For the season finale of MOUNTAIN COMICS, Rob welcomes podcaster extraordinaire Dan Budnik to discuss CRACKED #199!
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Cracked, the RC Cola of humor mags. When I was a kid the schoolyard exchange rate was 2 Cracked for a MAD.
Cracked introduced me to the incredible art of John Severin. I remover seeing his work and being aggravated that he was wasting his talent on a humor magazine. I had no idea that he had a legacy of war and western comics. It wasn’t until Marvel started the Savage Tales B&W magazine that I would see him do action and adventure. Now I have numerous volumes reprinting his excellent work.
This simple humor was EXACTLY the type of thing to have me laughing endlessly. Nothing to think about. Just brief and to the point. A one page mediocre gag worked better for me than a multiple page humor story, no matter how brilliant and funny it was. I don’t have time for all these words! The bell is about to rind and Sister Cecil is gonna confiscate this magazine! Get to the funny already!
Thank as always for another trip back. I look forward to Mountain Comics every summer. It’s my own little vacation back in time to sunny days, reading a pile of comics, with nothing to worry about beside how Spidey was gonna stop Doc Ock this time.
So, until next year, it’s time to gather up my stuff, put the lounge chair back in the garage, make sure the barbecue coals are extinguished, and return to the present.
Interesting topic, and interesting to know that there were some bona-fide Cracked-heads back in the day. I think I only had one issue of Cracked back then; I was more of a fan of the other, other b&w Mad knock-off, Crazy. Although even then I had only a few issues – the price, which ranged from 75 cents to a buck at the time, was pretty hefty for me, and could be used to buy several comic books. (It’s the same reason why I never bought an issue of Mad – I always read copies owned by school chums, cousins, etc.). Anyway, I’m sure the humor in Crazy was no better than what was served up in Cracked, but like you guys, I got a kick out of it in my late preteen/early teen years. And Crazy often had work by John Severin’s kid sister, Marie.
Whatever the case, I really enjoyed your conversation – it has me interested in Cracked, and maybe even regretting slightly that I didn’t get more of those as a youngster. So thanks for a great show, guys, and thanks, Rob, for another great vacation in the mountains. Like Matt Sirois, I’m sorry to see another season pass…
Concerning the mother daughter commercial. There was a commercial where a mother and daughter compared their hands to show how young mom’s hands looked. I found a 1962 version (my birth year) so there must have been a 1970s version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7m4jiYZFl8
Travis Morgan
Yes, there definitely were ’70s and also ’80s versions – I vaguely recall seeing several variations on the theme of moms with young-looking hands thanks to the amazing properties of their dish soap.
The only other one I could find on YouTube, though, is undated, but based on their clothing and hairstyles, I’d say it’s from the early to mid-1980s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVg6lnvp17E
Actually, more likely mid- to late ’80s now that I think about it…
Fun show, guys! I bought both Cracked and MAD as a kid and teen, and I have to say, sometimes I preferred Cracked! It may have been the emphasis on monsters, but I honestly think it’s because I always tend to root for the underdog, in some ways. I rarely like the “#1” band, movie, TV show, super hero, etc. I think that’s why I have always been more of a Batman guy…although I think now he and Superman have permanently flipped slots. Oh, and the Bill Ward/Nanny Dickering art!!!
Super fun episode! Can’t wait for you to bring Dan back for a Mountain Comics/MASHCast crossover episode. 🙂
https://cracked.fandom.com/wiki/M*A*S*H
I am a big fan of mountain comics as a show so glad I got another season and sad to see it go on hiatus. As I have said before, this resonates with ‘beach comics’ for me given my families yearly move to a summer home.
I was not a huge fan of Mad or Cracked. The occasional buy would be for them covering stuff I did like – Star Wars, Superman, etc. So I didn’t have many in my collection. But my cousin did and when I visited there I would try to read as much as I could. I did buy lots of Mad compilation paperbacks, usually at yard sales in the summer and definitely brought them to the beach as reading material.
The stuff covered in this issue sounds like standard material. I will say I chuckled now and then at hearing it. And looked up Nanny Dickering on Google to see the various takes on her again.
See you next summer!
Great episode as usual, Rob, and especially good handling of the non-standard source material. I spent multiple hours and dollars on Cracked and its competitors, too. Dan’s energy and knowledge are always welcome!
Great episode, even though that era of Cracked was a bit past my time – being slightly older than y’all, I read more of the late 60’s/early 70’s era, which tended to be more space race focused than pop culture oriented. I did prefer Mad, but Cracked was still a fun read. And as was mentioned above, the hand thing was from a then-current popular ad campaign. Enjoy your winter break, looking forward to spring!
You covered The Middleman, Dan? Fun series, I’m gonna have to go give that a listen. The creator you’re thinking of is Javier “Javi” Grillo-Marxuach, which is indeed a mouthful, He’s also known for his work on Lost, The 100, and a variety of other series, as well as writing for comics and being a Doctor Who fan.
Mad Magazine was a big part of my youth, and so Cracked was too, filling in the, uhm, cracks on Madless months (not that I understood that). Whether or not either of these magazines would actually be funny to my adult self decades on, I often credit them for teaching me the building blocks of a “joke” and helped fine-tune my own humor.