Addendum to Issue #149

Excerpts from the "Statement of Ownership, Management & Circulation"

1. Title of Publication: CRACKED Magazine
2. Date of Filing: October 1, 1977
3. Frequency of issue: Monthly except February, April & June
4. location of known office of publication (street, city, county, sate, zip code) (Not printers): 235 park Avenue South, new York, N.Y. 10003
6. Names and address of the Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Robert C. Sproul, 235 Park Ave. So., New York, NY 10003 Editor: Robert C. Sproul, 235 Park Ave. So, New York, NY 10003. Managing Editor: None
7. Owner...: Major magazine...Robert C. Sproul...Bernard Brill
10. Extent and nature of circulation:
A. Total No,. copies printed (Net press run: Average No copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 891,479; Single issue nearest to filing date, 904,916.
B. Paid circulation: 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales: Average No. of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 471,981; Single issue published nearest to filing date 541,250. 2 Mail subscriptions: Average No. of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 1,820; Single issue published nearest filing date 2,301.
C. Total paid circulation: Average No. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 473,801; Single issue published nearest to filing date, 543,551.
D. Free distribution by mail, carrier or other means: 1. Samples, complimentary and other free copies: Average No. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 118. Single issue published nearest to filing date, 100.
E. Total distribution (Sum of C & D); Average No. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 473,919; Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 543,651.
F. Copies not distributes: 1. Office use, left-over, unaccounted, spoiled after printing; average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 700. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 720. 2. Returns from news agents; average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months. 416,860. actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 360,545.
G. Total (Sum of E & F should equal net press run shown in A): average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 891,479; actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 904,916.

I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete.

Robert C. Sproul, Publisher

Cracked #149: Haven't we seen this cover somewhere before?

Cracked #149
March 1978
by Pierre L.

Yes, we have. It's the same idea as the "Free Poster" from #135. Oh well. This one is still fun. It's nice to see these characters that we love all jumbled up like this. Darth with C-3PO's head is pretty funny. Let's step inside.

FREE POSTER: "Warning! Absolutely Nothing Will Not Be Tolerated!" Did they find this one in a "leftover gags" file from issue #74?

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Let's move on!

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Next issue - January 31st. Pretty standard stuff. Best letter: "Hey CRACKED, Don't you ever stop making fun of STAR WARS? They spent a lot of time and money on that movie and you treat it like a TV Show." So true.

There is a "Statement of Ownership, Management & Circulation" included. I may include a bit of this in an addendum.

THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN VS. DARK BADAR: Someone is draining off all of the Earth's electricity. So, Stebe Auston is shot into space and winds up on the Death Star. He gets rescued by Luke Skywalker. He thinks Stebe is the Princess. The best line in the whole bit comes when they are leaving the cell and Luke says, "Put on this Barbara Streisand disguise and we'll sneak out of here in no time." And, over the next page, the Six Billion Dollar Man runs around with a curly wig and a big nose. It's great.

This article is really quite entertaining. It mixes the movie with the TV show and comes up with a few good hoots. The crew of the Falcon and Stebe dress up as Tupperwear sales ladies and sneak on the Death Star. All sorts of junk like that. In the end, there is a Wizard of Oz parody. I liked this opener quite a bit. Mix up the TV and movie stuff more often. Putting a TV character into a movie plot is nice. Let's carry on...

CRACKED'S SPECIALLY TAILORED BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS: MAD ahoy! This is what you'd imagine. Example: "Grocer" There is a big supermarket ad that reads: "Poindexter grocery - Today's manager Special! - 1 7-1/2 lb. baby girl Denise - Started Wed. May 10th at 7:45 - Continues indefinitely." Another example: "Stock Broker" We see one of those stock printer machine things with a long stream of paper coming out of it. The magnified paper reads: "At the close of the hospital today, Callenger Enterprises was up 1 as the company declared a new dividend - Mark David Callenger Company should continue rapid growth as Mrs. Callenger told stockholders her intention of declaring still a second dividend on a date to be announced." Stuff like that. Written in their sleep or taken from an old issue of MAD. Move on.

JERRY INTERVIEWS THE STARS: Jerry Dumpy interviews Bobby Bake, King Kung, Wretched Thomas (John-Boy) and Wattah Faucet (ex-Charlie's Angel). This one has some fun art and some good gags. Wattah shows up at the door looking like the lady from the Bounty commercials. King Kung is really tiny. The best, though, is Mr. Thomas. In contrast to his Waltons character, he wears a beret and smokes a cigarette on a long holder and yells "Hi!...Simply Hi-i-i-!" when he sees Jerry. In the end, Jerry turns out to be Nanny Dickering. Pretty good stuff.

ONE AFTERNOON AT A COLORADO SKI COMPETITION: Decent one-pager. A lot of snow. I miss snow.

CRACKED TIPS FOR IMPROVING HOME MOVIES: If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a reprint. Actually, I don't know better. It's about spicing up home movies with flashy titles (The trip to Mexico becomes "Terror in Tijuana") and wacky camera angles and stuff like that. You need to add merchandising rights and cakes falling onto baby's heads. Then, you've got it. Fun article. I can't shake the feeling that it's an oldie, though.

A CRACKED LOOK AT SANTA'S WORKSHOP: The best ever. Big pictures and decent jokes. It's all set in Santa's place with elves and reindeer and toys and antler polish. This is the first "CRACKED LOOK AT..." that I've ever wanted to see go on for an extra page or two. Nice.

So far...at the halfway point...a solid issue.

A subscription ad kicks off the second half. Still fighting inflation.

IF THE CHARACTERS OF STAR WARS APPEARED IN OTHER MOVIES AND TV SHOWS: Matching Game '77 (amusing), The Walled-Ins (all right), The Wizard of Noz (good for a laugh) and Rockey (not bad). This is exactly what you'd expect if you've read other versions of this. And, it's great to see these characters appear in other things. I wish it was a little less obvious but then it wouldn't be CRACKED. If you loved the characters and couldn't get to the theater again, they're here. And, they're good for a smile.


OK, there is one superb joke. Dark Badar is on Matching Game '77. The question is: "Mary said: Oh Harry, I don't know how to tell you this but I'm going to have a BLANK." Dark Badar's response is "I'm going to have a..." "Medium-sized intergalactic rumination."

IF ALL VIOLENCE WERE ELIMINATED FROM TV: Football players tag each other and form a strong offensive line by eating smelly cheese. Injuns "scalp" cowboys by giving them buzz cuts. Cops throw Boston Cream pies at crooks. It's fun. The art has a lot of verve here and the sound effect "SPROUL!" is used. I like this one.

IT'S A LOT WORSE IN BUFFALO: An article about how cold it is in Buffalo. Apparently, it's pretty cold! Yeah, it does get cold there. During bank robberies, you can't tell who is the crook because everyone has ski masks on! No one can commit suicide because the snow drifts are so high! I miss snow. They gotta knock it off.

I recently transferred my old VHS of a Yule log to DVD-R. The tape was 30 minutes. So, I looped it four times. Two hours of the yule log. Did you see that the Christmas candles are out? Excellent. I can't buy them now because I'll have burnt them down by Thanksgiving. Still...

CRACKED!

THE TALKING BLOB: A parody of The Blob. It's great. I like when they hop back in time like this. Somehow it seems more charming than usual. The Blob ends up eating everybody and is only stopped by the CRACKED printer ending the article. The Fonz doesn't show up like in the Beach party parody. Still...This is a lot of fun.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE WRESTLING KING: We see a lot of chicanery involved in professional wrestling. Atilla the Bun loses in a bout to Nanny's nephew. The pictures are funny and the words are few. This is fun Nanny. Just goofiness. Leave the social commentary to MAD. They do it better and it suits their magazine, which is, frankly, more ponderous. Fun closing article.

SHUT-UPS

1 - 5/5 (A lady with an awesome face)
2 - 5/5 (Quicksand)
3 - 4/5 (A big suitcase)

I feel giving. 5 stars all around. I am Shut-Up.

BACK COVER: Great moments in Auto Racing. The visual is better than the punchline. A confused man in a little car. His car has a chain attached that leads to an enormous cannon. It is about to be fired. He doesn't look happy.

Great issue. I was worried in the beginning because it seemed like we were climbing in a rut. However, this is good stuff. CRACKED firing on full and making us smile. I can't wait to see where we go next.

Next Issue: You-F-O!

Cracked #148: That's one sweet-ass cantina!

Cracked #148
January 1978
by Pierre L.

Great cover. The center of the "Star Bar" poster. And, yes, this month's poster is the pretty awesome "Star Bar" spread. One of Mr. Severin's best. Everybody's laughing at Sylvester! Because he's the freakiest one of all.

As we've seen in the past, though, a kick-arse cover can disguise pretty bland insides. What about this month? let's jump in.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Seymour Errs - prueff rrder Now, that's bad spelling!

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: The lettuce sometimes looks more like cabbage to me. Next issue - December 20th. Amos Svoboda has a couple of letters here. But, it's only one page. There's a subscription ad on the second page. Oh well. I just set myself up for another year. Pretty cheap. $4 for 9 issues. Not bad. That's cheap comedy.

THE SPY WHO SNUBBED ME: Lots of funny visuals. Lots of Jawz attacking Jaimes Bund. And, possibly not their best use of "funny character names" Bund and Jawz? Who wrote this? My 4-year-old nephew? The best gag in this one is during the opening ski scene where a head is randomly floating through the sky saying "Uh-oh! Wrong page!" Who is he? We'll find out. Not a bad opener. It moves briskly and James Bond films are generally one step away from parody anyway so they didn't have to travel far. When Bund turns to the audiences and says "Aren't my asides nauseating?", that's nice.

THE MACHINE MANIA MONOPOLIZES THE MOVIES: Basically fake movie posters for films that are completely robot or machine filled. A bit of a strange article, I thought. People were certainly robot nutty because of Star Warz (Wars, sorry) but were they really "machine crazy"? Maybe they were. "Robot Love" is a robot love story starring Jason Robots Jr. and Joan Rivets. "Robbie the Robot Cop" has a sidekick dog played by Rin Tin Tin. "Riding For a Fall" is about the tragic end of Hollywood's #1 stunt car. This one stars Jane Fender. Bela Lugassy stars in "Dracula Drags Again". And, of course "Gunfight at the OK Garage". But then, it takes a strange turn. "Introducing Morrie the Mower in...The Grass is Greener". "The Iceman Cometh Not" is starring Fred "the Fridge". "When Your Number is Up" is something to do with a calculator. There's a real charming in these articles that seem to catch a clever idea from pop culture and then spin off into realms that make you think "Do they know what they're writing about?"

A SOUVENIR PHOTO ALBUM OF THEIR TRIP TO EARTH: Star Warz, ahoy! Cy-Threepiu & Artie-Ditto visit Earth and what do they find? What you'd expect? Yes. Artie is treated like a fire hydrant. They get good service at the gas station. They get mad when they see a guy punching a vending machine. They are thrilled to watch people at the beach swimming in oil. It's fun to read but it consists of 100% of the jokes you would have thought up if this were your job.

A BROCHURE FROM P.T.U.: Prime Time University! It's all about congregating and watching TV and reading TV Guide. This is a pretty great article. But, unfortunately, you'd need to read it. Lots of fine visuals and great "brochure" text. It even has a commercial break. Let me just say: Kojak graduated from here with a LLB (Bachelor of Lollipop Licking). This is good stuff, folks. Find it and read it.

THE HOW TO INSULT MANUAL: I can take or leave this one. It's basically a guy telling another guy all the insults he can use in his day to day life. I was going to pick one and print it here but, Lord, they're all bad. "I remember you when you were only this big!" "And, I remember you when you were only this wide!" Stuff like that. One great joke: The guy telling the insults is the head floating through The Spy Who Snubbed Me. His head appears at the top of certain panels narrating the insult action. Somehow he wound up in the wrong article. Take that and move on.

A CRACKED LOOK AT A PLANT STORE: Big drawings, fewer word balloons than usual. Not actually a funny setting but there are a lot of women who look like Nanny Dickering. I've been enjoying these more and more lately so...this one ain't bad. But, a plant store? What's next? A stationary shop?

ONE MINUTE TV SHOWS OF THE FUTURE: Very fast TV. 60 Minutes is now 60...you guessed it. Interviews are people saying "Hello" and that's all. Gone With The Wind is edited down to a minute. Funny how this was such a crazy thing then but, gradually, this is the way most TV has become now. And, it didn't require the choppy "Comedy" we get here. It slowly became this over a long period of time and tightening. So, the article is slightly amusing but not really up to much. Time has dulled its sheen. It does have some charm, though.

THE CRACKED WORLD OF TOYS AND GAMES: I'll just start with this: There are two cheerleaders in this one holding up their phone numbers for the football players. Their numbers are - Suzy: 213-1876 & Lucy: 943-7890. They're older now but they've still got zazz! MAD invades CRACKED offices. A series of comic strips with gags a-plenty! Franny Fallapart from Renco is the highlight. She's a doll that falls apart. A brief read. Good for a smile. But, let's move on.

THE 99,999 MILE BOOK: A parody of a car care booklet put out by Shell that ties everything back to Shell products. It's laid out sideways as if it were a real car care book and it's pretty amusing. Actually, they are Shill products but you know... Always use Shill oil. Sage bit of advice: Every year you should do a simple check-up on your car. "Engine...Is it still under the hood?" Useless info except when it's sending you to Shill products. Fun stuff.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE HOBO KING: Nanny! This one is pretty good. I know I've been getting down on Nanny lately but this one has verve. A good issue can perk things up. Turns out this hobo king lives in a mansion. There's money to be made in hoboing! Ahh, what happened to hobos? They do rip off a Groucho Marx joke at one point (probably more than that, actually). The Hobo King makes a joke and then, in the next panel, he's looking at us and saying, "Well, look folks. Every panel can't be a gem!" Only remind us of that when we're in hysterics otherwise it looks like you really don't care.

STAR PEOPLE WEEKLY & CREATURES & THINGS: A tabloid for outer space! Hugh Hefner XII is on the cover with his outer-space Playboy Empire. And, the gals look real odd! Apparently, they just opened the first McDonalds on Uranus. How do the new Polaroids work? Pop the Polaroid Pill in your mouth. Focus on the subject. Tweak your nose. Finished photo pops out of your mouth. It's fun. This is an entertaining article that pops up in one of the SPECIALS in the next year or two. Look for it! Oddly enough, at five pages, this one could have been longer.

SHUT-UPS

1 - 3/5 dead guy
2 - 4/5 old guy
3 - 5/5 mail man

I love shut-ups.

Final Score: hot/damn!

BACK COVER: Great Moments In Games - Upper Mongolia - 1,057,649 BC - Wooka J. Zooka Jr. Almost Invents Tic-Tac-Toe. (It wasn't until 83,422 years later that circles were invented and tic-tac-toe became popular.)

An extremely charming issue. This is the way CRACKED does it right! A dud here and there but, overall, solid. Makes you smile and makes you want to read more.

Next: More Star Warz! More Fun? We'll find out.