CRACKED #172: A TV Crossover in the Void

October 1980
by Pierre L.

Great cover...well, great subject for the cover. Where's the background? The people look great. The motorcycle and the General Lee looks great. The car is on a dirt road that fades away. The motorcycle is on...? Who knows? Are they in Hazzard County or the big city? Are they deep in the Void near Antares 13 in the Madeline Cluster? Where are they? Why is there no background? CRACKED!! Oh well, let's head in.

INSIDE FRONT COVER: A playbill for the "1st Annual Gala Jamboree Extravaganza" It looks like a great time. Lots of food. Live music (Bee Gees, Elton John and Kiss) and celebrities (Mohammad Ali, Belushi, Coleman, Parton, Winkler, etc.) Jimmy Carter will be there. But...there's a slip! Oh no! At the very bottom!

Time: Saturday, S... ... -2PM till ?
Place: W.... Pa...

You can't read when and where it is! The hell. I want to go. I want to go now. CRACKED!!

TABLE OF CONTENTS: "Rita Righta - pruf rita" "What's Up Front - Our Cover" I see Jimmy Carter and a man at "Veronica Lake" up in the mountains and gangsters and fisherman and the word "BEEP!!" Bodes well.

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Still selling that Cracked Reporter T-Shirt. $4.95 plus 1 dollar S&H. And with CRACKED you can be assured...that's good handling! "Next issue - August 12th" People seemed to have really enjoyed the last few issues. I wonder if there's an "Anti-Lettuce" somewhere that's filled with "troll-style" letters like "CRACKED stink! MAD yes!" and stuff like that.

THE DORKS OF HAZZARDOUS WITH CHIPS TO GO: Boo & Cuke Dork go to Los Angeles for a hamburger. They drive past a smiling man whose T-shirt says "GONZAGA". Thanks, T-shirt! Punch and Yawn, the CHIPS cops, join the Dork boys in the General Flee and capture crooks. Along the way, it is clear that Dork-style law involves a lot of violence and crashes. Those cut-ups! During all of their driving around, Boo and Punch argue about which of them is better looking and who has more dates. In the end, it's inconclusive. I enjoy CRACKED's version of Los Angeles. At one point, there is an 8-lane road, which might be a freeway or not...But, regardless, there are stores along the road. I mean directly on the edge of the road. The doors open directly onto the road. Huh? What land is this? CRACKED? Have any of you ever been to Los Angeles? Unless it's a joke? But, what's the joke? Oh well...C-3PO and R2D2 show up and hijack an oil truck. I almost forgot that.

Great article. One of my favorite satires that they've done. It has a constant sense of movement. The jokes have enough life to them so when the article actually ended I wanted more. Nice beginnings.

ABSOLUTELY, UNQUESTIONABLY, POSITIVELY, UNDENIABLY, THE VERY, VERY, LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: 5 pages of funny. These article's are just getting better and better. One of my favorites: Calvary guys are hunched over the body of a dead Indian. One says "Remember corporal, 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian.'" The corporal replies with "I know that Sarge. Why, some of my best friends are dead Indians." Politically incorrect? Sure. More clever that the average CRACKED gag? You bet your ass, Franklin!

IF WOMEN REALLY WANTED TO BE TREATED EQUALLY: Remember how I said I wished Chips and the Dukes went on longer, well, here's one I wish was shorter. This article is about women doing all sorts of the "miserable" things that men have to do. "...Let them go for the car next time you come out of a movie and it's pouring rain!" "...Let them see how they like the 'mandatory jacket and tie rule' in scorching 98 degrees restaurants!" "...Let them move the living room furniture while the men decide where it looks best!" It goes on for two pages. There is an occasionally funny drawing but let's move on...

CRACKED FANTASIES: A man's head is in the center of the pages (Corkmonger, Walter Corkmonger) and all sorts of little thought balloons emanate from his mind. Winning Mr. America. Being allowed to marry Bo Derek. No bad weather while on vacation at Veronica Lake. Stuff like that. But, it all feels rather low-key. Nothing is ever that funny or that exciting. Maybe Corkmonger's just pitching low but it's your fantasy, man! Go crazier. This is like my 96-year-old Grampa's version of a CRACKED article. "I didn't want you to laugh too hard, Pierre. You might pull a hammer. (hamstring)"

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE WITH HIM / HER IF: Are all these articles becoming the same? One page of guys and gals saying rude things to their dates. I forgot this was here when I scanned this article for the review. That's how memorable it is.

WHAT YOU'RE REALLY THINKING: Apparently, I'm not thinking anything that witty. I'm really just kind of an angry jerk. It does end with the writer of the article running into Mr. Sproul's office with the idea for this article. CRACKED!!

CRACKED VISITS THE OL' FISHING CREEK: I wonder how they do these. Does the artist draw them and give them to the writers who stick in all the jokes? Because, unlike the covers, there is always something going on in the drawing. In fact, I love the drawing in this one and that led me to realize why these bits bug me. A lot of times, especially when Don Orehek draws them, the actual layout is really entertaining. There's so much going on. You can scan this one and see so much. Charlie the Tuna fishing. "Warning: Slow Sand" Up in the top right hand corner, near the two old men standing in the water in bathing suits and fancy hats, the fishing creek seems to wind off into the distance. Hey! There's a tugboat way, way back there. No joke around it, although it is pulling a water skier . There's the Loch Ness Monster! "Danger: Thin Ice" So much fun stuff. Why is that old guy sitting in the water up to his neck? Surely not to deliver the rotten joke that he seems to be delivering? Up to the left..."How did you come to fall in the water?" "I didn't come to fall in the water, I came to fish!" I hope no one got paid for that. Ignore the word balloons, enjoy the richness of the Ol' Fishing Creek.

CRACKED'S ALL-PURPOSE TIME-SAVING "DENIAL OF CHARGES" SPEECH FOR POLITICIANS: Two pages of "I wish to speak to you..." And then, there are several different endings to that sentence, ranging from respectful to wacky. This is possibly the most boring article I've ever encountered in CRACKED. I just cannot focus my attention. It's impossible. Sorry. Move on.

THE CRACKED PENAL CODE: Tow pages of people punished for annoying other people. Getting up for popcorn in the middle of a movie sentences you to being thrown in a vat of hot, melted butter. It's like that. A lot of very similar articles in here this month. Oh well, at least it's only two pages long. The last panel is another reference to CRACKED and rotten articles. Hmmm... Oh, one of the punishments is mandatory viewing of a 36-hour Farrah Fawcett film festival.

WHAT "HELP WANTED" ADS SAY AND WHAT THEY REALLY MEAN: You know the drill. "Want a job with punch? Learn the ropes with a challenging position." Boxer. "Move up fast in dynamic Wall St. job." Elevator operator. The final panel is another CRACKED rib at themselves. We're getting a trifle too samey with these things.

LOSER - THE MAGAZINE FOR DEADBEATS: "Exclusive: 16 pages of blank paper. (The material got lost on the way to the printer.)" Yes, fat people, old people and ugly people...they're all losers! Actually, this bit is pretty funny. A bit heavy on the text at times but with some smiles. There is a great Severin drawing of a man walking down a dark road...towards a manhole...about to step on a banana peel...with a mad dog right behind him...with a flower pot dropping out of the sky...with a thug around the corner. That's awesome. The table of contents has a series of drawings, mainly illustrating articles listed. One is an open door, an overturned chair and legs swinging. The heck? CRACKED!!! "The time I was punched in the mouth by a member of the Humanist Society." Loser Quiz...Loser Advice Column...The Inquiring Loser...Ads for Snake-eye dice and a Real piece of Poison Ivy. The best bit? I think it's a big arrow pointing at a dull guy's face. "CONTEST - Find a name for this loser (So we can tell him to get lost during the hurricane season)" Pretty good bit.

Ad for Cracked fighting Inflation is next. And, it's Sylvester in the ring with the big monster named "Inflation".

CRACKED SONGS FROM OUTER SPACE: One example will suffice..."Broken Motor Opera" sung to the tune of "Satisfaction"..."I can't get no - warp drive action. I can't get no - chain reaction,/ Well I tried/ Overdrive/ And I blew out Warp 5/ Engines don't go. Engines don't go." That's the first verse. I'm done. Onward?

YE HANG UPS: Four one-panel gags. They're fun.

JIMMY CARTER'S TELETHON FOR ENERGY: Nanny shows up at one point to denigrate Dolly Parton's figure but, apart from that, this is a brand new way to end an issue. Jimmy wants to raise a billion gallons of energy! In the end, he gets about 8 gallons. But, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton show up. Very, very topical CRACKED article. Yes, these issues are still issues today but this article is very specific to the issues of the Summer of 1980. So, even though the article is fun to look at and a breeze to read...it's never really funny, today. However, the fact that they ended an issue like this is, frankly, awesome. CRACKED!!

SHUT-UPS

1 - Conquistador
2 - Booze Hounds
Total - Conquiztabooze!

INSIDE BACK COVER: An iron-on. Sadly, their weakest yet. Two arrows: "See front of T-Shirt" "See Back of T-shirt" Let's see the back of the issue, shall we?

GREAT MOMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY: A wristwatch with a sundial! That's a heavy wristwatch!

CRACKED!!

Good issue. The highs are high and the lows are just average. A fun read that made me giggle a bit. Thank Goodness. To be honest, I was starting to lose my faith in CRACKED. But, of course, one issue does not a winning streak make. Let's check out the next issue before we start crappin' 'em out of excitement. Shall we?

Next issue: They struck back! And, it hurt my hinder!

CRACKED #171: This Cover Speaks For Itself

September 1980
By Pierre L.

Where'd they get the Shoe Shine box, I wonder? Oh CRACKED, you've done it again! And, once again, I'm not quite sure what you've done. It is nice to know that they know the worth of their own Iron-On's: 1 dollar.

INSIDE FRONT COVER: A Three Mile Island souvenir poster. Hang it on your wall! It glows!

TABLE OF CONTENTS: I am tempted to flip to the inside back cover for my valuable iron-on right now but that's not the way things work. Marcus Absent is this week's...you know.

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Next issue - July 8th. Most people enjoy CRACKED. If they don't, then the editor sends the razz at 'em! It's actually time to renew my subscription. They do offer extra copies of this issue's iron-on for a buck. They weren't kidding! It is a buck! That's good iron-on.

IF ARNOLD WERE TREATED AND BEHAVED LIKE A REAL-LIFE KID: The housekeeper wants to kill him for all his shenanigans. Willis wants to beat Arnold when he is stapled to his bedsheets so he won't slide out of bed. Arnold uses Mr. Drummond's stock certificates to dry his pet goldfish. Arnold is grounded until age 21. A water balloon is dropped on a Mr. Haymarket who sues Mr. Drummond. Oh no...when cuteness does not work anymore, Arnold has a rough time of it. I guess this wouldn't make such a great sitcom. Oddly enough, it's not really a funny article. More of a "of course" kind of thing. Great idea. Strange use of humor.

NEW DETECTORS OF THE FUTURE: Bore detectors. Salesman detectors. Weather detectors. Odd. This one is a real strange sort of funny, too. It's more of a nod your head and say "Sure, sure" kind of thing. There are some interesting illustrations but it's not a "Ha HA!" article. It isn't even written that way. It's just kind of clever as it carries its premise along for three pages. Hmmm...

THE MEDICINE MAN: A three-pager about a medicine man who keeps doing the wrong sort of dance. If this is from before 1973, I'll eat my hat. It's kind of funny but just feels like a strange retread.

THE CRACKED BOOK OF RUNNING: Text-heavy but with some charming drawings. But, not nearly enough drawings. Hmm...I really may need to start looking at my current relationship with CRACKED.

There was a time a few issues ago where I loved it to pieces but now I find myself denigrating it a lot. But, the magazine's just not funny. And, the problem is that they don't really seem like they're trying anymore. Back in the mid 70's, we went through this but the mag revitalized itself. Now, it's backed right into a sort of repetitive style or, in the case of this article, a very word-filled style that just doesn't suit them. Odd. I love CRACKED. But, I do hope there's a change or a spike in quality soon.

ABSOLUTELY, UNDENIABLY, POSITIVELY, UNQUESTIONABLY, THE VERY LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: This seemed to be the vanguard of fun a few years ago. Now, it's a funny oasis in the midst of all this odd "This is humor?" stuff that they've been doing. Maybe it's "humour" and I just don't recognize it?

ADS FROM THE SPACE AGE: Again, interesting premise. Updating all sorts of ads (going to Vegas, car ads, weight loss) to the far, far future. The copy is fine. The drawings are fine. But, I'm not laughing. In fact, I'm skimmimg along. Have I, possibly, read too much CRACKED lately? Am I immune to its style of comedy? Isn't "Make Big Money Hauling Space Trash" a hoot? I don't know anymore.

NEW IDEAS FOR PHONY "OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT" CAR DEALERS CAN GOUGE THE PUBLIC WITH: We see a cross section of a car and assorted arrows pointing to various bits. An example: "Electronically controlled rain-dispersal arm-assembly (windshield wipers) - $13.95 each. Rubber wiper blades - $6.00 extra per blade". It's a funny concept that is worked out thoroughly, if not very hilariously.

COMPANY MERGERS OF THE FUTURE: This one is pretty good. Perdue Chicken Company and Goodyear Rubber Corporation merge - Rubber eggs! Celeste Pizza and Polaroid Land Camera Corporation - A camera that produces a slice of pizza in 60 seconds. McDonald's and IBM - MBM! They have glasses with pictures of all your favorite execs on them! A Super-fast computer store. What are the odds? Nice bit. This one takes the edge off.

ILLUSTRATED IDIOTIC IDIOMS: Wacky photos of things that refer to something. Number 4 has a woman sitting on some steps with a couple cans of TAB on her head. "Keeping Tabs on Someone." A picture of someone with no face is "Losing Face". Stuff like that. It's the pictures that sell this one. They're pretty goofy. It doesn't seem like the staff of CRACKED did this. Freelance?

KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE RESERVED TABLE: One of their "classic" parodies. At King Author's court, there is a crazy dragon. The knight who can kill it gets the King's daugther's hand in marriage. Her name is Princess Scrunge and she's a little gamy. Sir Callow The Timid saves the day by unleashing the Talking Blob from an issue of CRACKED. T.B. wins. The dragon is eaten. Then, the TB eats the King and Sir Callow defeats TB. In the end. Callow and Scrunge rule the land. This bit is fun. Doesn't match the beach party with the Fonz from so long ago but it's worth a few giggles and is a good read.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE INFLATION BEATING KING: The most amazing thing about this one is that Nanny has stockings on in the first panel but is bare-legged for the rest of it. Where'd her pantyhose go? The heck? She interviews Mr. M. I. Cheap who reads his neighbor's newspaper. He also bunks under the train early in the morning to get a free ride. He offers people on the street cash for whatever old clothes they're wearing. He puts one article of clothing in each machine at the laundromat. Then, when someone cleans their clothes in it, he comes in and says he forgot to take out an item. So, he gets all his clothes cleaned for free! How on earth could you do anything else with your life if this is all you did? There's nothing to "hard hit" at here. Nanny's talking to the guy to get tips. But, he's just really cheap. Did you get that from his name?

SHUT-UPS

1 - Jury!
2 - Murray!

Total - J'Murray Weinstock!

INSIDE BACK COVER: Iron-on. "I'm a Perfect 10 What's your IQ?" Oh, I got comedy all down my leg! I prefer the Fonz.

BACK COVER: Some caveman almost invents the frisbee. Oh well... It goes out as it came in. Kind of mmm-hmmm-sure...

Well, I'm having some troubles here. The magazine seemed to be branching out into wonder but it, in fact, settled into a strangely bland place. Here's hoping we can snap out of it soon. But, I don't think we have a Fonz coming up anytime in the future.

Sorry. I'm Fonz-happy today.

Next issue: Well, we've got a team-up going. I sure am hoping it's a good one.

This one brought to you by...

CRACKED #170: Shouldn't that be "The Dorks of Hazard"?

August 1980
by Pierre L.

Here they are...Some new pop culture icons for us to feature on the cover. But, there will be a bit of a difference here. I'll go into more detail when we hit the parody.

POSTER: This one is an "Important Notice" on attention-grabbing yellow paper. It says that certain "onterators are traming on the permis of the derialtor." Stuff like that. They did another poster like this a while back. Big fake words warning us of something. Frankly, it worked better the first time. Unless, this is your first time seeing it. Then, what do you think?

TABLE OF CONTENTS: What the table doesn't show is that much of this issue is either MAD-lite or a throwback to the CRACKED of the mid-70's. I wish I could say that that was a good thing. Amy Stake - PrFFR RdEr

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Next issue - June 3rd. Let's move on.

THE NOT-SO-BRIGHT SHADOW: The few times I saw The White Shadow when I was young the whole look of the thing depressed the heck out of me. This parody does too. It starts with one of those long two-page banner panels with lots of people talking in a row, a la every movie or TV parody MAD has ever done. I got bored halfway through the panel and moved on. There is a good joke here about how everyone seems to be either in practice or in the showers but that's about it. This thing goes on for seven pages and I'm just not getting the juice up for it. Yes, Gary Coleman appears in the end and it is awesome. But, boy, it's a long trip getting there. It's like driving through Nebraska - endless landscape with nothing to enjoy. You just want to get out.

CRACKED'S REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL: The last article was a MAD-esque bit of stuff. This one feels like it should have been written in the late-50's or early 60's. It literally is stuff to be cheerful about. Good friends, scoring high on a video game, spinach workers going on strike, flowers, summer vacations, CRACKED. A few of the illustrations are humorous but this seems more like a very long greeting card you'd sent out to cheer someone up. What an odd article.

SUGARLESS GUM AD: You know the "4 out of 5 dentists" thing. Well, this is about Number 5 and it's a funny one.

SITUATIONS YOU WISH YOU WEREN'T IN: Sort of the flip side to "Cheerful". Letting a vacuum cleaner salesman in your house. Going to the beach and getting rained on. etc and so forth... Ummm, what's the copyright date on this issue?

WHAT IS A FAD FREAK?: The irony behind this article feeling like it should have shown up six years prior is not lost on me. "Goes to Africa to trace his 'roots' - and he's an American Indian!" "Got into a yoga position six months ago - and hasn't figured out how to get out yet!" (OK, that one's kind of funny.) "Has more gears on his racing bicycle than a Mack truck!" Close your eyes and turn the page.

USING STAR TREK LOGIC AND TECHNOLOGY TO SOLVE LIFE'S EVERYDAY PROBLEMS: Way to keep those titles simple! It's a lot of Vulcan Mind probing and death gripping to pass tests and beat bullies. Your bicycle goes Warp Factor 8 to get away from a police man. When the dad's in the neighborhood show up to kill you for treating their daughters like garbage, you tell them that you're on a Five Year Mission to "get away with with what no other man has gotten away with before." The dad's accept that. Boy, I'm pretty sure Star Trek fans would have gotten their ass handed to them on a a platter if they had done that...but, why not give it a try anyway? (A platter of ass, anyone?)

YE HANG UPS: Funny but...Ye Hang Ups! It's been half a decade since we've had these. What's going on in this issue?

THE CRACKED WORLD OF SCHOOLING: Oh, Lord. We're back to MAD. 4 pages of endlessly old gags about people going to various schools. There's a joke about a correspondence school bartender making his friends drinks that he puts in first class envelopes. There's one about a lady gaining 20 pounds from taking a Chinese Cooking class. It goes on like this and it is dense and it is dull. Wow! I'm going to keep moving.

CRACKED'S RANDOM SAMPLINGS: This might explain it all. This four pager is nothing but bits and bobs, jokes and japes, that they rejected or didn't finish. They wanted to show us some of what they had sitting around. I don't know if this is true or not but it makes for far more interesting reading than most of the rest of the issue. A few bits:

Witness a man who's egg-cited - We see a man getting excited over a plate of eggs.

How To Pick Up Chicks - In two panels, a man picks up a woman and sets her down.

There is a three panel "CRACKED's Brief Guide To Handball".

A police station - A man wearing a trench coat filled with cats is identified as a famous cat burglar.

Bits like that. It's fun and fast. I'd like to see more of these.

A CRACKED SALUTE TO NEW YORK CITY: Right back to MAD. Hey! There's a lot of crime in NYC! Wall Street is a street with big walls on both sides. Broadway has a lot of women waving at us. Battery Park...Well, you can guess that one. A lot of restaurant jokes and mugger jokes and Statue of Liberty jokes. Maybe they should head back to Detroit? Remember when they took them down a peg? Let's go back!

THE DORKS OF HAZZARDOUS: This one cooks along all right. The show was very repetitive and this one picks up on that: car chases, Boss Hogg's schemes, all that sort of stuff. Daisy has really short shorts on. The Duke boys aren't too long on brains but they got a lot of heart! The Dukes would show up quite a bit over the next few years and there is a difference between them and The Fonz, Gary Coleman or Mork. The writers seem to think the Dukes of Hazard is pure garbage. It is stupid and repetitive and...well, they're right. But, it is a bit more fun when they really get behind the icon they're going after (even if they don't seem to understand it, like the Fonz). Maybe the blah nature of this issue has worn me out but they'll do better stuff with the Dukes later.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE NUCLEAR POWER KING: Hey! That nuclear facility keeps having meltdowns and explosions. And, Nanny calls him on it! And, I am rundown by this issue. Nanny works best as a little bit of icing on the cake for a good issue. For an issue like this, which is below average, she can't save it. These bits never have that much kick to begin with. I'm rolling downhill right into the...

SHUT-UPS

1 - Burp
2 - BURP!!
3 - BELCH!!!

TOTAL - I messed myself.

BACK COVER: Harold the Weird invents the Adding Machine. Who cares? I thought we weren't doing these anymore?

This issue's kind of a stinker. It never gets going. There are only a few flashes of joy in here. It feels recycled, repetitive and rip-off laden. Please, guys, let's pull ourselves out of this! Please?

Next issue: Love that cover! Class...thy name is CRACKED!

Cracked #169: Free Khambatta With Every Issue!

July 1980
by Pierre L.

We started with Star Trek and now they have returned. But, this time with 40 million 1979 dollars behind them. Ahhh...I went to see this in the theater with my family. There were about 10 of us. We sat in a row up near the back. I got very sleepy and don't think I understood what was going on. Just prior to that, my Uncle Rog had introduced me to another sci-fi show that I really found myself enjoying. Star Trek: The Motion Picture convinced me that the other show was better. That show was Doctor Who and, 29 years later, I haven't changed my mind.

POSTER: Yellow is the color of my P**! "FINE FOR LITTERING IN THIS AREA." In smaller letters: "Even Better To Litter Around The Corner."

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Something called "Famous Animal Celebrities". Oh boy, this should be great. "Betty Cantread, p.r.f. reddr"

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Monsters crammed into a coffin! Great image. Monster Fraternities! I want to join one. The French Canadian Blob! Next issue - April 22nd.

STAR DREK: An 8 page journey through the movie. I haven't seen it since it came out but this parody almost makes me want to see it again. Admiral Quirk keeps hitting the wrong buttons on the revamped Enterprise. At one point, he flushes the john. Comedy!! There are some good jokes in here and I never really noticed its length. As always, CRACKED's love of bigger drawings and fewer word balloons makes these things flow along. I'm looking at it to see what jokes really grabbed me but it's all just rather pleasant. A good opener to the issue.

THE COMING MINI-AUTO AGE - THE 1984 DWARF DODGEM: It's a really tiny car with some really entertaining drawings. You can pick the car up in a traffic jam and walk away. You can park four in a parking spot. Traffic cops can stack a whole mess of them on top of each other and haul them away. You can drive your car under a truck to keep out of the rain. A U-Turn? No problem. Stand up and turn it around manually. Good stuff. It's a fun article. I think the best bit is how to bypass highway tolls. You inflate a balloon in the back of the car and float over!

CRACKED HANDBOOK OF RESTAURANT OWNERS: This one's only 4 pages but it's so text-heavy that it feels much longer. Lots and lots of text with a "humorous" picture underneath. Sometimes they're amusing but there's so much reading here...Something like the National Lampoon has a lot of text but it's genuinely funny. The more text in a CRACKED article, the more you see the limitations of the writers. Most of their gags are things I could have written in Second Grade with no problem. I'd like to go into more detail about some of the jokes but they're things like "Put in Narrow Chairs" and "Turn up The Air Conditioning!" and "Don't Open a restaurant next to the Unemployment Office!" I can't get up the strength. Too dense for CRACKED.

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, UNQUESTIONABLY, THE VERY LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: 4 pages and it a joy. Dracula and the Thing With two Heads. Wonderful.

CRACKED GOES TO A SKI MOUNTAIN: Oh, hell! This thing is back. Two pages of overcrowded drawings with jokes so old it hurts my sac. I've got a copy of these two pages hanging in front of me. Here are the prime gags:


"Have an accident?"
"No, thanks, I already had one!"

"Do you know this slope is very icy?"
"No, hum a few bars, and I'll fake it!"

"Did you see 'Downhill Racer' with Robert Redford?"
"No, I saw it with my brother!"

"I made a record-breaking jump yesterday. I landed on the lodge disco and broke three records!"

Notice how they all have exclamation points. I wonder if a subscription to CRACKED came with a free drum roll and rim shot record?

CRACKED PREDICTIONS FOR THE 1980's: Robot Westerns. Houses with "weather rooms"., There's a desert room and a snow room and a Tropical Rain Room. Discos will have anti-gravity. People will stop using oil. CRACKED will still be the funniest thing around. Maybe not everything here came true.

PHOTOON: Always good. A nice one-page gaggerista!

FAMOUS ANIMAL CELEBRITIES: Duck Van Dyke. Marlin Brando. Mike Walrus. Bull Bixby. Rabbit Redford. Elephant Gerald. Did I write this? At two pages, it's charming enough but these text-heavy bits are getting out of hand.

COLLEGE FOR PANHANDLERS: After having said that, this is the most text-heavy article I've ever seen. It takes the restaurant bit and one-ups it. In fact, it has the exact same structure. Lots of text and then an "..." at the end of the sentence that leads to the picture. Again, there's really nothing here that I want to go too in-depth on. Nothing really grabs me here. Sorry.

THE BILLY PLUCKETT STORY: A non-specific parody of uplifting sports films like Brian's Song. A little kid becomes a football hero and gets a bucket stuck on his head. It kind of goes on like this. It's breezy and it flows along but I'm not a fan of sports movies and so I'm not so juiced about this one. Let's keep movin'...

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE TREKKER KING: Nanny goes to see a very nerdy Star Trek fan. He dresses up like Kirk, makes his kids talk in Starfleet terms and has his wife shave her head. She stays with him because he's rich so everyone gets everything they deserve. They go to a Star trek convention. They argue over the terms "Trekker" and "Trekkie". Nanny gets beaten up for saying that the movie wasn't very good. It's harmless good fun with some of our greatest nerds. Huzzah!

SHUT-UPS

1 - 3/5 (A burning dog...A hot dog?)
2 - 4/4 (Circus!)
3 - 1/5 (Chess!)

Total - A Beautiful Mess of telling people to clam up their pieholes! (Is piehole one word or two?)

BACK COVER: THE SWORDSMAN - A one-pager that looks like it's from the late 50's. Fun art and the joke is OK.

This issue was a bit of a slog. Some definite good bits but...What the heck? Who's writing this now? Text-heavy material is not something CRACKED should do. It doesn't suit them. The writing style here is far too simplistic. There's no kick to anything. Please, fellas, let's go back to the visual breeze that you specialize in. Please?

Next issue: Now with Mork gone...we've got some new folks for the cover.

THOSE CRACKED MONSTERS!!!!

February 1980
by Pierre L.

What? A grown man can't be in a monster mood?! C'mon!!! I decided it was time to review a Collectors' Edition. And, I decided that it must be monster-filled. One of my favorite covers. Stare at it, give it a good look. Boy, it's awesome. Look at the detail...You know what? The same drawing is at the center of this issue so we'll go into more exacts there. Suffice it to say, what a great cover! Yes, the UPC code is Pee Yellow as is the very top of the page but the rest of it is Haunted House green, brown & gray.

Note: I know that the majority of the bits in here appeared in previous issues. If I know where they're from, I'll tell you. If not, we'll let it ride. I'm not a historian. I'm a French Canadian Reviewer.

Oh, there is no poster here. The inside covers are ads. We'll skip 'em.

No Table of contents, either. There's a still of a person being strangled by vines and saying something droll. Above this is:

"We've Done It Again!
Huge and hairy...Gigantic and scaly...They lurk in the shadows, awaiting the unsuspecting VICTIM---that's you---and you're going to DIE LAUGHING at...

THOSE CRACKED MONSTERS"

Awesome. Let's step inside.

FFTD: An ad for Fiendish Florist Telephone Delivery. Send two pots of swamp roses in quicksand to a friend. It turns out the Old Witch, Dracula and Frankenstein & his bride all use this service. I'm going to give 'em a call. I just write "HAPPY NEW TOMB" on the card.

STAR PEOPLE WEEKLY & CREATURES & THINGS: From Issue #148. Here's my original write-up. "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."

I would just add that, technically, sci-fi stuff like this does not actually constitute "Monsters". But, the article is still a good one.

THE MONSTERS LAUGH IT UP: Two pages of Cracked Lens stuff. This is a motif throughout the issue. Robots, giant ants, The Mad Monster and Godzilla vs. King Kong. The last one is Bela Lugosi whipping a hairy man and saying "...no son of mine is going to be a singer with a rock 'n' roll group!" You tell 'em, Bela. He should grow up to be a completely bat-ass bonkers mad scientist like you!

THE NIGHTMARES OF MONSTERS: This one looks familiar but it's not from an issue I've reviewed. Two pages of Dracula and the Wolfman and King Kong and The Sea Creature having nightmares. Dracula's wife tells him that she doesn't want him going out at night anymore. The Sea Creature watches men pollute his swamp. The Mole bursts through the sidewalk and gets hit by a skateboarder. The werewolf is recruited to be in a rock 'n' roll group. Hey! Maybe he's in that group with Bela's son.

HORRIBLE HUMOR: Three more pages of CRACKED LENS gaggery. (Page three is marked "More Horrible Humor".) My favorite? The Wolfman leaning on the Frankenstein Monster's shoulder and saying "No...I'm serious. Don't you think I'd look good with an "afro" haircut?" Wonderful.

BILL WARD'S CHILLER DILLERS: One page of one-panel cartoons that I know I've seen before. Pretty funny bits. A man going into a blood bank is made a better offer by Dracula. On a deserted clifftop road, a monster leans against the rock wall right on a hairpin curve. The center line comes around the curve and goes off the edge of the cliff. Someone is going to have a tough time driving tonight!

THE HOWLS ARE HERE!: CRACKED LENS explosion! Well, another page.

CRACKED PRESENTS: FUTURE INSECT MONSTER MOVIES: I know this one but I think it's from around #116. And, we're not there yet. Forward then back!! "Ever since the great box office success of the insect movie "The Hellstrom Chronicle"... Well, I didn't know what that movie was. I looked it up. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary back in 1971-ish. Wow! Isn't that fairly highbrow for CRACKED? Regardless... Moth Men, Snail Men, Beetle Men (guess what famous rock group shows up here), Ant Men, Fire Fly Men...they're all here. And it's all pretty fun. The jokes are all day-old but some of the art is excellent. Worth a read. I'll try to find out when this originally appeared. (They mention "The Sting". Why wouldn't they?)

MONSTER LAUGHS: Another page of stills and yuks!!

QUICK QUIZ: Five stills from horror and sci-fi movies. Pick the title!

Sorry to ruin it...but here are the answers.

A) The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
B) Tomb of Terror
C) Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
D) War of the Colossal Beast
E) Destination Inner Space

Some answers that are wrong include:
- The Attack of the 90-Foot Banana
- The Mummy Builds a Bandage Factory
- The Battle of The Wild Walters
- The Blob Sings the Song Hits of Petula Clark
- King Kong's Ding Dong School

MONSTER PARTY: Center spread. Two pages elongation of the cover but with one drawback: word balloons. Oh well. The jokes aren't great but the art sure is wonderful. The Creature from the Black Lagoon in the punch bowl. The Ghouls at the front door. The door off to the right with the crazy lady wearing the party hat. Notice: Behind her, there is another staircase. A staircase that looks like the main staircase. Where does that one go? Think of the crazy architecture. A house with another house attached? What floor is this party on? Is the house built on the side of a mountain?

Recently, I blabbed about how bland covers were getting for the Regular CRACKED issues. The main joke was fine but there's no background. The joy of this Monster Party is that there is so much to see. It's awesome. Look on and then we'll move on.

Number 43 May 1965 - that's where this first appears. On the cover...So long ago...

CHILLING CHUCKLES: Two more pages of photo yuks from the fellas at CRACKED!

THE EVIL EXPERIMENT: An OK one-pager with a wacky scientist and a wacky potion.

KILLER-DILLERS!: One more page of CRACKED LENSery!

THE GREATEST MONSTER BATTLE OF ALL TIME: Out on a blasted plain somewhere, the monsters brawl. I won't go into it myself. I'll let the caption writer take over:

"Here we are - ringside! The bell just sounded and the fight for the heavyweight title of Transylvania is on... The Blue Mess tosses a right claw to the chins of the Sea Glob...Hairy Harry lands a short fang to the pointed ear of the Creature From The Yellow Taxi Cab...Whatta fight, Whatta fight, fans!"

FIENDISH FOR FUN!: Two more pages of...you know.

THE BIG THINGS DO THEIR THING!: See above.

THE BIG ONES SCREAM AGAIN!: Three pages of...

GREAT SCENES FROM GREAT HORROR MOVIES: A two-pager parody of Son of Frankenstein.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE MONSTER KING: From #143 - "Ahhh, here's King Kong. (He appeared briefly in Rockey, too.) I was hoping he might have fallen from favor. Nope. Just getting sifted around in the magazine. Nanny visits the King in his giant Hollywood home. (I do mean 'giant'.) In the end, Nanny's charm causes King Kong to carry her away. She'll be back. I hope. Not really a hard-hitting interview but it was fun. King Kong has a big house! I must be in a good mood today if I let this constant "Kong Worship" just breeze by here. Oh well..."

MONSTER GREETING CARDS: Good stuff. Drawings of cards that monsters give each other. "A voice in the wilderness calls out...Happy Birthday, Ugly!" "To my Sweetheart, "Baby, I'm really "Ape" over you!" Yes, there is an ape on this one. "Congratulations! You Lucky Stiff!" You can guess that one. There's another great one with a gallows and a crazy man standing under the hangman's noose. He has "noose" for you. Loved it!

BACK COVER: The Stone Age -- A one-pager with smile attached!

Pure fun! Nothing too heavy in here. Sixteen pages of CRACKED LENS monsters make me giggle like a madman. This issue is a breeze. I get great joy from just sitting and flipping through it.

Hooray for Monsters!!!!

CRACKED #168: Forget the Pee Yellow background and enjoy the cover art

May 1980
by Pierre L.

Seriously...what is going on with the yellow? Why aren't there more trees around? Or a background of any kind? Are they riding around on the sun? It's such a great image (pure CRACKED) but there's nothing else to look at. You get "the gag" and nothing else. A little context around it would make it more than just "a joke". A road? Some trees? Maybe a few tents behind them? It's like they suddenly appeared in the middle of a yellow void with one big tree in the center of it. And yes, that is very amusing. But, a richer design on the cover would make the joke stronger, I think. Look at all those MAD covers with Alfred E. doing something in the foreground and all sorts of majesty in the background. When Alfred jokes, he uses the world. CRACKED uses the space right here, right now...and nothing else. C'mon guys, would a little more art on your cover have killed you?

POSTER: Well, this sure is yellow. "TEACHERS STRIKE NO SCHOOL" But, there is some small print. But, that small print is right around the staple and I'm pretty sure the joke isn't worth it. Does the yellow represent the sun?

TABLE OF CONTENTS: "Noah Canreed - prufuf rdrere" The heck? Where's Emmett?

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Someone mentions how much they love Mork. The editors respond with "If you check your newsstand later this month, you'll find an all-new Special Collectors' starring Mork from Ork." Keep that in mind. It'll be important. Another reader says how much they liked the Christmas Card article - "After everyone had read it, I chucked it into the fireplace." Possibly the best gag in the issue. "Next issue - March 11th."

M*U*S*H: It's nice to see them back. The plotline here? A strange sickness is overtaking the soldiers. How is it cured? Hawkeye realizes that the sickness is real and so all the fake medicine that the props department sends over has no effect. So, they get in real medicine and everyone is cured. Not bad. But, there is a better bit. The characters keep seeing actors who have left the show. Trappedinthejohn, M.D. and Frank and Radar and Henry Flake. It's a nice sort of reminder of all the folks the show has lost as it went along but the explanation is better...Reception has been bad. They've been picking up transmissions of old shows from other networks. Their own reruns are interfering with this new episode. Nice...

Now, having said that, one Nome, Alaska joke per issue is enough for me. They make about four of them here and then mention that they've made a lot of Nome, Alaska jokes. The cornball meter is at an all-time high here. It's like they got one person to plot it and Forrest Ackerman to dialog it. It doesn't ruin anything but it gets a little ruff...sorry, rough. Sonofabitch!

HOW THE ADS OF TOMORROW WILL EXPLOIT THE ENERGY CRISIS: There's that Off-Off switch again. Three layer suits for cold offices. An old highway for sale. Strange...I'm looking at the article and it's not doing anything for me. They put effort into it but it never seems to take off. It's three pages, which is, maybe, too short. Possibly they should have gone longer or gone with something else. This one does nothing for me.

HOW MADISON AVENUE CAN TURN ANYTHING INTO A GREAT SELLING GIFT: Selling chainsaws to housewives. It's an accessory. You can wear it around your neck. You can cut meat. You can do so many things. This three-pager is better than the previous one. It has more energy and verve but it still never quite takes off. I got a page into it and thought "I hope this doesn't go on too long." and it didn't. But still... The third page has them selling sandpaper for parties and that's a little livelier but... Darnit! I just don't get much from this article or the previous one. They seem like first drafts that were not quite finished. Ahhh...

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY THE VERY LAST OF THOSE CRACKED MONSTERS: The Cracked Lens with Monsters! And, it's funny! But, it's only three pages. Why not five? Again, this bit starts, becomes great fun and then ends. It's rare for CRACKED to leave us actually wanting more. When they do it, I'm not sure how to react. Great stills, though.

THE CRACKED GUIDE TO ICE SKATING: This one feels like an old one. It's the layout. It looks like 60's CRACKED to me. Regardless, it's a fun read. With a lot of those jokes where the caption says one thing and the picture is some sort of gaggery..."Now let us examine the blade..." We see a drawing of a razor blade. "Not that kind of blade, idiot!" It's just the right length at four pages although it's never really that funny. A few great drawings and some semi-clever wordplay make it worth a read but...

I'll be honest...The failures of the Advertising articles were more interesting than this one. A "Cracked Guide" is pure safety for CRACKED. They do this kind of thing in their sleep. As I said last time, I'd rather see them drop trying something new than drag the old stuff deeper into the ground.

A CRACKED LOOK AT A HEALTH SPA: Oh no! Not one of these! Chaotic drawings, too many word balloons and no funny jokes to be found! Why, why, why?! Don't tell me this bit is back? Sorry. Let's move on.

SAVE OUR AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE: Funny one-pager. It's placed by an oil company trying to save the vanishing American billionaire. Good stuff. Seems to belong in a different magazine.

IF SCHOOLS PATTERNED THEMSELVES AFTER TV: Pretty good article. History class becomes a quiz show. Kids dance during Music class. A student goes into the nurse's office with a skinned knee. A nurse puts Brand X medicine on one knee and "Hurts Like The Dickens" on the unskinned knee. Brand X does nothing. "Hurts Like..." burns through the flesh. Comedy! The punnery is at a minimum (for CRACKED) here and the whole thing flows along nicely. I don't love this article but it's fresh and it's more thought out than earlier bits.

There's that Cracked Reporter again. What does he do exactly?

HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN YOUR SPARE TIME: The basic premise is sound: Make extra cash by -- being pleasant to another man's wife over breakfast. Get hired by a rich kid to beat people up. Catch foul balls at the ballpark and sell them. Things like that. The premise is sound but (maybe I'm sick) the actual article doesn't pin me down. It kind of floats vaguely around and then it's over. Stronger art? Better jokes? I don't know. I keep reading.

MOVIE POSTERS WE'LL SOON BE SEEING: They take pictures and movie stills and write-up little gag-filled bits around them. "Doctor Dolittle" is about a really bad doctor. "Who'll stop the Rain" is about a family in a flooded apartment. "High Planes Drifter"...well, maybe you can guess that one. There are six pages of these things. They're fun at first but when I flipped to pages 5 & 6 I thought "There's more?" Some articles are far too short. This one seems like filler.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE ORKAN KING: Nanny interviews Mork who makes a lot of corny jokes and flusters Nanny now and then. This bit's OK but confusing...Remember the letter about Mork from earlier? The mention of the "all-new Special Collectors' starring Mork from Ork"? Well, Nanny starts off this bit saying "As we come to the end of this special issue, boy do we have a treat in store for you...we've finally located Mork, and he's consented to meet and talk with me exclusively for this edition." What is Nanny talking about? I've never read this "all-new Special Collectors' starring Mork from Ork" but doesn't this dialog imply that this article was meant for that? Is this article in that "all-new Special Collectors' starring Mork from Ork" along with this regular issue? Now, I want to read it and find out.

SHUT-UPS

Rate your own!

1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?

Total - ?

BACK COVER: THE CHICKEN KILLER Decent one-page closer.

Strange issue. A few articles were overwritten. While others felt unfinished. I feel like we're on the verge of another CRACKED Golden Age but for some reason we're not quite getting there. Hold on...We'll see what they do next.

NEXT ISSUE: Oh yes! Everyone's other favorite sci-fi franchise is back! (Although, frankly, I'm not a fan.)

Cracked #167: Still Milking that Mork Thing!

March 1980
by Pierre L.

Well, Mork is back and he is crackin' up! You see what they're doing there with the cracking up. Looks like a pretty comfy couch. I wonder why there's no background to the drawing. Just the couch & Mork & Sylvester. Are they in an otherworldly void?

POSTER: "Warning! The earth is tilting to the right. Please move to the left side of the room. Thank you." I don't know. That pee yellow color must sap all the comedy out of them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Same pfrer rErDrr as last issue. (Hey, Emmett!) No page numbers in this one. They've added a bit more verve...

If Mork Appeared In Other TV Shows & Movies - 1+2+3
The Cracked History of Automobiles - One Dozen
Test Tube Products of the Future - 7x4
G.I. Donut Boy - 30ATE
More Celebrity Nightmares - XX
SHUT-UPS - 1/2 of 100

Stuff like that. Pretty good. Someone's on the ball.

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: There is another "Statement of Ownership, Management & Circulation" dated 10/1/79. Looks like the current number of copies per month is around 886,017. Looks like the subscription amount is at 488,293. One of the letters says "Dear CRACKED, Not only was your MOONWRECKER script funnier than the original but yours made sense! -Marge Velasquez, Syracuse NY" "Dear Marge, Yes, but if a magazine is to survive, it has to make DOLLARS too, so if you really like us, why not subscribe to CRACKED today." Next issue - January 29th. The first official issue released in 1980.

IF MORK APPEARED IN OTHER T.V. SHOWS AND MOVIES: Odd...The title is just big black letters with a white background. It almost looks like a mock-up title that they never got around to sprucing up. Where's the write-up? Where's the blurbage? Hmmm... Well, we see Mork in "Fantasy Island", "Hawaii 5-0", "Star Wars", "Family Feud" and "Dracula". Mork as C3P0 looks a lot like the Bicentennial Man. There's a Karl Malden joke! Godspeed, Karl! A lt of corny jokes and a lot of jumping from show to movie to show. It's a fun opener to the issue. Somehow I prefer seeing Gary Coleman in these but Mork is fun. I do get the feeling that Mork is going to pass out of pop culture soon. Enjoy him while we can.

THE CRACKED HISTORY OF THE AUTOMOBILE: Jokes about Henry Ford and assembly lines and high gas prices. Traffic jams in 1916 and new roads being built through people's homes. Lot of text in this one but it's definitely worth at least one read. After the breeziness of the Mork article, this one is a little thick. But, some of the satire is sharp and some of the drawings are good. Read it, would ya please?

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, THE VERY LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: 4 pages including a still from The Alligator People. This is really becoming a very great feature of these issues. Well done, Cracked. I have that Collector's Edition around here somewhere. Even if the joke isn't funny, it's fun to guess where the stills might be from.

MORE CELEBRITY NIGHTMARES: Seeing Farrah Fawcett dreaming of losing all her hair has a bit of a chill to it. But, seeing Gary Coleman dreaming about being 3'2" at the age of 83 is worth a 1,001 yuks. John Travolta asking for the negatives of "Moment By Moment" to be burnt is good, too. Chewbaka [sic] as a Wookie-skin rug is another yukfest. And...Sylvester P. Smythe is replaced by a robot! Oh no!

There's also a "Hello Larry" joke.

THE CRACKED FACT PACK; CHRISTMAS CARDS: I do love Christmas but it is July 6th so my mind is elsewhere. I do wish that CRACKED would have done more Xmas-stuff. Some of my favorite moments of MAD are their Christmas bits. What about Alfred E. Neuman staring in through the door during a snowstorm from the late 50's? One of the best. Ahh...Oh, CRACKED. Great illustrations. Gags about old Christmas cards and the evolution of Santa Claus.

"Here's wishing you Great Gorkles
during the Holiday Gezongas.
-Robin Williams"

That's probably the best joke in here. It just sounds like it might be filthy, rather than fun-loving. There's a Dracula joke, and a Julia Child gag and a Henry the VIII thing. Some guy with a big mustache rips the card from The Klongs in half. "Look, Wilma. The Klongs sent us a card saying "Have a Happy New...""

It's fun. It does, however, have the same sort of feel as the automobile article. A little more variety wouldn't hurt anyone. Would it? Well, this was late 1979. Maybe it would.

TEST TUBE PRODUCTS OF THE FUTURE: Test tube blood for vampires. Test tube fortunes will move gypsies into the atomic age. Test tube clothes and dinners. And, get this, test tube test tubes! At the end of the day, I prefer the clone gags. This bit is harmless.

THE CRACKED GUIDE TO GYMNASTICS: Hmm...another one of these. Nadia Comaneci jokes abound. A lady does a gymnastic routine while vacuuming. A lot of crazy leaping around and a lot of text-heavy jokes about the gymnastic competitions. To be honest, having three articles like this in quick succession is a little tiring. I'm going to need that variety to kick in...now!

CAREER DREAMS THAT CAME TRUE: Oh, but I really wasn't after this sort of variety. Someone says that they're going to travel all around the world - they become a stewardess! Another guy watches girls screaming at a band and says one day he will be surrounded by gals - He becomes a security guard. A writer wants to change the world with his work. - We see him begging Bob Sproul to print his article, this article. I do like the woman leaning out the window at 125 St & Lenox Ave saying that "Mr. Right" will move her up to Park Avenue. Then, we see her living at Park Ave. & 125 St.

There's that CRACKED reporter again.

G.I. DONUT BOYS: All about the soldiers who bring donuts to the front line during WWII. It's an OK army film parody with some good donut jokes but it's very one-note. At 7 pages, I began to sort of wander around near the end. It's not bad, though. Don't get me wrong. I always applaud them when they try something a little outside of the standard parodies. It's just that this one doesn't have a whole lot to it. The donut jokes even wear thin by the end. Of course, I'd rather see them fail while trying something new than when doing the same old junk. So, keep cookin', CRACKED! I'm right here.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE ENERGY CONSERVATION KING: Nanny at her most voluptuous! She goes to see the Average family. They use no electricity. They wash clothes down by the old stream. His wife's name is Below. In the end, they go to their next door neighbor's house to watch the football game and play some computer games. This one doesn't seem to quite be satire, apart from the closing panels. Their daughter dries her hair by having birds in a cage flap their wings. Most of the jokes are like that. Lacking the kick of MAD, the gags are far more good hearted but there's still the zing in the end. Maybe they should have gone whole hog with the satire here? It falls kind of in the middle of the road.

SHUT-UPS

1 - 2 - 3
KOMEDY!!!

Why bother with a total? These are always beautiful.

BACK COVER: The Beanstalk...Pretty good closer. This one has a kick to it that the issue was kind of missing.

You know, this issue is not a bad one. It's high quality throughout and it tries some new things. It's just "joke wise" -- we're a bit hit and miss. It was different when we were in the doldrums of a year-or-so ago. But, now they're trying a little harder and so the bits that go on too long or the completely repetitive format of several of the articles hurts a bit. I want to see them hit it out of the ballpark again and again. Unfortunately, this one starts strong and becomes just OK by the end. Let's see what they do next time.

Next issue - One of my all-time favorite CRACKED covers. But, how is the issue, I wonder?

Cracked #166 - Welcome back, ladies. It has been some time.

January 1980 (!?)
by Pierre L.

I believe it was issue 145 since we last saw "The Goils!" on the cover. It's nice to have them back once again. The cover flashes me back to 1976-77. Good times for CRACKED. I so want them to get back to those. And, notice...the "Free Bonus!"

INSIDE COVERS: A Jimmy Carter mask! His face on the inside front and the back of his head on the inside back. "Cut along dotted lines. Make holes...[hopping ahead] Put Over Head and Talk Southern"! Thanks, CRACKED

TABLE OF CONTENTS: "Emmett Fault - pfrer rErDrr"

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: "Nothing covers up da smell of fish like CRACKED!" Thank you. Pretty straightforward batch of letters here. Nothing to astounding. I'm itching to leap in. Shall we? Next issue - December 18th.

LEVERNE & SHURLEY: 7 pages of shenanigans! Shurley inherits "two million" from her Uncle Lumpy. So, everyone goes crazy and they buy a lot of stuff and the "Linty-Squiggly Automatic Sock Putter-Oner!" is demonstrated for possible backing. In the end, they come right out and admit that all they do is recycle old plotlines from I Love Lucy & Leave it To Beaver. And, that's fine with me. It is actually very nice to see the gals back. It makes me think fondly of the show and how much I used to enjoy it.

THE HISTORY OF ADVERTISING: There's a Mr. Pumpersump and a Mrs. Wartwhistle. There is a dancing can of Slurpo Cleanser. A "hand bill" is an enormous hand with an ad on it. They drop a car off the Empire State Building. The Queen advertises Stripoff Floor Wax. See, this is what I like about CRACKED. This article is far to cornball (the "hand bill") but it's trying. Unlike all those "You Know You're Too Whatever When..." things that bore me to tears, stuff like this has some life to it. It's about 60-40 on the side of success and that's CRACKED kicking arse...as far as I'm concerned.

POSITIVELY THE VERY LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: Another superb one. I would love to detail my favorites but these are so visual that there doesn't seem to be much of a point. It's got laughs and it'll make you smile. Keep on rollin', fellas.

WHEN BUSINESSES START GOING AFTER TH VAMPIRE MARKET: Vampires live forever and they will become a consumer force. We have the "Jiffy Fold-Up Coffin". You can fold it up and carry it under your arm. The "Necko Ladder" for midget vampires. "Gypsy Formula" A talcum flea powder to help out every time you turn into a wolf. There are magazines...Sundown, which is Playboy. There's a vampire on the cover of TV Guide. Two ladies are watching him. 1st: What makes you think he's a Jewish vampire? 2nd: He first dabs his victim's neck with chicken soup!" "Supervamp Comics" has Von Helsing on a pogo stick stake! Oh the fun. Poopsie's Carbonated Blood is great, too. Pump your victim full of carbon dioxide. Then, their blood is carbonated!

I know this issue hit stands in November of 1979 but it is the first one dated 1980. Could the new decade (more or less) have revitalized them? We're cooking.

ONE RUSTIC DAY OUTSIDE TIJUANA, MEXICO: OK, this isn't that great but it's got fun art and it's only one page. Move on.

THE CRACKED GUIDE TO FORTUNE TELLING: Playing cards, Crystal Balls, Palm Reading, Tea Leaves, Signs & Symbols, Gypsies and Horoscopes. Lots of fun drawings but a bit to text heavy. There are laughs. A tea reader calls a lady "Clone!" so we've still got that going for us. The various horoscopes are dull but the gypsy stuff is funny. (Possibly not that funny if you are a gypsy but...) Another good one. I want to give this issue a hug.

SPECIALIZED TV STATIONS FOR DIFFERENT INTEREST GROUPS: The station for intellectuals has shows like "Airplane Tires of WWII" and part 6 of "The World of Worms". (What that has to do with intellectuals I'm not sure but CRACKED seems to like it?) Channel 8 is for the average viewer: AN adult with the mind of a 4-year-old. They watch Howard Cosell interview a horse and "The Adventures of The Shapiro Family!" "5 people accidentally reduced in size must make a new world for themselves while lost in a vat of chicken soup. Tonight - Bad break for the Shapiro's [sic] when a killer carrot threatens to topple their make-shift matzoh boat." There's a channel for construction workers and old people and people who love violence. All pretty obvious, and all pretty fun. Nice.

An ad for an "Official CRACKED Reporter T-Shirt" follows. Awesome. Order two in case you pit one out.

THE TRUTH YOU'LL NEVER HEAR: Well, it can't all be good. "Doctor give it to me straight-what are my chances?" "They'd be a heck of a lot better if I weren't your doctor." Lame Town, USA. The jokes aren't funny. The art is pretty blah. Just let this one ride. There's nothing to see here.

MOONWRECKER: James Bond-ahoy! This one has some good laughs and some fun art. The space battle is entertaining and the bits with Jawz are fun. Maybe it goes on a little too long but it's fine. It's a movie so they're hitting all the pertinent points. And, their normal incoherent jumping-around-style works perfect for a Moonraker parody because that was a fairly incoherent film. To be honest, I would have preferred more bits like the TV Stations one but, if we have to have a movie parody, this is a good one.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE ROLLER DISCO KING: One of my favorite Nanny interviews. Lots of craziness with people dancing to disco on roller skates. He is named Kid Boogie and he does have a huge afro. This one is awesome. In the opening blurb, they mention how quickly fads come and go. I wonder if this fad was over before the article was published. Great stuff, though. Even Nanny steps up to the plate here. Joy.

SHUT-UPS

1 - Chess
2 - Ventriloquist
3 - Old Convicts

Total - Comedy for you & me and your big fat Mama.

BACK COVER: Great Moments in Hunting. A caveman almost invents the bow and arrow but, unfortunately, hilarity ensues...right into his face! Ouch!

What a fine issue. One or two missteps here but the batting average is solid throughout. CRACKED is kicking again. The 80's have arrived and Mr. Sproul and fiends are here for us!

Next issue: CRACKED's favorite yuk-yuk-filled alien is back!

CRACKED #165 - [Insert Joke about Syvlester being batty]

December 1979
by Pierre L.

Oh, that version of Dracula! Sure...we've all seen that one. And why not? Another version of Dracula? Give me four. I want to save one for my Gramma when she comes up to visit next week. I have noticed that Sylvester seems to misunderstand some of the cover-related stuff, like the grease and Grease. I guess that's part of his charm. Has he ever been sued, I wonder?

POSTER: The pee color is back! They must have broken the bank with the grey of the last issue. This one is an important announcement that make a jokes about people in Australia being upside down. Wouldn't people from New Zealand be upside down too? Where did this gag come from originally? I think they had this pee-yellow poster in storage. There isn't a lot of life here.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: "pf rdr - Seymour Errs" Hi, Seymour. Welcome to the magazine. Strangely, the contents are Mork-less. Odd?

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Ahh, there he is. Hi, Mork. Welcome Seymour to the magazine, please. Here's a revealing letter from David Wayman of August, Maine: "Dear CRACKED, An article on marriage? It was like listening to a 60-year-old comedian. I mean, really! Has CRACKED sold out?" The editor's response is one about Yep! [We've sold out]...on every newsstand in America or something like that but it's nice to see that someone at the time thought "Hey! This is a pile! What the hell is this?" Next issue - November 6th" Oh, and someone does yell at CRACKED for doing a disco article -- because rock 'n' roll rules!

DRECULA - As you may have guessed, I've never seen this version. I'm sure it looks fine. It's got some big actors in it. It's supposed to have some fine effects. And, the book is a good one. So, I can't imagine it stinks. This parody certainly doesn't. It's 7 pages, which might be too long. It's got some good gags and, because it's abbreviating a movie, it moves quickly. Whole scenes are encapsulated in one panel and then we move on. So, the flow is a good one. There is a joke about the Count counting every time someone says "Count!" But, even Drecula thinks this joke blows so there's no worries.

THE RHYME OF THE THIEVING SHEIK: Maybe they should leave this stuff to MAD? In a small town, whenever they're low on oil, a sheik shows up and takes all of their cash. At the end, the town bands together and uses solar and wind power and the sheik goes broke. Wow! That's exactly how it happened! "It's a guy in a bed sheet! Boy, he looks like a nerd!" is my favorite line. I kind of shrug at this article. At least they gave it a shot but...ahhh...

PHOTOON: A pretty amusing one-pager with a baby saying "Cut That Jive!"

GAG LINES FOR EVERY PROFESSION: Wooh! This one stinks! Plumber, School Teacher, Doctor, etc. All of them ladling out the bad puns. So, I thought I'd transcribe one. I couldn't decide between Plumber or Travel Agent so here are both:

PLUMBER:
LADY: So what seems to be the problem, Mr. Plunger?
PLUMBER: I've gotta turn your water off for a month while I locate a new washer I need to fix your pipes. Now, I know what you're wondering "WATER we gonna do?"
L: WELL?
P: Yes. You could dig one.
L: But, Mr. Plunger!
P: This sort of reminds me of what the faucet said to the sinkful of water.
L: What was that?
P: You ougtha be in pitchers!
L: Well, couldn't you fix the pipes some other way - maybe clamp them together?
P: Do I look like a vice guy to you? Trust me.
L: Well...OK...
P: Boy, are you dumb! Anyway, like the dry cleaner said to the shirt, "It's time for me to press on." See ya!

TRAVEL AGENT:
TRAVEL AGENT: Well, HAWAII!!
LADY: Fine. My husband and I wanted to know if there are any trips available to Bora Bora?
TA: VENICE if convenient for you to go?
L: In March.
TA: ODESSA laugh! KENYA go in October? March through September is very popular.
L: I'm afraid March is when my husband gets his vacation.
TA: LIMA check it out for you. I'll call the woman at the airline and ALASKA WATTS what.
L: Excuse me, but do you always talk in geographic times?
TA: TIJUANA know why I BABYLON like this?
L: Why?
TA: IDAHO!!

When did Forrest J. Ackerman join the writing staff?

BIG-TIME PROFESSIONAL WEATHER FORECASTING KID!: A one-pager. It's packed and it's amusing. I don't want to give too much of this away. Find it and enjoy.

THE VERY LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: Another kick-asser. 5 pages of good laughs. An aside: There is one still here from a movie that I must see. "I know I haven't had much success with this trick but don't worry. I think I've figured it out." It's a big, castle laboratory-type room. There is a woman on a slab of some kind and a man standing over her. Spread out across the ground, there are bodies. But, bodies that have their heads and hands obliterated. It's actually a really dark and unpleasant photo and I'm dying to see the film. What might it be?

YOU'RE REALLY OVERDOING IT A LITTLE WHEN: I'll let a better man than me detail this bland one-pager. These sorts of articles are starting to wear me down.

THE CRACKED WORLD OF LINES: Too bad. We were really cooking along fairly nicely. Four pages of line gags are tiring. Although, the guy waiting in the long line for the disco who looks about 50 and says "I'm 35!" made me laugh He's 35! How old were 35-year-olds back then? I'm 36 and I still get carded! The hell? I'd actually prefer another disco article to this one.

MIRACLE WORKERS THE WORLD HAS NEVER HEARD OF ('TIL NOW): A Murphy's Law thing with fun art. A guy who can make it rain. The moment he starts watering his lawn - it pours. A lady can make hundreds of men appear out of nowhere - by wearing her bikini. Things like that. Not a bad article. Worth a first read because, although it is cut from the same cloth as the two previous bits, it has a little more life. And, that lady in the bikini. Va-Va-Va-VOOOMMM!!!

CRACKED'S GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR PET: Dog and cat and fish and hamster jokes by the score. I liked the hamster smothered in lettuce and the turtle strapped to the top of the toy train. Those are yukks. The rest of it is OK with some amusing drawings (the bunny emotions are great). This issue is starting to tire me a bit, unfortunately.

SPORTS SILLYSTRATED: The article is very text-heavy but it's got laughs. The picture of the entrants in the 50th Annual Slog City Knee Holding Competition is my favorite. This has a touch of Cowtown to it. (Remember that?) Some Olympics jokes. Jokes about guys sweating. The issue is slowly regaining steam.

NEVERREADY POWERCELL AD - A one pager and the funniest bit in this issue. Reminds me of Aunt Dinger's Sauce from the last issue. Funny picture. Funny ad line. Funny text. Good one.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE GAME SHOW KING: Nanny is back!! And, she's talking with Mr. Chuck Embarris, who runs all the big game shows. Basically, he's able to humiliate people left and right because his game shows have systematically lowered the IQ's of everyone in America. Pretty sound, I think. Oddly enough, Nanny doesn't really call him on it. Hmmm...Did Nanny get paid off? Is that why she wasn't here last issue? I wonder.

SHUT-UPS

1-3 Mother-in-law!

Total - They Saved My mother-in-law's brain!

BACK COVER: One-pager called "One Night at the Garden". Pretty good gag. A nice issue closer.

Odd. This one has some excellent highs but some bland, bland lows. Why? Why? A little more effort would make the whole issue sparkle. There does seem to be a little less BLAND on this one than the last one so Hope Springs Eternal!


Next issue: Some old friends are back. But, possibly, not the old friends you're thinking of.

Cracked #164: Sylvester was the janitor on the Nostromo?

by Pierre L.
November 1979

The cover is a fun one. Nice to see some variation on their regular themes of featuring the most popular person on TV at that moment. I haven't seen Alien in a while...maybe it's time.

POSTER: THE WAY TO CONSERVE ENERGY -- A switch with "Off" on both sides. Here's a surprise: There's no pee-yellow background to this one. It's black & white. Nice.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Busty gals, disco dancing...& Mork. They're all here. Pruif reeedeer: Rita Righta

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: People ike the magazine. One guy likes How To Improve Your Memory but can't remember why. Ain't that great? Next Issue on sale September 25th.

ALLIEN AND HOW TO WATCH IT: This one is a heavily censored version of Alien. A man (Bob Sproul?) says that he hates all the gore in modern day movies and is here to censor them. (He mentions Prophecy, Phantasm and Nightwings [sic]. Probably one of the few times those three would pop up in the same breath.) The censor does not like gore and he's consistently throwing up black panels to block out the sloppy stuff. At one point, we go out and buy some popcorn to miss some splatter. I know a lot of kids like the gore so I'm not 100% sure who this is for. It seems like a joke but this censor really doesn't like this stuff. Possibly they should have used Nightwing or Prophecy...films that kind of stink, rather than a very good one.

However, the variation on the usual parody opening is a nice touch. Although, I find the attitude to be a little too Puritan for my tastes. It's worth a read. Imagine how they're going to feel in May 1980 when we all go to Crystal Lake for the first time.

WHEN GAMBLING BECOMES LEGAL IN EVERYDAY LIFE: Three pages of stuff like a man dropping a coin in a meter and getting {RING-A-DING} "Free Parking!" Bits like that. This is one of those articles where all I have to do is say "Supermarkets", "Voting Booths", "In A Hospital", "I.R.S. Form" and At The Laundromat" and you can guess the exact jokes here. Well, in pure CRACKED style, an interesting, different kind of article is followed immediately by something Mad first did in 1955. Oh well.

THE CRACKED WORLD OF AMBITION: Wow! These jokes are older than in the last article. Two kids are arguing about whose dad is going to make it to the top. One says "My dad made it to the top already!" He's a roofer. This is less of a funny article than a "Spot what the day-old joke is going to be before it gets there" bit. I don't like it. At 4 pages, I'm aching...downstairs.

AUNTIE DINGER'S SPAGHETTI SAUCE AD: Funny one-pager, What magazine is this?

CRACKED TIPS FOR ECONOMIZING: Fun drawings and slightly better gags make this one a fun dawdle. "The Economy Drive-In Movie Date" Put your TV in the window and sit in your car outside."The Economy Winter Skiing Vacation" You ski off of your snowy roof. "The Economy Prison" (I like this one...) We see the corner of a prison. The warden is talking to a guard about "...the latest gimmick for cutting down on prison costs!" An EXIT door. Nice. Not a stellar bit but worth your time.

THE CRACKED WORLD OF MARRIAGE: Good God, did Henny Youngman write this issue? 4 pages of...oh, I don't know. Part of me wants to write down all the jokes so a collective groan can coruscate across the internet. But, another part of me is sleepy. It's a hot day. A Marriage Counsellor is talking to a couple: "You have to assert yourself, Mr. Collins...don't always do what your wife says. In a happy marriage..." Phone Rings. The Counsellor picks it up. "Yes, dear...or course, dear...you're right as always, honey..." There are a lot of "fat wife" jokes and then there is a very odd one at a buffet line in a restaurant...

It gets its own paragraph.

There is a large man with a cigar walking with a woman who is all beat up with an arm in a sling. Another man leans in, pointing at a very fat woman, and says "Pssst. I hear you're a wife beater. How much do you charge?"

Thank you, CRACKED. All class.

THE LAST OF THE CRACKED LENS: One of my favorite CRACKED Lens's. 6 pages of some of their funniest bits. There is a Collectors Edition of The Cracked Lens out. Go on Ebay and find it. My attempts at describing the gags will be a waste of everyone's time. But, I'm looking and I'm laughing.

YOU'RE GOING A LITTLE TOO FAR WHEN: You have three articles like this in the same issue! C'mon! "You win a weekend trip to a luxury resort, but squawk because the TV set in your hotel room is only black and white!" "You ask your girlfriend to brush off all those long blond hairs from your jacket...and she's a brunette!" "You rob a bank and then ask the teller to give you a free calendar!" It's just two pages and if you flip, real quick, you'll get to the next bit.

LITERAL INTERPRETATIONS OF BASEBALL EXPRESSIONS: Remember that bit, a long time ago, where they did literal interpretations of headlines. This one is like that. Two quick pages with funny illustrations with bits about "foul balls" and a player being "behind the bag" and one player "walking" another. It's fun. A little bit of life to it.

THE CRACKED WORLD OF DISCO: Thank God, disco has officially and mightily arrived. Unfortunately, this bit ooks just like the marriage bit and the ambition bit so I, frankly, could give a fat crap on Warm Thursday. Disco music is better than people say but some of it certainly does stink. Put on some Bee Gees and carry on.

TEN LITTLE DRIVERS: A poem about the OPEC nations squeezing money out of us for oil. 1989: "One little driver.../ His car he cannot run./ At ten bucks per, it will not stir,/ So then there'll be none." Mad? What are you doing here?

ONE AFTERNOON IN A PLASTIC SURGEON'S OFFICE: Decent one-pager. Auntie Dinger's ad is funnier.

IF MORK APPEARED IN OTHER TV SHOWS AND MOVIES: Star Trek - Kirk turns invisbile. Mork plays Spock. Kirk becomes visible again but his knees don't. Why not. He has...knee-monia! "Spock, go sit on your ears!" King Kong - Mork uses his egg spaceship to bring down Kong. Gone With The Wind - He makes a joke about Scarlet Fever. Why wouldn't he? Sherlock Holmes - Mork is Holmes and the murderer! I enjoy these articles and this one is fun...Imagine my surprise however.

SHUT-UPS

1 - Beans!
2 - Bums!
3 - Lynching Parties!

Total - BBL Big Bad Louie?

BACK COVER: "Oh, Those Long Lines". A long line/ gas station/ toilet joke...it's OK.

No Nanny! The heck! I always expect a parody and then Nanny. What that means is that the issue ends quicker than I imagined. But, to be honest, as nice as it is to give Nanny a break, all those endless Mad-like articles bore me to tears. The magazine seems to be tearing at itself. Bits (Allien, Mork, the Auntie Dinger ad) seem to be from a New CRACKED. But, all those other bits are straight from 1961. I don't know what happens next but I hope they break out of this soon.

Next Issue: Do you know anyone who saw this movie?

CRACKED #163 Na-Noo! Na-You know the rest...

by Pierre L.

Hey! Look at that cover! Apparently, in October 1979, Mork & Arnold Drummond were the only things happening in America! Ahh, well. Who cares? I love 'em. And, Mork will be gone soon. Enjoy it while you can. Pop Culture is fickle as shit (if you'll pardon an old French Canadian saying).

The top of the cover promises "Rock & Roll" (nice), "Adults Vs. Kids" (not as great), "Shut-Ups" (The best), Sci-Fi (I thought that was on the cover) & "Giant Poster" (Thank goodness).

The poster says "FIGHT INFLATION...AT ANY COST!" It's bright yellow and, I guess, they don't always have to try to hard. We love them anyways.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: "Rita Righta - prf fder" Nice. It looks like a good issue coming up. I've got my Comedy Pants on and I'm ready to cook!

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: The letters are fine but...I've just put in a order for an offical CRACKED REPROTER T_SHIRT! $5.95, awesome! I can't wait to wear it. I'll post a picture when I get it. Next issue: August 14th

THE RETURN OF MORK AND MINDY: It's just like the last few issues. More an actual story with some brief moments of parody. Until, we hit page 4 (of 7) and every kid's dream begins. Barnold shows up. Barnold Drumming! Now, we've got Gary Coleman and Robin Williams in the same article, not just on the same cover. And, it's awesome.
Baronld: Got any soul food?
Mork: Sure--
Mork holds up his foot to Barnold.
BARNOLD: Forget it! I'm liable to get toe-main poisoning!

Then, Mork takes over for Mr. Drumming and becomes a Dad! And, Barnold calls him a "Sucka!" Oh, if only Fred Sanford was in this, too. Is it the funniest article? Not really. Is the concept better than anything since the Fonz got visited by a UFO? Damn straight. Read and enjoy.

CRACKED'S INVENTORY OF PERSONAL SPENDING HABITS: You know you're a Cheapskate/ Spendthrift When... I've never been a huge fan of these sorts of artciles and this one doesn't convert me. "You spend more on a long-distance call than the fare it would take to fly there!" Guess which one that is? "You go to a museum and they don't have a postcard shop, so you buy a painting instead!" "You trade your dog for a few chickens so you'll have free breakfast egss!" Guess and guess. I can do this all day but...

AND YET ONCE AGAIN STILL EVEN SOME MORE FROM THE CRACKED LENS: This one is four pages of mirth and it has a still from "Brewster McCloud" One of my favorite films. Where's the DVD? This is always a pretty solid series. And, this article is no dfferent. It touches my funny bone and jiggles.

COLONEL JIM DANDY'S GUIDE TO GOOD MANNERS FOR DISCRIMINATIN' COWPOKES 'N' BUCKEROOS: Great title, huh? I love the illustrations in this one. 100% Pure Whitehead. There's a big sexction on "Courtin' and a Squirin' Womenfolk". A bit on "Hospitality and Table Manners". A page on "Engagement and Hitchin' Ceremonies". It's mostly cowpoke jokes and such and I'm not sure if it's actually funny but it's got a real nice flow to it and sometime that means a little more.

ONE DAY IN THE NORTH WOODS: Pretty decent one-pager. A tree and a toothpick.

SUPER PEOPLE: People magazine for Superheroes. "Dr. Marcus Chung demonstrates special acupuncture he employs to cure Super Heroes of their aches and bruises." This involves a sledgehammer to the lower back and, oddly, a really hot nurse with a short skirt that either shows of the bottoms of her super outfit or her panties. I can't figure out which. Here are the heroes we meet:
The Green Zephyr shows you how to be a cheap date.
The Blue Funk - who works as a Super Market Price Changer
The Purple Peacock & his fashions
Kid Demon and his sandwich delivery. (He flies to your window.)
The Fuchsia Minx & The Azure Hunk and their honeymoon.
The Silver Wrench is a great golfer!
The Green Kangaroo skies up Mount Everest.
The Purple Pelican lets his kite fly in.
Captain Drizzle hunts without bullets! (Read it and find out.)
Sgt. Sonic is a boozer!
Major Dynamo spins around on disco floors, putting on a great light show.

They're great, aren't they?

HOW ADULTS DRIVE KIDS NUTS: Two pages and they seem to be a long two pages. All the jokes they use here are ones you could have thought up on your own. And, the drawings aren't even that interesting. This one (along with the cheap/ rich bit) seem like filler. There seems to be a great issue bursting out but it keeps getting restrained by these day-old articles. They're hard, crusty and a little moldy.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR...ah...ah...MEMORY: Are you having trouble with your memory? Can CRACKED help you? Darn straight! The very interesting thing abut this one is on Page 34. There is a section on remembering a phone number an atrractive woman or man gives you. The drawing of the woman doesn't seem to be finished. At first glance, she seems to be naked. A second glance will show that she isn't but, my God, this is a rsique drawing for CRACKED! I love it so much! Is this a LATE NIGHT CRACKED issue and I missed something? If I was 9 and I read this, well, I would have learned something new about my body, if you know what I mean.

WHEN TV GOES COMPLETELY SCI FI: More Whitehead Art! On the Cover of "TV Guise", we get a drawing of the cast for "Little House on the Asteroid". This is followed by two pages of TV listings. "Happier Dazes" "With tonight's episode the nostalgic comedy is updated to the 1900's, where they still play 1950's music. In this episode, a space ship.." etc etc. This would be the best ever except for "the 1900's" It's updated from the 1950's to the 1900's? Huh? The rest of the article grinds on with parodies of every single show that's popular at that moment. It's all sci-fi'd up! And, it's lengthy!

ROCK AND ROLL YOUR EYEBALLS OUT: 7 pages of an Assistant Clerk at a grocery store becoming a big rock 'n' roll star. A lot of "Tune of..." sort of things. You Light Up My Like, Stayin' Alive, Hound Dog and others are parodied. This is OK. I'm not feeling terribly thrilled about this one. I wish I could. It gives me Grease feelings and those are never good.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE WEDDING KING: Hi, Nanny. She interviews the president and owner of Silver City Caterers, a Mr. Joe Mainpoisoning. Another poisoning joke? What was happening to the staff of CRACKED this month? The weddings he plans are ripoffs and he's a jerk. But, Nanny rips him a new one. Did she ever get married, I wonder? Maybe it's just me but...Nanny has huge boobs. What's with the erotic tinge to this issue? I'm almost afraid to turn to the Shut-Ups.

SHUT-UPS

1-Ants!
2-Pedals!
3-Home Movies!

Total - More beautiful than the Mona Lisa. Thank you for cleansing me, O Sweet Shut-Ups!

BACK COVER: TRAINING THE DOG - We're going Whitehead crazy! A decent one-pager but nothing great. Isn't the back cover part of the sales pitch for this thing? Couldn't they have smacked out a better gag?

Maybe it's my stomach but this issue tailed off fast. An article or two was high quality but most of it was treading water. I never lose faith in CRACKED but sometimes they try my patience. I know. They'll follow that with "You should try mine." And, then I'd kick 'em right in the slats.

Next Issue: It's no fun bein' an Evil Alien.

Cracked #162: Two Arnolds in a Row!

Cracked #162
September 1979
by Pierre L.

The cover is pretty darn charming. It has "C.E. Severin" written on the bottom. Who is that? This isn't our normal Severin. And, check out that swinging pee-yellow background. I'd love to know why they kept using that color. It's not particularly pleasing.

POSTER: "DO NOT READ THIS POSTER" & assorted warnings. In the end, you have to place yourself under arrest for having read this. Well, I read it and I'm beginning my two-year sentence tomorrow. I am writing this to help you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Will I. Goof - pruuf rder Certainly, Coleman is here. Mr. Gary Coleman. And, there is a small picture of the "DO NOT READ THIS POSTER" poster. So, I did it again. Four years now. God, I am a French Canadian Schmuck!

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS: Next issue - July 10th There's not much excitement in this one. Although, the Editors do call one of their readers "Stupid!" so that's pretty awesome.

DIFF'RENT STROKES: Notice that the title has not been goofed with. We really are in a strange era here. The 6-page story is kind of a parody. It keeps referencing the fact that Kimberly and Willis don't do a lot, especially Kimberly. And, it mentions that Arnold is the one everyone comes to watch and that the show just lays there when he's not on it. But, apart from that, it's a straightforward DS storyline. Arnold is trying to make money. Willis is in love with Mary Jean Figlips but she won't give him the time of day. They joke around. "Mrs. Carrot" is washing "Conold" in the sink. Why? "He came down this morning all black." Great stuff like that.

We are officially in the era of CRACKED where it's more important to provide a little extra taste of people's favorites every week rather than parodying it. You don't need to parody Diff'rent Strokes and Mork & Mindy so often. So, there's another motive. This is it.

Frankly, it's pretty awesome.

THE CRACKED THEORY ON THE RELATIVITY OF TIME: One side is "The year between your annual trip to the dentist seems like only a week." BUT! "The hour you spend actually in the dentist's chair seems like a year!" It's all like that. Some pretty entertaining drawings but I'm not much of a fan of this sort of article. It seems very 8-year-old to me but the actual content of the back & forths isn't really for that age group. Were 40-year-olds breaking into hysterics over the fact that working for two weeks feels like two years while vacationing for two weeks feels like two days?...Say, that is kind of funny.

THE CRACKED FACT PACK: HOUSING: Fairly entertaining. Lots of jokes about caves and igloos and a joke about the "Lone Arranger" and Tonto. A scene from the 1800's has three guys looking at plans for a home. One of them says "It's nicely layed out.[sic]" Another guy says "Yeah, real nice." But, he's looking at a large breasted School Marm passing by! Ho Ho! That's Late Night! There's a lot of text mixed with drawings and some Cracked Lens-style bits, including a photo from Freebie and the Bean. Great freakin' movie. The article is actually quite charming and has a fun flow. In fact, if you wanted to show someone one article that might be "100% Pure Cracked", then this is it.

SAGEBRUSH: Always amusing.

AND YET ONCE AGAIN STILL SOME MORE FROM THE CRACKED LENS: 5 pages of gag-whackery! I don't remember any of these so it was fun to read. Some of them are amusing, some of them are so dumb I felt embarrassed and looked around the room to make sure no one could see me reading it. But, in the end, fun wins out.

A CRACKED LOOK AT A GOLF COURSE: The jokes for this long running article (not the golf course bit, the CRACKED LOOK bit)are as stale as ever. Bad puns, strange associations and bits that make no real sense ("Well if you don't want to wait at the church, how about caddying for us?" said by a golfer to a woman in a bridal gown). But, if you start in the top left hand corner and let your eye flow along, it's got a nice feel to it. I didn't laugh but I appreciated the art behind it. Huzzah!

This next paragraph is by my young cousin Danielle H.

PRODUCTS DESIGNED FOR OVERWEIGHT AMERICANS: A subscription to "Stout's Illustrated" awaits you! Elephantine Jeans, Horses for Fat People, Big Q-Tips, the 1979 Troyota Manhanlder and stocking woven of steel...All these things await you within. Let fat people be as fat as they want to be! CRACKED will create a whole new world for them! Just have a look at this yuck-filled article! It's full of yuks!

Danielle really loves CRACKED and he's a chubby chaser.

Back to me...Pierre L!

CRACKED'S PLAYFUL WAYS TO MAKE WORK FUN: Walk your dog while on a skateboard. Pretend the garbage bag is a football while you're taking out the trash. And, my favorite, have you friends wear cleated shoes and play tag on the front lawn to pick up all the leaves. The best part about this one is that the three guys we see are all in their 30's. The guy who has his friends over to play tag in the yard has a big mustache. Many's the day I would invite my friends over for wine, cheese and a merry game of tag in the yard. Sometimes I wonder...was everyone who made CRACKED drunk all the time?

TYPICAL COLLEGE REGISTRAR'S BULLETIN BOARD: Colleges are starting to suffer from low enrollment. So, they hire really hot professors, promise classes shown entirely on TV (with special appearances from characters in Sesame Street!) and offer rebates for taking classes. This one feels like it should rocket off into the Satire Stratosphere. But, it really just kinds of sits there and, three pages later, I can't remember a darn thing that happened in it.

SHYLOCK HOMES AND THE CASE OF THE LIFTED LOCKET: A good time. Homes and Whatson investigate the theft of a locket and the disappearance of a wealthy gentleman. Some of the jokes are funny. Some made me groan so hard it shattered all my furniture. (Whatson asks which school Homes went to. "Elementary, my dear Whatson, Elementary.") The cool thing in this one is the return of...[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD]...The Talking Blob! He's back! The attempt to stop him back in Issue #152 failed and he's talking and eating everyone. Eating them alive. It's pretty darn funny. I like this article. More of these, please.

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE PSYCHIATRIC KING: This is good Nanny. She debunks those shysters in the psychiatric field. You know what? They're all nuts! The Psych King looks a lot like Dr. Sivana and that made me smile. Man, I loved SHAZAM! when I was a kid. And, you know what, I think it loved me.

SHUT-UPS:
1) Nice
2) Ice
3) Paradise

Total: Better than a big rack of Rubbed Ribs!

BACK COVER - THE TRAFFIC JAM: A one-pager. Very amusing and very yellow.

All in all, a decent issue. Nothing spectacular but a decently wrapped collection of laughs, groans and things best left forgotten.

Next issue: Guess who's back? (Well, if Gary Coleman was on this one, then the next one should be...?)

Cracked #161 - Mork & Arnold...Wish I Was There

Cracked #161
August 1979
by Pierre L.

Great cover. The two big TV stars of the Summer of 1979 spending some time together. Oh, I smile! Interesting background color, too.

The poster is big and yellow and revolves around leaving a space for complaints. There's a tiny white box on the bottom. Hey! You can't fit too many comments in there! Cracked, you whomped me again!

CONTENTS - D. Moted is this month's pruf rdder. Looks like a fun issue. Oh, and I found out why Sylvester bought two ice cream sodas for the hottest stars on TV...To cool them off! Get the hell out of my office!

LETTUCE FROM OUR READERS - There's the IQ King groping Nanny again. Boy, they love that image. (Boy, I love that image.) Next issue - June 5th. Best bit: A snooty man with a long mustache hovers over the "Friends of Cracked" names and says: "Hellooo, Professor C.W. Peppersnuce here for Cracked magazine. As you can see, my mustache surrounds the names of those persons who received Cracked at their homes." It's little bits like this that makes me wonder who the new writer was. Occasionally, we've been seeing little snippets of this. A joke that is just a bit more clever than the average Cracked joke. Others will appear.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF MORK & MINDY - Odd one. Certainly fun to read. But, not a parody. As the cover says, "Back By Demand" means that they've written an M&M article that could almost be an episode of the show. The couple go to Los Angeles for a vacation. Mork gets on the wrong bus and ends up as an extra on "The Chic of Araby" and then speaks to "Awesome" in the end. Apart from constantly breaking down the Fourth Wall and referencing the show's conventions, this is a straightforward M&M story. Almost like some sort of fan fiction or (as I've mentioned before) a portable episode of M&M before VCRs entered every home. Mork and Mindy don't even have joke names. It's interesting and fun and if it's purpose is to give kids an episode to access at all times, then it worked. It is not really a parody of anything, however. Although Mork's yell of "Right arm! Gravy!", instead of "Right on! Groovy!", when he's trying to be cool, is excellent.

LAST WORDS BEFORE THE HANG UP - Nudists, Ku Klux Klan members, potential suicides, crazed (possibly Nazi) bikers and Superman combine into two pages of hilarity that could have been from an issue in the late 50's with new drawings to update it. For example: The Ku Klux Klan guy, with ear to phone, is listening to a very jivey black man talk about how much he loves his daughter. Suffice it to say, these are the "Last words before the hang up". And, maybe, the last words of that caller's life. Does this article match up to the same age group as the previous one? I loved it but I'm an idiot.

Oh, there's a third page with celebrities getting calls. Woody Allen, John Travolta, Farah Fawcett...things like that. I'll let you get the jokes yourselves. Mail them to me.

SUPER MS - A Magazine for Lady Superheroes. And, it's pretty darn entertaining. The cover features LADY DISCO! She changes costumes before, during and after every adventure! And, she's being attacked by John Travolta with a huge knife. Nice! The insides are advice columns, stories about Dynamic Doll putting some ladies on Mt. Rushmore, wearing a safe on your head to keep your balance, using a special Atomic perfume to attract super guys, throwing manhole covers and things like that. It's a good article.

AND YET ONCE AGAIN STILL MORE FROM THE CRACKED LENS - 4 pages of yuks and guffaws. This is the one with the guy in bed with the skeleton. The skeleton asks the guy if her 'beauty sleep' is doing any good. It also has the picture of the guy being thrown of the balcony. This one's a classic. They're printed it a 1000% times. Enjoy it for the first time here!

THE CRACKED WORLD OF TEENAGERS - Hey! Those rock shows are real loud! Hey! Teenage girls talk on the phone a lot and act weird around boys! Hey! That one kid called that other kid "CLONE-O!" Well, that last one is new. I like the large panel with the folks at the rock show. The way it's drawn I kept thinking they were in a college lecture hall. I like the one "teenager" with the Letterman sweater on who seems to be straight out of a 1930's college film. Way to keep up with the times, everyone!

I can't stop smiling when I think of "CLONE!" being used like Nerd. That's good stuff.

IF GARY COLEMAN PLAYED OTHER PARTS - Incredible Hulk. Superman. The Godfather. The Hero in a John Wayne Western. All good. Arnold talks about chitlins a lot. He turns into the Hulk and Mork makes an appearance. Really, if you loved Coleman, like I loved Coleman, this was manna. This is an article you need to see. It's that good.

PHOTOON - Decent one-page gag. I enjoy these. I wonder if they were ever collected together somewhere.

CRACKED INVESTIGATES I.F.O.'s (Identified Flying Objects) - People see things like a man flying a kite. People report upon being transported in a plane. People report about going to see Superman The Movie. It's pretty amusing but it's very text-heavy and the joke is good for two pages, tops. Four is a touch too long. And, it seems like it might be in the wrong magazine. But, this time it's not that it should be in MAD. Remember Bananas?

THEW NEW POLOGLOID(R) NO-STEP CAMERA - Very funny one-pager that seems to be from the same joke space as the man with the voluminous mustache from earlier.

The GREATEST TV SHOW EVER MADE - "Life in the Neilson Arms" Boo Boo Kitty has been stolen. And, Laverne & Shirley & Mork & the Fonz & Battlestar Galactica & The Odd Couple & Archie and Edith & Lou Grant & Fantasy Island and everyone makes an appearance as they try to rescue it. In the end, who is the kidnapper? Don Rickles! (Remember his charming comebacks? "Sit down, you son of a bitch!" And, "You're one ugly MF, son of a bitch!" So, so charming.) Why? Because, he has just been cancelled on C.P.O. Sharkey and two "Don Rickles Shows". He's bitter. ("Your wife's a whore, you Sh*tbasket! Sonofabitch!" God, he makes me laugh.)

CRACKED INTERVIEWS THE FASHION KING - Best joke: We see the King's latest model...she's a skeleton. Nice. Apart from that & Nanny's charms, this one's a bit on the bland side. In fact, these interviews are beginning to sort of drag down the end of these issues for me. Sort of like the last song on an album that goes on way too long or tries to experiment and becomes a bit tiresome. Does Nanny retire? Sorry Nanny.

SHUT-UPS

1 - Fat
2 - Fat
3 - Angel

Total - One Fat Angel

BACK COVER - Great Moments in Transportation. Ralph Waldo Tarzinksi. Why is Tarzan Polish here? Does that mean something? There's a vine and Tarzan has some other folks attached going to work. It's OK. I can't imagine looking at it in the store and saying "I'll buy that!" but, now that I have, it's OK.

A good issue. Solid CRACKED is always good for the soul. This issue has a lot of charm and some solid laughs. Well done, fellas.

Next issue: A diff'rent cover artist. (You see what I did there?)