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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DEATH WISHERS
MAD # 174, April 1975
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Back when New York wasn't just a city full of crime and murder, it was the city of crime and murder.
Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is an ordinary citizen coming back to work as an architect after a vacation with his wife (Hope Lange). His wife goes out grocery shopping when they get back and thugs follow her home.
His wife lets the thugs into the apartment believing they are there to deliver groceries and when they come in they kill her and assault their daughter (Kathleen Tolan). Paul is informed of this by son-in-law Sam (William Redfield). As Paul looks into it while trying to put his life back together, he sees more muggings and beatings. He experiences a mugging himself, fending off the criminal with a sock full of coins.
The policeman helping investigate is a caricature of Telly Savalas as Kojak.
Paul is sent to work with a client in Arizona, and while there, they invite him to a shooting range. Initially hesitant to use a gun, they are impressed by his skills, and give him a gun on his trip back home. He pines for his wife at home, and his daughter who's still hospitalized.
Paul uses the gun he was given for self defense and ends up using it when mugged again. Having killed someone makes him sick, but the next night he goes on a shooting spree. The NYPD led by Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) looks into this.
Paul's become a hero to some.
The police finds out Paul Keresy is the killer but Ochoa chooses not to prosecute since this vigilantism has drawn the attention of the public and drastically reduced crime. It would only make him a martyr and create more copycat vigilantes. They make a deal with Paul that if he leaves the city and never returns, they'll drop the whole thing.
The other cop in the middle row is Al Pacino as Serpico.
Vincent Gardenia wrote in to show how much he liked his portrayal.
The Germans did their own cover when they reprinted this.
DEATH TWITCH
Crazy #10, April 1975
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Vance Rodewalt
That's Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O
The characters in this don't have names anywhere near the characters in the movie.
DEATHCRAP
MAD #234, October 1982
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
From A Special Edition of 20/30 Starring Barbara Waltzers in which Christopher Reeve is interviewed about the movie.
Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) is a playwright in a slump coming home to his wife Myra (Dyan Cannon) dejected after the opening night of his latest work. His student Clifford Anderson (Reeve) has come to visit with advice on his play Deathtrap and Sidney has the idea to murder Clifford so he can pass off the play as his own and be on top again.
Sidney shows off the souvenirs/props from his previous plays, binds Clifford in what he says were Houdini's original cuffs and kills Clifford despite protests from Myra. After Clifford is buried, they are visited by neighbor Helga TenDorp (Irene Worth), a psychic, who knows something went on. Later that might, it turns out Clifford never was murdered, and he comes back giving Myra a heart attack.
Killing Myra was Sidney and Clifford's plan all along. They were secretly lovers and partners. Though as they work on Death Trap together, Sidney is angry that Clifford has now made it about this situation and feels betrayed, and must kill Clifford as to not be incriminated. They battle during a rainstorm and it turns out this whole time it was all a play written by Helga.
Helga wrote it with Margot Kidder as Lois Lane for this parody.
The running joke about Barbara Walters was that she would ask her subjects “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?”
DEATH TO A SALESMAN
Trump #2, March 1957
w: Mel Brooks
a: Bill Elder
Okay, so sort of a cheat here, as the play has been adapted into film almost a dozen times, and this sketch has common ground in title only, but when else will we ever have the opportunity to use a Mel Brooks script with a Bill Elder illustration?
From before Mel Brooks was a director or worked in front of the camera, when he was just a comedy writer, most notably for Sid Caesar. For those who don't want to read all this text, here is where the sketch first appeared, with Paul Lynde, in a movie/play called New Faces of 1952.
DEATH OF A SALES MANAGER
Wild #5, August 1954
w: Stan Lee
a: Morris Weiss
The play is about Willy Loman returning home from a long business trip, complaining his children Biff, a potential star athlete, and Happy never amounted to anything. His own failure to live the American dream as he sees it and life with his family and co-workers is told in flashbacks. Here was another loose version.
DREARY JOHN
MAD #288, July 1989
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Sam Viviano
Sitcom about a man, John Lacey (Judd Hirsch), whose wife leaves him (a letter informing a husband of this fact is usually called a “Dear John” letter) and he joins a support group for divorced spouses. The group is led by Louise (Jane Carr) and includes Kirk (Jere Burns), Ralph (Harry Groener), and Kate (Isabella Hoffmann)
-Louise's catchphrase was “...problems of a sexual nature”.
-The show took place in the Queens neighborhood of Rego Park.
-The sign saying “Wein-burger” in the next-to-last panel is a reference to showrunner Ed. Weinberger.
-The cast of Taxi is in the background of the last panel.
Artist Sam Viviano drew himself in the middle in the last panel.
DAYS OF RUNNIN' NOSES
MAD #87, June 1964
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
From Kids' Versions of Adult Movies. Days of Wine and Roses deals with executive Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) who marries his secretary (Lee Remick) and their descent into alcoholism. Her father (Charles Bickford) gets them to kick the habit, it works for Joe, but not for her.
DAYS OF BLUNDER
MAD #302, April 1992
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
From an article called Video Reviews parodying Siskel & Ebert at the Movies.
DAYS OF PLUNDER
Cracked #259, December 1990
a: Walter Brogan
Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) shows up as a new stock car driver. He has no experience, but he shows coach Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) and owner Tim Daland (Randy Quaid) what he can do. He tries out in the car of Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker), who becomes his rival.
The wheelchair is a reference to how a year earlier Cruise won an Oscar for playing a Vietnam Vet in Born on the Fourth of July
The site of each race is printed on the screen at the beginning of each scene.
Even going to dinner after a race, Cole and Rowdy drive in the streets as if they are still competing.
Both Rowdy and Cole get into a serious accident and have to go to the hospital. They're still racers when they have to get to the emergency room in their wheelchairs. At he hospital, Cole falls in love with Dr. Lewicki (Nicole Kidman)
Trickle and Lewicki start a relationship and Burns can't drive no more. He's replaced by up-and-comer Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes). Rowdy Burns has to undergo an operation but is too proud to go to a doctor, so now it is up to frenemy Cole Trickle to convince him. Rowdy will do it on one condition: Daytona, the big event, is coming up and he asks Cole to drive his car.
Andrew Dice Clay is one of the actors in the last panel even though his movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, isn't one of the stickers.
There was sort of a parody years later with Talladega Nights, the common ground being they were both about NASCAR drivers and both had John C. Reilly as co-star. Will Ferrell and Tom Cruise had the same career trajectory where they played the same character every few months except this time it's a race car driver, an ice skater, a bartender, etc.
DAY OF THE DULL-FIN
Sick #102, February 1975
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti
Terrell (George C. Scott) is a scientist running a marine biology laboratory for the government and is giving a press conference where he has shown they have given birth to a dolphin and taught it to speak.
In the parody, it shows Terrell ignoring his wife (Trish Vandevere) in favor of the dolphins, though in the movie they are partners. His boss DeMilo (Fritz Weaver) comes to the island Scott's lab is on to see the work they have been funding, and an undercover agent named Mahoney (Paul Sorvino) comes snooping around. Here they are combined into one character. Reference is made to Scott's previous role as General Patton.
Terrell is showing the dolphin Alpha he has raised in captivity, and its companion Beta.
Terrell is informed that his superiors at the institute came to look around so they could kidnap Alpha and Beta to use for an assassination attempt, putting bombs on Beta's back and using her knowledge of English to get her to put them on the bottom of the yacht where the President will be attending. Alpha is the one who can talk and would inform on them so he must be killed. The scientists think they killed him but he swims out to sea.
New characters were created for this parody.
What actually happens in the movie is Alpha comes back to Terrell to say Beta is in trouble. Terrell tells Alpha to swim back out and reroute the assassination. Beta plants the bomb on the scientists' boat and blows it up. Now Terrell must go on the lam because authorities will catch up to him, knowing he committed a murder. He must let Alpha and Beta go and doesn't look back.
THINGS TO DO ON THE DAY AFTER
MAD #239, June 1983
w & a: Al Jaffee
From the fifties to the eighties the biggest fear in America was that the atom bomb would be dropped on them at any time. This made-for-TV movie about how a small town was affected by such a situation, which you can see above, helped fan the flame of those fears and was even required watching in some schools, where classrooms had a new technology that year called VCRs.
