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.
Updated daily. There's posts besides this one archived in the sidebar on the right, you clods!
if you're at a laptop or desktop, right-click and open link on pages and they'll be clearer and legible in a new window.
MAD #171, December 1974
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker
Agnew had been out of office long by then and wasn't associated with Watergate, but just as corrupt as Nixon if not more so. This issue would have hit newsstands in September or October right after Nixon resigned, though they would have thought he'd still be President when this cover was made. History has shown they're nothing by comparison to later administrations though.
Robert Redford and Paul Newman were found to be a great duo (i.e. big box office0 with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid so they were teamed up a second time with the same director in a film about two con men during the Depression.
It begins with Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and his partner Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) pulling a grift on an unsuspecting stranger.
A building in the background says “Scott Joplin and Marvin Hamlisch”. The latter arranged the former's music for this.
Luther pretends to be stabbed and tells the stranger he has to drop off $5000 for a gangster and has a deadline. Johnny pretends to be another approaching stranger. Luther asks if one of them can drop the $5000 off in time and the other can stay for help. The mark offers to finish the delivery and they know full well he'll just flee with the $5000 instead of actually making the delivery. Johnny tells the mark he won't be mugged if he just stuffs the envelope down his pants and puts it in an envelope with his own money, showing the mark how to do it. When Johnny does it, he switches the envelopes. The mark leaves, believing he's rich, and finds he has an envelope full of torn up newspapers. Johnny and Luther now have the guy's money. See how it's done? You or someone you know probably fell for a scam like this.
Luther tells Johnny he's getting out of the con business and should look go to Chicago and look up Henry Gondoroff (Paul Newman). Johnny has a hot date that gets angry he blows his fortune, but he doesn't care, he always gets more money. The guy who was scammed isn't happy though. Turns out he works for Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), the worst crime boss in Illinois.
Johnny is being chased by Lt. Snyder (Charles Durning) a corrupt cop who's aware of Johnny's scams and demands kickbacks for them. Johnny comes home to find Luther has been killed by Lonnegan's men and moves to Chicago to track down Henry, who he finds running a carousel in front of a brothel run by Billie (Eileen Brennan).
Henry is on the lam from the FBI and a bit of a has-been (as was Paul Newman). Johnny wants to learn “The Big Con” and pull it on Doyle Lonnegan in retaliation for Luther's murder. First, Henry and his men find out everything they know about him and set up a fake betting parlor. Lt. Snyder comes looking for Johnny.
Next step is winning a game against Mr. Lonnegan on a train ride where he's playing poker. Henry Gondoroff, pretending to be a gambler named Shaw, cheats him out of his money pretending to be really drunk and switching cards, knowing what kind of deck is being used.
Johnny Hooker, posing as an employee of “Shaw” to collect the winnings named Kelly. He approaches Mr. Donnegan telling him that “Shaw” had been cheating. “Kelly” knows how corrupt “Shaw” is and wants to take over the operation, but needs Lonnegan's help at their “betting parlor”.
At the fake betting parlor, J.J. (Ray Walston) is in the back room pretending to be a radio announcer for the horse races but is actually getting the results telegraphed to him. There is a big elaborate scam they need to convince Doyle is not one. Meanwhile, Johnny is running away from Snyder, still shaking him down, and ducks into a drugstore. Snyder catches up to Johnny. He and FBI agent Polk (Dana Elcar) know his association with Henry, and try to use Johnny to take him down.
”Sadie Mafoosky” is Katie Morosky, Barbara Streisand's character in The Way We Were, another hit of Redford's that year.
Johnny starts dating Loretta (Dimitra Arliss), a waitress at a diner, who it turns out is an assassin for Lonegan. He's rescued in time by an assistant to Gondoroff. Now at the fake betting parlor, Lonnegan places a bet, then gets upset he did it wrong. The FBI comes to arrest Gondoroff, and there's a shootout, and it's difficult to explain how this all happens, but what it all amounts to is Gondoroff and Hooker pretend to be shot and gett up when everybody leaves. Maybe this video clip describes this convoluted scenario better.
They wouldn't know who Nixon and Agnew were in England so they just went with a regular cover.
THE STINGER
Cracked # 110, August 1974
a: A. Shamed (John Severin)
The title cards are done in the tradition of painted Saturday Evening Post covers, so here it makes sense they would parody Norman Rockwell's “Self Portrait”, which is probably their best-known one.
MAD #170, October 1974
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker
Early on, the MAD logo had ghosts cavorting around it. This parodied that.
Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) is leading an archaeological dig in Iraq and comes upon holy symbols there, a foreshadowing of what's to come.
In Washington, DC, we meet Chris McNeil (Ellen Burstyn) an actress and her assistants Sharon (Kitty Wynn) and Karl (Rudolf Schundler)...
...and daughter Regan (Linda Blair). The first sign something is wrong is thumping they hear upstairs, which Chris thinks must be rats in the attic. The next day she goes to work for the director Burke Demings (Jack McGowran) in a scene involving a campus protest. She takes the same route every day when she goes home, passing the local church, where she always sees a depressed Father Karras (Jason Miller).
Chris McNeil goes home to her daughter, who is playing with a Ouija board and says she talks to 'Captain Howdy' through it. Later that night, Chris throws a party for all her celebrity friends and Father Dyer (William O'Malley) entertaining on piano. In this, the celebrities are all caricatures of politicians of the time. Regan comes down to the party in her pajamas cursing and pees on the floor. When she's asleep later the bed starts shaking.
The man in drag is comedian Flip Wilson, whose character Geraldine, was known for the catchphrase "The devil made me do it", which is referenced in most of these parodies.
Chris has doctors examine Regan to find out what's wrong with her and they find nothing. A cat-scan reveals possible lesions on her frontal lobe.
Dr. Klein (Barton Heyman) examines Regan and also concluded little can be done. While Chris was gone, Sharon had Burke look after Regan for a few minutes and when Chris comes back she finds Regan is asleep but all the windows are open. Burke was found dead in the street as if he had jumped out, and his head has been found on backwards. Lt. Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) is investigating the case and looks for Father Karras because he thinks Burke's death may have been from a demonic force.
Chris, concerned about Regan is asking for the doctors to do anything to help (They're drawn as various TV doctors here). Klein suggest one thing that as a last resort what might possibly work is an exorcism. She finds Karras, who is also a trained doctor, for help. He is not equipped to perform an exorcism, but is willing to examine Regan, believing that whatever problem it is can first be explained by science.
Karras is finally convinced an exorcism is the only solution, and gets permission from the church to perform one, with the assistance of Father Merrin.
Next is the blasphemy, profanity, and horror that caused a sensation when the movie came out before the devil is freed, but is not portrayed portrayed here.
Cracked didn't do a full parody but had a few short pieces. This is from an article called Pell-Mell with Mel in #125. I think the priest is supposed to be Mel Brooks.
This is from If Hit Movies Were Combined in #131, March 1976.
THE ECCHORCIST
Crazy #6, August 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Vance Rodewalt
William Peter Blatty, writer of this, had been a screenwriter for years, mostly for comedies.
Regan did not have the sass-mouth this early on in the movie.
The storyline of Damien Karras' mother dying (and later portrayed by a possessed Regan) was left out of the MAD parody. An attendee at Chris' party is director William Friedkin.
Ozzie's Girls was an a short-lived attempt at Ozzie Nelson having his own sitcom without his children.
In that same issue, they had a fumetti parodying the movie. Bill Skurski was part of a group called Cloud Studio that were the first art directors of National Lampoon, fired for giving the magazine an underground/art deco look when the editors wanted to go in a different direction.
About a year later, in Crazy #17, an article called Combining Hollywood Movies for Fun and Profit, by Mark Steven and Bob Smith, did a mash-up of The Exorcist and The Sting.
Sick #99, August 1974
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Tony Tallarico
The Sick parody doesn't have the prologue with the archaeological dig, which didn't need to be in the movie in the first place.
Many of the scenes and characters are conflated here.
A scene in the movie not used in the other parodies is that Karras records Regan's ramblings and tries to decipher and translate them, and finds out they are English backwards.
Also, Father Merrin is killed while performing the exorcism. Max Von Sydow, the actor who played him, was the most famous movie actor in Sweden.
There have been many parodies in television and film, such as this sketch during the first season of Saturday Night Live.
And this scene from Scary Movie 2.
There was a law passed in the early 90s stating every spoof movie must have Leslie Nielsen. Re-Possessed also starred Linda Blair, who has worked steadily since The Exorcist, but only in exploitation and low-budget movies.
A sequel to The Exorcist was made that was universally panned.
