BLARNEY MILLER

BARNEY MILLER
1975-1982 ABC

BLARNEY MILLER
MAD #195, December 1977
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

A weekly sitcom about a police precinct initially featuring Captain Barney Miller (Hal Linden), Wojohowicz (Max Gail), Yemana (Jack Soo), Harris (Ron Glass), and Fish (Abe Vigoda), who eventually spun off into his own show (coming soon) and then came back. An occasional character they used for this MAD parody is Marty (Jack DeLeon) who was not a cop but usually brought in as a suspect.

It was considered acceptable for a mainstream magazine refer to someone as a “faggot” in 1977.

“Don't squeeze the Charmin” was a popular ad campaign then. Mr. Whipple, the man behind Fish, was the man in the commercials who would look on disapprovingly.

In the background here is Carl Leavitt (Ron Carey), another occasional character who later got top billing.

The inspector suspects the cops are all on the take and explains why.

The show only had the one set, and as such, the plot were not about the investigations but the reports.

This was the seventies version of “woke”.

The suspect in the final panel is Mayor Abe Beame.

Cover artist Norman Mingo once drew a portrait of the mayor

MAD foresaw a potential spinoff in TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in #206, April 1979, written by Tom Koch and drawn by Harry North, Esq. The show didn't joke about Wojo's Polish heritage but MADdid. As I mentioned before, Polish jokes were a big thing in the seventies. (see Banacek link)

MAD artist Jack Davis did a TV Guide cover of the show's cast.

Cracked did three parodies. The first one is from #139 in January 1977.

And here's the second one.

BLARNEY MILLER
Cracked #176, March 1981
a: John Severin

Actor Jack Soo had died at this point, and they replaced him with Dietrich (Steve Landesberg), known for statistics and trivia, what we call being on the spectrum now. (I would know. Why do you think this @#$%* blog exists?)

The commanding officer (a caricature of Telly Savalas as Kojak) tells Barney the precinct they need to cut costs. Harris is an aspiring writer.

Barney is trying to discuss ways to cut costs with his squad but all Harris wants to do is take photos for his book.

He's getting sick of being unable to concentrate with flashbulbs going all over the place, until Harris informs him the publisher is paying for the photo shoot.

Now that their financial problems are over, they can go home. But before that, he needs to get Dietrich to shut up.

This was their third and last parody.

BLARNEY MILLNER
Cracked #186, May 1982
a: John Severin

Harris has been assigned the duty of painting the precinct and a suspect they brought in is a suspect who thinks he's a superhero who calls himself Captain Democracy.

The suspect Wojo brought in is a pickpocket.

They didn't use the usual “your case isn't funny enough” punchline.
BALONEY MILLER
Crazy #22, January 1977
w: Len Herman
a: Kent Gamble

The precinct is told by Inspector Luger (James Gregory) they need to cut costs in another story dealing with New York's financial crisis.

A character they had early on that wasn't in the MAD parody is Chano (Gregory Sierra), also on Jack Davis' TV Guide cover.

Since they had only one set, arrests are made off-camera. The cops bring their suspects in.

The city has fired all their judges as part of their cutbacks so the police must sentence criminals themselves.

Sick did two parodies of the show. The first one was drawn by Jerry Grandenetti. Grandenetti was a golden age artist, doing a lot of work for DC's war comics as well as assisting Simon & Kirby and Will Eisner.

BLARNEY MILLER
Sick #109, April 1976
a:Jerry Grandenetti

They call the article Blarney Miller that but they don't use that name for the character. They don't do puns on anyone's name, for that matter.

Even though the show was ethnically diverse, they never really pointed it out. These magazines made it a bigger deal than it actually was and as I said before, it was a common thing to do in the seventies.

I guess if you're going do some ethnic jokes you may as well also have some homophobia.

The woman inspecting the precinct finally finds evidence of police brutality. You see, because it's the grilling room. Get it?

Bella Abzug was a prominent lawyer and member of congress in the 70s

BLARNEY MELLOW
Sick #117, August 1977
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling

BLARNEY MILLER
Bananas #42, 1981
w: Jovial Bob Stine
a: Samuel B. Whitehead

Bob Stine was an in-house writer and editor of all sorts of books and magazines for Scholastic such as this one, but would go on to bigger fame and fortune as the author of the Goosebumps series.

UPDATE:
I had Cracked's first Barney Miller spoof on my wantlist and now I'm able to include it. I've added it back there with the others. Photoshop wouldn't let me “colorize” it and everything got all clonky when I tried to and I can't figure out why.

BARNACLE GROANS

BARNABY JONES
1973-1980 NBC

BARNACLE GROANS
MAD # 175, June 1975
w: Tom Koch
a: Angelo Torres

The premise was that Barnaby (Buddy Ebsen) was a retired detective, but after his son took over the business and was murdered he came back out of retirement and re-opened the agency with daughter-in-law Betty (Lee Merriweather). He talked in a drawl like his previous character Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies.

In this parody, they investigate the missing brother of Miss Overshaw in the unfriendly town of Dullsville.

Barnaby spoke with home-spun wisdom.

In case you didn't get it, he was old. And he was a teetotaler. And everybody in the town is mean.

And again, he's old.

After being chased onto the rooftops, he jumps across but doesn't make it. They pull him off the ledge but then try to finish him off.

Hubie Overshaw wasn't missing. He was killed because he was old. The town of Dullsville is so mean because they hate old people for making their taxes so high.

Barnaby is finally told he doesn't have to work. He can just collect social security. You see, he's old.


In the later seasons, they added his nephew Jedidiah (Mark Shera) so Buddy Ebsen would have less work, but MAD gave him his own series in the article TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in #206, April 1979, by Tom Koch and Harry North, Esq.

BARFETTA

BARETTA
1975-1978 ABC

You can all read backwards, right?

BARFETTA
MAD #183, June 1976
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres

Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) was one of several TV detectives in the 70s. His investigations were all undercover and he was known for his “dese-dem-dose” accent. The comic relief was his pet, a talking cockatoo named Fred.

On the street he hears about a Mafia protection racket. At the station they're wondering about him.

He's supposed to investigate cheating at the local high school but that can wait because the mafia has kidnapped Fred.

Part of Baretta's investigation was he always asked about the word on the street from local pimp Rooster (Michael D. Roberts)

He has a plan to go undercover at a massage parlor with their cooperation.

Malapropisms were another of Baretta's traits.

Baretta offers to have Fred testify that he was kidnapped but Lt. Brubaker (Edward Grover) fires him for ruining another case they were working on.

The show was also mentioned in TV Spinoffs Yet to Come in MAD #206, April 1979, written by Tom Koch and drawn by Harry North, Esq.

In the foreground is Richard Kiel as James Bond villain “Jaws”

BORETTA
Cracked #132, May 1975
a:John Severin

Baretta's friend Billy (Tom Ewell) brings in a kid who has been told his grandfather is dead but he thinks there's more to it. (In the foreground is George Kennedy of the cop show The Blue Knight.)

His cases often stayed at his home.

He finds out what he can at a pizza place disguised as the janitor (The in-joke here is that the janitor is Cracked mascot Sylvester P. Smythe).

He infiltrates the pizza place again using one of his disguises.

He's solved the case but now there's just one thing. From Cracked #140, March 1977. If King Kong Made Appearances on TV drawn by Howard Nostrand.

BOORETTA
Crazy #17, May 1976
w: Len Herman
a: Murad Gumen

Another case broken by Baretta. This time he was disguised as the getaway car!

He's promoted to a desk job which he refuses because he belongs in the streets. While he's there, he's told to bust up the crime syndicate.

They used the same joke as Cracked of him disguising himself as a bulldog. I wonder if they stole it. Sometimes Crazy was as much a Cracked imitator as a MAD imitator.

There was a law passed in the seventies that said all cartoonists must make criminals look like Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. I couldn't find one that said all mob bosses must look like Jimmy Durante.

At the meeting, the criminals all kill each other thinking the other is Baretta in disguise, including ones that look like Dean Martin and Bat-Mite.

PARETTA
Sick #116, August 1977
w: George Kashdan
a: Jack Sparling

This was a typical 70s TV plot of a cop going undercover to bust rapists. I never understood the logic behind this trope and don't think it really existed.

I think 'Phony' is supposed to be capitalized, like it's a pun on his name, and not an adjective used to describe him, but the typesetter (or typist in this case) didn't get it.

Baretta has to crack the case of mobster Clucky Hoochiano (pun on Lucky Luciano).

Clucky's onto Baretta and tries to figure out how he's always being one-upped. Meanwhile, Baretta's asking Rooster about the word on the street.

Baretta's now at home, and he has to give a lecture to girls on the street (Hookers? Neighbors? I have no idea what this is in reference to.) and the mob comes to rub him out.

The mob wants to find out the brains behind him first. They think it might be his neighbor Billy, but it's Fred the cockatoo.

CARETTA
Car Toons #85, September 1975
a: Bob James

The other cops are Serpico, McCloud, Kojak, Police Woman, and the Mod Squad

UPDATE:
Sick #118, December 1977, from larger article about violence in television introduced by Dr. Joyce Brothers. That's supposed to be her at the end and it sets us up for the next chapter/parody.