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.
It started as a series of bandes desinees (Belgian for comics) in the fifties called Les Schtroumpfs, was also a big hit here as a line of toys and merchandising juggernaut, latter a couple movies, but this is just about the Saturday morning cartoon.
HAS AMERICA GONE SNURF CRAZY?
Bananas #68, circa 1983
w: Jovial Bob Stine
a: Sam Viviano
They were all a few inches tall and lived in the forest, Gargamel and his cat Azreal were trying to destroy them. And they would use the word 'Smurf' in place of regular words. Instead of names there was a different type of every Smurf. Papa Smurf was the only adult and Smurfette was the only woman.
SMURPHS
Crazy #94, April 1983
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Marie Severin
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR
CBS 1967-1969, 1988-1989
Tom and Dick Smothers came to prominence in the mid-sixties as a comedy team/folk duo with several hit records and then a TV show. Most of their act consisted of them starting a song and, Tom, the dumber one, interrupting, and often it would evolve into sibling rivalry.
This was the back cover for Cracked #76, May 1969.
THE SMOTHERED BROTHERS SHOW
Cracked Collectors Edition #77, January 1989
w: Peter Bagge
a: Rob Orzechowski
They brought the show back with a few specials twenty years later, recycling a lot of the same material they did then.
In the late 80s much of Paul Simon's material was co-opted from native African songs.
Pat Paulsen for President was a recurring bit they had with one of their regular cast members. Here they show a comedy sketch is no different from the campaigns of Pat Robertson, George H.W. Bush, Jerry Brown, or Jesse Jackson. Tea Time with Goldie was a bit they did with one of their cast members (Leigh French) giving a monologue with marijuana innuendos.
SUNDAY NIGHT RATING BATTLE
Cracked #65, November 1967
a: John Severin
When the show premiered, it was on opposite long-running series Bonanza.
At one time Woody Allen was just a guy who made films, but before that he was just a comic.
They were always in danger of being kicked off the air for digs at religion and Vietnam and the Nixon administration that wouldn't even register with anyone today, This is from MAD #122, August 1968.
This is one of the controversial jokes they were suspended for. Beware, you and your entire family could be jailed for life without trial just for your knowing it exists.
The Brothers Brothers was a recurring bit on In Living Color.
SNOOKEY AND THE BANDAID II
Crazy #72, March 1981
w: Marc Bilgrey
a: Bob Camp
Sequel to movie from three years earlier of Bo “Bandit” Barville (Burt Reynolds) as a trucker reunited with ex-girlfiend Carrie (Sally Field) outrunning Sherriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) as they cross state lines. In the second installment its about bringing an elephant to a GOP convention rather than transporting booze.
This parody concentrates on the trailers that would have been shown.
Little did they know there would be a Groundhog Day (albeit not a slasher film) in twelve years.
SENSELESS IN SEATTLE
MAD #324, January 1994
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) is a recently widowed architect who makes a new start of things after his wife dies, moving from Chicago to Seattle. On the other side of the country in Baltimore, Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) is engaged to Walter (Bill Pullman) but having doubts about their relationship (Food allergies and sleep apnea! What a dud!) His architect partner is Jay (Rob Reiner) and her friend at her newspaper is Becky (Rosie O'Donnell). Sam's son Jonah (Ross Malinger) phones a call-in radio psychologist on his behalf and Annie hears the show.
Sam is getting on with his life and his started seeing Victoria (Barbara Garrick) who Jonah can't stand. Jonah tries wants to set Sam up with the proposal letters he's been getting since calling into the radio show, particularly one from Annie, which Sam dismisses because they're all long distance and it's just a little boy trying to set him up. Annie uses her newspaper connections to find out more about him and track him down.
Annie follows Sam through the country as he goes on vacations. Jonah tries to set them up by having them meet atop the Empire State Building like An Affair to Remember, which he dismisses again, but Jonah flies out on his own anyway. Sam, in Seattle, notices Jonah is missing, finds out he's in New York, goes to get him, and meets Annie.
Cameo appearance here by Macaulay Culkin, whose Home Alone 2 was also about a child walking the streets of New York unsupervised.
WEEPER
Crazy #6, August 1974
w: Tony Isabella
a: Robert Graysmith
Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) wakes up 200 years in the future in a dystopian society. The doctors who revive him are part of a resistance movement and are abducted, leaving him to carry on with the movement. He ends up a fugitive, posing as a robot butler and comes upon Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton). He reveals himself to her, kidnaps her, and they both get caught and are captured by police. She escapes abduction and becomes part of the underground movement, freeing Miles. The movie climaxes as the leader of the dystopian society turns out to be secretly dead, the government plans to clone him using only his nose, and Miles and Luna, posing as doctors, steal his nose. Here it's a zit.
Irving Nebbish was Crazy's version of Alfred E. Neuman before Obnoxio the Clown became the mascot in the early 80s. You can tell how old someone is by who they say the mascot for Crazy is. Strike that, you can tell how old someone is by whether or not they've even heard of Crazy.
One of Andy Warhol's experimental films of the sixties. This was six hours long. He also did a film of just the Empire State Building for eight hours called Empire, one called Eat, and one of somebody getting a blowjob called Blowjob, the TL;DW versions can all be found on YouTube. The latter is short enough, I have no idea if anyone's seen either of the first two in their entirety, even Warhol himself.
15-HOUR UNDERGROUND MOVIE EPIC
Sick #55, September 1967
a: Harry “The Professor” Borgman
SLUDGE HAMMER
Cracked #234, March 1988
w: Rick Altergott
The show was itself a parody of cop shows. The self-titled star (David Rasche), his partner was Dori Dorreau (Anne-Marie Martin) and their supervisor was Capt. Trunk (Harrison Page)
The coke dealer they mention is Stacy Keach, who had a show of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Pop star Peter Gabriel also had a song called Sledgehammer around the same time. The wall in the last panel has pictures of Bill Bixby, Jackie Cooper, and creater Alan Spencer. Marvel Comics did an adaptation of the comic (see below).
Cracked editor Mort Todd is caricatured here. There's often the implication that the articles were all drawn at the offices of the magazine, and in other articles it's implied that the magazines even had offices.
THE SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND DOLLAR QUESTION
CBS 1955-1958
THE $64,000 CRACKED-POT QUESTION
Cracked #1, February/March 1958
a: John Severin
The game, hosted by Hal March, was just contestants answering questions with the jackpot increasingly doubling until the prize got to $64,000. It was one of the major casualties of the fifties quiz show scandal.
THE SIXTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLAR ANSWER
Riot #4, February 1956
w: Stan Lee
a: John Severin
The IRS does carefully audit game show contestants to this day, even when they only win goods. In the last panel are Fess Parker and Jack Webb. John Severin had done a couple Tarzan parodies for MAD before this.
SIXTY SECONDS
MAD #210, October 1979
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
This news show has been on every night... uh... like clockwork. MAD has done several parodies of them over the years. This first one was of the show in general with the original reporters Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Morley Safer.
SIX MINUTES ON “THE RETURN OF THE DRAFT”
MAD #215, June 1980
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
They parodied the show again using journalist Harry Reasoner.
SIX MINUTES LOOKS AT NUCLEAR POWER
MAD #233, September 1982
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Jack Davis
Their Sixty Minutes parodies started to become almost a recurring feature similar in MAD, similar to their “[---] of the Year” articles. The show also had reporters that came and went, like here they had Ed Bradley.
AN ANDY ROONEY “60 MINUTES” EDITORIAL WE'D LIKE TO SEE
MAD #239, June 1983
w: John Ficarra
Andy Rooney had a humor opinion piece at the end of the show in the early 80s. Mike Wallace had a mini-scandal when he was caught on tape commenting the fine print in housing contracts would be hard to read “over watermelon and tacos”
SICKY MINUTES LOOKES AT SEX AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA TODAY
MAD #260, January 1986
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
As you could see for their letters columns, the targets of MAD were usually in on the joke and you could argue their jokes may have been compromised as a result, but two places where they never pulled any punches were with smoking and religious hypocrisy.
Diane Sawyer was a correspondent for the show. The opening panel has North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.
The next to last panel has a caricature of Phyllis Schlafly, anti-feminism architect.
Jerry Falwell, precursor to today's “war on wokeness” pundits.
Bob Guccione, as publisher of Penthouse, was Hefner's “hold my beer” competitor.
SIX MINUTES LOOKS AT SMOKING
MAD #292, January 1990
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Angelo Torres
Meredith Vieira was another reporter for Sixty Minutes.
The bellboy was a TV mascot for Philip Morris cigarettes.
Old Gold cigarettes had commercials with a box that had a woman's legs. What this aricle fails to mention is that decades before this Mike Wallace did cigarette commercials.
Morton Downey, Jr. was one of the last of the cigarette smoking talk-show hosts.
Sixty Minutes has covered all sorts of subjects in its long run, including the inner workings of MAD. This is from 1987, and they mention how MAD was an institution that had been around for years. This report is now older than the first issue of MAD was then.
SICKLY MINUTES
Cracked #277, December 1992
w: Lou Silverstone
a: Walter Brogan
Lesley Stahl became one of their regulars. Covering the George Bush Sr/Bill Clinton/H. Ross Perot presidential race This has Howard Stern, Bart Simpson, and Madonna as correspondents just in case you forger this was 1992.
>
Gennifer Flowers was one of the women who claimed Bill Clinton had an affair with her.
The first panel has Jesse Jackson and the second has Mario Cuomo.
