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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BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II (1989)
dir: Robert Zemeckis
BLEAK FOR THE FUTURE, PART II
MAD #295, April 1990
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
This begins where the last movie left off (press 'Older Post'). After getting back to 1985 Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) are taken by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) go to 2015 because their son is in trouble. They've added sportscaster John Madden to give play-by-play commentary.
Jennifer is knocked out because she can't know about future events. Which begs the question why Doc insisted she come along.
Marty sees the town square in the future and he sees his future son, a nerd like his father had been. His son is about to be framed by Biff(Tom Wilson)'s son's gang and must stop the set-up.
Having taken the place of his son and stopped the conviction, Marty is ready to go back home. But on the way back, he finds a book of sports results. He gets the idea to bet on the scores knowing them in advance, but the Doc tells him not to, as it would alter history.
But now when they go back things are still different in the present. Marty goes back to what he thinks is his home, but since history his somehow been altered, it's now the wrong house. The town of Hill Valley has become a dystopia.
Biff (Tom Wilson) is now the richest man in town, having turned the town hall into a casino and earned his fortune from using the book of sports records, hanging out with the likes of businessman Donald Trump (I wonder what ever happened to that guy).
To make matters worse Biff has married his mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) and killed his father. I'll let John Madden explain it.
Marty needs to go to 1955 to make sure Biff doesn't get the sports almanac from the Biff of 2015. After he does, Biff crashes into a manure truck, a running joke in all three movies.
Peggy Sue was a character in the film Peggy Sue Got Married, which came out a couple years earlier, had a similar plot, and was also roasted by Mad.
Having re-resolved the mess they made of 2015, now they have to go back to the OLD West for the sequel, shot simultaneously and released a few months later.
MORE FREAK-OUTS FROM BACK IN THE FUTURE
Cracked #253, May 1990
w: George Gladir
a: John Severin
Predictions for what would happen in the year 2015, very much like articles that were in Cracked 20 years earlier. Not necessary to have Marty McFly in order to make sense, but why not cash in on the hottest movie of the moment?
CRACKED TO THE FUTURE, PART II
Cracked #254, June 1990
w: Tony Frank (Lou Silverstone)
a: John Severin
They were still making ethnic jokes in 1990.
In the first film, it was established that Marty was a skateboard enthusiast in the eighties. When he ends up in the fifties he hijacks a kid's go-cart and makes a skateboard out of it to outsmart the bullies. He does the same in this one with a child's scooter, except it's a hoverboard.
There's a scene that wasn't used in MAD where Jennifer wakes up in her 2015 house and sees how the future McFly family has become. They have a daughter who is also played by Michael J. Fox. Crispin Glover, who played the father in the first movie, wouldn't appear in the sequel so they replaced him. Jennifer couldn't handle the future as was expected and faints again. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, also about time travel, was the other big movie then and was parodied elsewhere in that issue.
BLEAK FOR THE FUTURE
MAD #260, January 1986
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
Marty McFly(Michael J. Fox) is a protegee of mad scientist Dr. Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who sees him gunned down by terrorists (it's never explained why) and ends up in their time machine going back in time and meeting his parents. He sees his father (Crispin Glover) as a teenager being picked on by high school bullies.
By rescuing his father, it is he who gets hit by a car and rescued by his mother's family, which makes his mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) fall in love with him instead of his father, which is how his parents met.
The joke in the movie is she thinks his name is Calvin because it says 'Calvin Klein' on his underwear.
“Where's the Beef?” was a famous slogan and ad campaign for Wendy's at the time.
Marty meets up with the doctor in 1955. He has to convince him they know each other, and he needs the scientist's help to get back to the future (I mentioned the title. Everyone has to drink!). The materials needed for time travel don't exist yet, but Marty has an idea. Earlier he was told the clock tower went out at exactly the same time he went back to, caused by a lightning storm. Lightning can make the time machine work.
The picture he keeps of his family is fading, meaning his parents haven't met yet, so he has to act fast to make sure they do to make sure he's born.
In a scene not used in the movie, while playing matchmaker for his parents at the high school dance posing as a student, he has to play with the band.
His mother is still infatuated with him despite him trying to get his parents to dance together at the prom. The father stands up to the bully (Tom Wilson) and punches him out, getting the mother to fall for him instead. Mission accomplished, Marty can now travel back to the future (drink again!)
Being a parody, his parents use birth control so he's not conceived after all.
National Lampoon published a story called Remembering Mama in 1972 which many say was inspiration for this movie. It has the Oedipal motif and a time travel theme but I don't see it.
UPDATE:
BOX OFFICE FUTURE
Cracked #218, May 1985
w: Joe Catalano & Mort Todd
a: John Severin
For a very brief period, Paul Laikin returned as editor of Cracked. He had been one of the original editors in the sixties, then in the seventies and eighties he was editor of Sick and then Crazy. By that point he was recycling articles he had written previously, using family members' names on the masthead to collect extra paychecks, and taking kickbacks from the artists he was using. Most of the artists they had left in disgust. Assistant Mort Todd told the publisher what Laikin was doing and they promptly fired Laikin, leaving Todd in charge. He was able to bring Severin back and this parody marked Severin's triumphant return.
That year there were several other teen scientist movies such as Weird Science, My Science Project, and Real Genius. There was a school bully not used in the MADparody named Biff (Tom Wilson)
DOLL-BABY
Humbug #1, August 1957
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Jack Davis
The backstory, established in the first half hour, is not mentioned here. Archie-Lee (Karl Malden) is married to Baby-Doll (Carroll Baker) who sleeps in a crib because she doesn't have a regular bed. He is a hothead and it is implied that his temper is due to sexual frustration. He married her as a teenager and although they have been married for years he has not popped her cherry yet. Archie promised her father when that he would not touch her until her twentieth birthday. He also promised that he would be a rich business owner which he has not delivered on. He has burned down Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach)'s cotton-gin so that he would have a monopoly on the cotton business. She hangs around their dilapidated mansion all day drinking Coca-Cola.
Silva knows it was Archie-Lee who burned down his cotton gin so as revenge he seduces Baby-Doll. He comes onto her on her swingset. The close-ups of the faces were considered very suggestive and even had the film condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency (which at one time often had an influence on whether or not films were shown).
Equally suggestive is Silva chasing Baby-Doll around the house.
The running in and out of doorways is similar to chase scenes common in cartoons.
In the movie, he also chases her into her room, and then he's seen sleeping in her crib. I think that's a metaphor for... something.
He chases her into the attic where she'll crash through the floorboards, but he'll save her if she'll sign a confession that Archie-Lee was the one who burned down his cotton-gin.
The furniture company comes to repossess what little furniture Archie-Lee has.
SIN-DOLL ELLA
by Tennessee Williamsburg
MAD #35, October 1957
w: Albert Meglin
a: Wallace Wood
Not entirely a parody of Baby-Doll, but the whole Tennessee Williams oeuvre. A little bit of A Streetcar Named Desire, a little bit of The Rose Tattoo, a little bit of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...
...combined with Cinderella.
Burl Ives' “Big Daddy” and Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski are here.
And references to The Glass Menagerie and The Rose Tattoo.
ATLANTIC BIDDY
MAD #231, June 1982
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
This period crime film with Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon was featured as part of MAD's Academy Awards Show, which condensed parodies of movies from the previous year. I don't think Mort Drucker saw the movie because in it Burt Lancaster has a mustache.
THE A(SININE) TEAM
MAD #242, October 1983
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was also parodied in that issue.
Hannibal (George Peppard), Face (Dirk Benedict), Murdock (Dwight Schulz), B. A. aka Bad Attitude (Mr. T.), and Amanda (Melinda Culea) were AWOL Vietnam vets that were also mercenary soldiers.
Hannibal was always showing up in disguises.
The man who hired them is a caricature of Walter Matthau.
They carry on with their assignment.
Mr. T. was the main reason anyone watched the show. In the early 80s he was huge with children in movies and merchandising as a muscular man with his Mandinka haircut and his catchphrase of “I pity the fool...”.
The A-Team was also parodied by Lou Silverstone and Angelo Torres in #272, July 1987 for When American TV Programs Are Shown in Russia
In the early 80s Cracked would parody a show several times. The logic must have been they had a younger readership than MAD and so they rotated new readers quicker so one would not have seen the previous parodies. Or maybe because the casts would change each season. Or maybe they were using the shows to sell magazines. Or maybe they just wanted to. Whatever the reason, here was the first one.
THE A-A-AYY TEAM
Cracked #201, January 1984
a: John Severin
Murdock was the comic relief on the show.
They're tipped off by police that crooked cops are running a protection racket.
They inform the old lady that runs a store she is about to be hit.
The cops in on the racket flee to an amusement park.
The policemen here are caricatures of Abe Vigoda (Fish, Barney Miller), Bruce Weitz (Belker, Hill Street Blues), Columbo (Peter Falk), Barney Fife (Don Knotts, The Andy Griffith Show), and Telly Savalas (Kojak)
Their second one.
THE A-A-AY TEAM
Cracked #203, May 1984
a: John Severin
An arcade owner wants The A-Team to investigate who's been tampering with their video games.
Happy Days was on TV opposite The A-Team
Like I said, Mr. T. was huge in the 80s.
THE A-TEAM WAY OF DOING THINGS
Cracked #204, July 1984
a: John Severin
#3
Michael Jackson was also used in a few articles, so this was a way of killing two birds with one stone.
Wearing the one white glove was Michael Jackson's thing in the 80s
Jesse Jackson was candidate for President in 1984, I guess you would say the Bernie Sanders of his time.
Michael Jackson was the spokesperson for Pepsi. Neither here nor there but his hair caught fire during a shoot and we made jokes about it when I was in 8th grade.
Michael Jackson may have been one of the few things more popular than Mr. T. at that time.
And here's Cracked's final parody, If The A-A-AYY TEAM Was Made Less Violent in #210, March 1985
The A-Team has to turn down a client because it would require blowing up villages, so they take the case of a child who's sure to cause no problems for them.
They find a clue, a hamster's collar with a diamond on it, and see a suspect.
B. A. chases the suspect, but can't speed.
They can't use guns either.
D. C. Cab was an ensemble comedy featuring Mr. T. in the early 80s.
And have to improvise with new ways of torture.
If you understand Spanish, there's this.
Marvel Comics had a series for a while based on the show.
UPDATE:
If one Michael Jackson/A-Team team-up wasn't enough, there was also If Michael Jackson Had Starred In... in Cracked #207, October 1984, art by John Severin.
