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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THREE MORONS AND A BABY
MAD#280, July 1988
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres
Peter (Tom Selleck), an architect, Michael (Steve Guttenberg), a cartoonist, and Jack (Ted Danson), an actor, are all living together, and are always having swinging bachelor parties at their home in New York. One day, as Jack leaves town for a film shoot, Peter and Michael find a baby on their doorstep, the result of one of Jack's trysts..
They panic because they know nothing about raising babies. There's a subplot, that while he're gone, Jack has arranged for them to take a package for a friend. Some guys come to pick up the package, Peter doesn't know the package is heroin and thinks it's the baby, and gives the guys the baby, which they think is a cover for the heroin and they think the talcum powder they were given is the heroin. Peter and Michael are being watched by narcotics officers who know there's a transaction going on.
After Jack's come home, he asks his mother (Celeste Holm) to take care of the baby, which she refuses to do to teach him a lesson. The Three Men come up with a scheme to trap the drug dealers in an elevator in one of Peter's buildings while Jack distracts them,and film the whole thing, then give the film to the officers. The drug dealer and the baby plot have nothing to do with each other, so this must have been intended as two different movies.
The doll in the middle left panel is of John Higgins from Selleck's Magnum P.I TV series.
The mother of the baby (Nancy Travis) comes to pick it up and go back to England and they're relieved, then they realize how attached they've become to the baby and run to the airport to get it back, miss the plane, go home defeated, go back home to find her there. They ask her to move in and the movie ends with the four of them raising the baby together.
SPREE IN THE ATTIC
Sick #70, September 1969
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Bill Robinson
Yet another Sick parody of a movie that wasn't particularly a big hit even then, and where they may not have seen the movie. Either that or they didn't take good notes.
Paxton Quigley (Christopher Jones) is a womanizing fraternity brother at Willard College, and settles down with Tobey Clinton (Yvette Mimieux), a student at nearby Fulton College, who he meets at a party.
On his way to meet Tobey, one day Paxton meets Eulice (Judy Pace) and begins an affair with her, and she paints him in the nude. He later meets Jan (Maggie Thrett), a Jewish hippie artist, in the woods and has an affair with her as well. She's also an artist who paints (on) him in the nude and he gets her to sleep with him by saying he's gay and she can cure him of his homosexuality (it was the sixties and I'm just the messenger).
”You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's” was a slogan from Levy's rye bread with ads that had photos of various known ethnic stereotypes eating sandwiches.
Paxton takes all the girls to a “no-tell” motel on different nights and works out a schedule with his fraternity brothers which nights he'll see which women.
The parents (Eve McVeigh, Richard Derr) are actually Tobey's and they appear at the beginning scolding her for shacking up with Paxton. There's nothing about him and the administration of his school.
When Paxton goes to meet Tobey up to her dorm, she takes him to the attic where the other two women are. They've met and found he's been seeing them all and lock him up in the attic to teach him a lesson.
There's a student in the dorm who reports suspicious goings-on there to the dean, who doesn't believe her. Later, when Paxton is reported missing, she puts the two things together. These things aren't included in the parody. Tobey and the women are brought to the that same dean of their school (who isn't Racquel Welch), who won't punish anyone and is willing to pretend this never happened because the school doesn't need the bad publicity. Nobody's parents are there.
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)
dir: Sidney Pollack
THREE HOURS OF THE CONDOR
Cracked #132, May 1976
a: O. O. Severin (John Severin)
Joe Turner (Robert Redford) works for the “American Literary Historical Society”, a front for the CIA. Their job is to read books for the CIA to find plots in spy novels. Joe's secretary is Janice Chong (Tina Chen). They are being watched by Joubert (Max von Sydow)
The second panel refers to Redford's earlier movie The Candidate.
Joe goes out for lunch and comes back to find everyone in the office has been killed. He tries to phone the main headquarters and they want his code name (Condor) and even more information.
Other TV and movie cops and spies make cameos throughout. On this page alone, here's Columbo, James Bond, and Al Pacino as Serpico.
Joe is being chased and told he's being chased and is told by deputy director Higgins (Cliff Robertson) he is in danger because he was the only one of the literary division to survive, and to go meet agent Wicks in an alley where he will be brought to safety. Since he doesn't trust or know anyone outside his office, Joe asks that Wicks bring someone they both would know. When they do, Wicks brings that witness and then shoots him for knowing that much. Joe realizes he's in even more danger and hides in a store where he spies on customer Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway).
Joe kidnaps Kathy at gunpoint and makes her bring him to her apartment.Meanwhile, at headquarters, the CIA, led by Wabash (John Houseman) investigated who Turner is. At Kathy's home, Joe kidnaps her, and he reveals who he is, and they become lovers. (This is how seduction worked back then, kids).
Even as far back as 1975, kids wouldn't know about Robert Culp and Bill Cosby in I Spy.
A mailman comes to Kathy's apartment to deliver a package while she's in the shower but turn out to be a hitman after Joe, who outsmarts him. He realizes Joubert is the assassin behind everything and demands Higgins reveal what he knows, but Higgins won't say anything.
Kathy has been helping Joe uncover the plot but then suddenly has to leave. There was really no need for her to be in the movie except that they needed a female co-star, I guess. Joe manages to steal equipment from the phone company and reveals the plot himself, tracing calls to reveal that Lionel Atwood (Addison Powell) is behind everything that has happened. He goes to Atwood's home, and finds out Joe's department was eliminated because they could uncover secrets. Joubert comes in to assassinate Joe but instead kills Atwood. Joubert was impressed by Joe's cunning and suggests he goes into hiding and become an assassin himself.
Later, Joe meets Higgins in Times Square and holds jim hostage at gunpoint, making him walk a few blocks. The reason he's doing so is to take Higgins to the outside of New York Times office and tell him he's blown the cover off the whole operation and revealed it to them.
This was a time when investigative journalism was big and the next year Redford himself would make it sexy with All the President's Men.
THREE DAYS OF THE CONJOB
Sick #109, April 1976
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti
I guess the guy in the last panel is supposed to be the Cliff Robertson character, but he doesn't have a mustache.
A postage due joke here too. I doubt the writers consulted with each other unless it was the same one.
Bonnie and Clyde are also in a car in the city. Somehow Faye Dunaway is in two places at once.
Yet another Burt Reynolds/Cosmo joke. Whip Inflation Now was an attempted slogan of President Ford.
IS THIS YOUR LIFE?
MAD #24, July 1955
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bill Elder
This was a regular show in which a person was taken by surprise, usually from the audience, or on the set of their show in the case of celebrities. The host, Ralph Edwards, would show memories from his book and bring in people from that person's past.
The splash panel has a bunch of celebrities and ad mascots in the audience. The Smith Brothers are using the cough drop of their competitor. Edward Murrow is filling his seat with the cigarette butts that were his trademark, Liberace is sharing sheet music with Harry Truman, Roy Cohn is advising Joseph McCarthy, Bing Crosby, smoking what looks like a golf club pipe, is noticing the likeness of Lincoln on his five-dollar bill isn't accurate, while sitting next to Marlon Brando just off the set of Julius Caesar. Martin and Lewis haven't guessed the “secret woid” is 'Lollabrigida'. Gen. McArthur is being tattooed by Grandma Moses. Julius LaRosa is about to blast TNT into Arthur Godfrey's earphones while Jackie Gleason is caught in the middle. Milton Berle is looking over Ralph Edwards' shoulder. Sen. Estes Kefauver is reading a horror comic before his subcommittee investigates it.
Hazel Bishop cosmetics was the sponsor of the show.
THIS IS YOUR WIFE
Crazy #2, January 1954
w: Stan Lee
a: Al Hartley
THAT WAS YOUR LIFE!
Eh! #5, July 1954
a: Fred Ottenheimer
THIS IS YOUR STRIFE
Panic #1, February-March 1954
w: Al Feldstein
a: Joe Orlando
From Russian TV Shows by Paul Laikin and John Severin
The show was parodied many times on Sesame Street.
