverick has gone with them their leader Joseph (Graham Greene) tells Maverick they're putting on the phony front for a Russian Duke. They win the rest of the money Maverick needs by “letting” the Duke kill Maverick, disguised as one of the tribe, for sport, counting on the fact that he's a bad shot.

After getting out of that scrape, Maverick is then captured by other gamblers making sure he won't make it to the game and he manages to escape (yet another scene not used here), making it to the riverboat where the game is supervised by Cooper and the Captain of the ship Lauren Belle is Commodore Duvall (James Coburn). During an hour break, Maverick and Annabelle do it, and someone locks him in his room, which he gets out of and gets back to the game in time.

Maverick wins the game and in scenes where everyone double crosses one another, Cooper, the only one allowed to have a gun, holds up the boat and leaves with the money. Duvall goes to chase after him and it turns out he was in on the robbery. Maverick finds them in the woods and leaves with it, leaving them alone to fight. When Maverick is settled with his winnings and is taking a bath and is found and held up by Cooper, then it is revealed they were father and son all along. As they're bonding in tubs, Annabelle finds them and holds them up, and after she leaves, Maverick says she only left with half of the money and had the rest hidden in his boots.

Danny Glover did have a cameo earlier as a bank robber, though he didn't use the “I'm getting too old for this shit” line from the Lethal Weapon movies. There are cameos throughout the movie by Dan Hedaya, Margot Kidder, Corey Feldman, and others)


From The Mask Goes to The Cineplex in Cracked #294, November 1994, art by John Severin.

Starting in the last third during the riverboat gambling part, cheaters are thrown off the boat. Maverick says earlier he can see other players' “tells”.

The article was about Jim Carrey's character from The Mask going from theater to theater seeing different movies. It's Carrey in the last panel with his mask torn off.

When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, he said it was to impress Jodie Foster (though he was a pedophile and liked her as a minor). NYPD Blue was famous for being a network TV show with nudity. Maverick's character was established as a self-admitted coward.

THE UN-MASKED

THE MASK (1994)
dir: Chuck Russell

THE UNMASKED
Cracked Monster Party #26, Winter 1994
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan

From the Australian version of MAD. There was no official parody in the American version other than references and I don't think the Australian edition did own parody.

Now the Cracked parody.

There's a prologue about how an ancient treasure in the water has been found off the coast of Edge City and a mask from that treasure has risen to the surface.

Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) is working at a bank and Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz) is there to open an account, but has brought a camera with her she's hiding, and is actually the girlfriend of one of the gangsters who plans to rob the bank later and is casing the joint. Their headquarters are at the Coco Bongo night club. Ipkiss' car is in the shop still being fixed and hevhas been given a loaner in the meantime, a real clunker, which makes him the laughing stock when trying to get into the Coco Bongo (that last part's not shown). On his way back home, he attempts suicide and is about to jump off a bridge when he finds the mask. He comes home greeted by his dog Milo and sees a psychologist on TV (Ben Stein, who looks nothing like this) talking about how we all metaphorically wear masks.

Ipkiss puts on the mask he found out of curiosity, which turns him into a cartoon character that can do anything. He decides to go see Tina, who works at the Coco Bongo, and who he thinks sees him as a joke.

Stanley takes revenge on the car mechanic that screwed him over, then takes money from the bank where he works, beating the gangsters that were planning to rob it. Then he arrives at the Coco Bongo in a stretch limo and starts dancing with Tina. The gangsters are after them and he outsmarts them with Bugs Bunny stunts.

He has a date with Tina the next evening in his 'Mask' persona, cops are on to him and tell him to freeze, which he does literally. Then when the police have him surrounded, he starts a mambo number, manipulating all of them. Later at the club there's charity event, and the head gangster Dorian (Peter Greene) has managed to get the mask. When you put it on, it turns you into an exaggerration of your personality, in this version it turns him into Marlon Brando as The Godfather.

Dorian, in the mask, ties up Stanley and Tina. Stanley's dog Milo shows up, manages to get the mask, puts it on himself, and frees them. Here he turns into Goofy. Also here, Tina puts on the mask instead of how they just get rid of it because she prefers his true personality.

THE MASK: ANIMATED SERIES
CBS 1995-1997

DUMB AND DUMBER
ABC 1995-1996

ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE
1995-1997 CBS

THE DUMB AND DUMBER MASK MEETS ACE VENTURA
Cracked #307, May 1996
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan

All three of Jim Carrey's first few major movies appealed to children (unless you count Earth Girls Are Easy), so it was inevitable there would be Saturday morning cartoons of them. This is a mash-up of them.

The Mask/Stanley (Rob Paulsen)'s dog (Frank Welker) was smarter and more anthropomorphic in this but still didn't talk.

For those that don't recognize the quote in the next to last panel, it's from Network.

The van Harry (Bill Faggerbakke) and Lloyd (Matt Frewer) drove was named Otto and they had a Beaver named Kitty.

JIM CARREY VISITS THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW

THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW
1992-1998 HBO

JIM CARREY VISITS THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW
MAD #337, July 1995
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

The Larry Sanders Show wasn't a talk show but a sitcom about the life of a talk-show host and a behind the scenes look at the program. Larry Sanders (Garry Shandling) was host of the show within the show. His sidekick was Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor) and the producer was Artie (Rip Torn). I guess the woman in the first panel is supposed to be Janeane Garofalo, who played one of the talent bookers, It doesn't exactly look like her, but the giveaway is the pin referring to her being a one-season cast member of Saturday Night Live. Darlene (Linda Doucette) was Hank's assistant. Hank warmed up the audience with jokes and one was that the 'Applause' sign said 'Applesauce'.

Ace Ventura, Pet Detective is about a detective who finds the mascot of the Miami Dolphins. He's a thorn in the side of the actual police force, particularly to their lieutenant (Sean Young). Sharon Stone was famous in a scene from Basic Instinct for not wearing underwear. Actresses often played themselves on the show and dated Larry. “Hey now” was Hank's catchphrase. Jim Carrey was always 'on' and would break into impressions during interviews.

“No flipping” was what Larry Sanders always said when they went to a commercial break. The Mask was about Jim Carrey finding a mask in a river, putting it on, and turning into a ladies' man.

The middle panels make references to Whitewater, a real estate scandal the Clintons were accused of being involved in, and the picture in the next panel is of Fire Marshal Bill, a character Carrey played on In Living Color. Hank Kingsley owned a restaurant he was always trying to plug on The Larry Sanders Show show.

The lesson in The Mask was that Carrey's character was better being himself when Tina (Cameron Diaz), the woman he was trying to impress, found out who he really was. Dumb and Dumber is about two guys (Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels), who find a briefcase full of ransom money, think it was something accidentally left behind, and travel across the country to give it back to the girl who left it there.

Teri Garr plays someone in Dumb and Dumber who heads an animal rescue foundation. The spider on Hank's head refers to an episode of The Larry Sanders Show where one of the guests handled them and they came loose. Larry's assistant was Beverly (Penny Johnson).

This was MAD's way of combining several parodies into one, but in a case of art imitating art Jim Carrey ended up eventually becoming a "guest".