1987 Cracked Star Trek IV Spoof

From the July 1987, issue #228 of Cracked magazine, comes this spoof on "The Voyage Home," published significantly later than when the movie came out, which was in December of 1986. The cover is rendered by Severin (who passed away recently) but the inside art is by Bill Wray, whose style takes humorous caricature over into plain grotesquery. First, the cover, then the spoof.

Bonus: from the same issue, a page of Trek Hurry Ups...

Bonus: a publicity still of Bones in makeup from "The Deadly Years." He was only slightly more crotchety in this episode.

A rare costume test photo for the un-made "Star Trek 7: The Search For A Retirement Home."

1985 Cracked "Search For Spock" Spoof

Severin does his usual great job of capturing the actor's likenesses in this spoof on "The Search For Spock," from issue #209 of Cracked magazine, published January 1985. However, he does mix in uniforms from the first movie on the first page for some reason! No Trek cover artwork this time, sadly.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Bonus: Below, a nice photo of the cast from the same movie, omitting Nimoy since at the time these were released it was supposed to be a mystery if Spock was in it or not. Was there ever any doubt? I was thrilled to see Uhura finally get her skirt back, thanks to Nichelle's request. Poor Chekov didn't fair so well with his wardrobe, however.

Cracked: Star Drek: The Moving Picture

Last time, as you recall (if not, read the last blog entry) I graciously posted a Cracked satire on Trekkers (and Lord knows we're pretty easy targets) which was in the back of issue #169 of Cracked, published July 1980. (I've also previously posted an earlier Cracked spoof on the original series, here.) As promised, here is the cover spoof on ST:TMP. Severin does his usual excellent job on the characters, and the art benefited from being done late enough for him to actually see the movie before doing the story, which is not usually the case. Very often a comic spoof bears little resemblence to the actual movie due to being rushed through based on a script synopsis and a few stills. His attention to ship and uniform details are all very well done, unlike most spoofs. Enjoy!

(Click to view V'ger-sized scans!)


Apparently J.J. Abrams was influenced by this cover.

Cracked Interviews The Trekker King

(Click on images to view Nanny-sized scans!)
Try not to read any sexual subtext into this scene. Go ahead... try.

Talk about your Super-Nanny! Artist Bill Ward, (who passed away in 1998) was known for decades among men's magazine readers for his eye-popping good-girl art. Nanny Dickering was one of his more famous creations among the impressionable younger readers of Cracked, many of whom were just starting to notice those things, and who probably were becoming more interested in her killer curves than the magazine's humor.

This was scanned from my copy of Issue #169 of Cracked, published in July of 1980. The cover spoof was on the new movie, and I'll be posting that soon for your enjoyment or recollection, whichever the case may be... but this spoof on Trekkies was so good I just had to share it first.

This would be funnier if it weren't so painfully true to life.

Although many of us fans may recognize ourselves, particularly in the spot-on convention scene depicted, I can speak for us male Trekkers when I say we would never, ever make our wife shave her head. Wear a black wig and tight red mini-skirt with go-go boots, yes; paint her green and have her do an animalistic hootchie-kootchie around the room in a skimpy dinosaur skin, most definitely... but shave her head, no.

I do envy the guy having the money to live in an Enterprise-shaped house, though. Don't tell me you wouldn't if you could, either.

My only question is why they drew the guy as a look-alike for William Shatner... no mention of plastic surgery is made. Just a typical person would have made more sense; a spoof article would be more likely to draw a Trekker as a stereotypical nerdy-type person... but I suppose we should be glad thatHEYWHOA! would you LOOK at that rack!!! Um, er... the equipment rack holding the speakers and such, up there... yeah, that's it... (Whew!)

I do like his idea of Trekker-Land, which we sort of got with Star Trek: The Experience. But I wonder where the writer got the strange idea that fans were that defensive, though? It's a well-known fact that we only attack those making changes to new incarnations!

"Now, that Nanny Dickering is a woman I could really get into!"

Cracked Magazine Trek Spoof

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Issue 127 of "Cracked," published in September of 1975. This "Mad" imitator was on a somewhat lower rung, but I still quickly bought it whenever it featured a spoof of shows or movies I was interested in. This issue I picked up when I was 16 (going on 14) and lived in Macon, Ga. I used to get all of the spoof mags (Mad, Cracked, Crazy and even the trashy Sick) when they featured anything I was interested in, like Trek, Planet of the Apes, Kung Fu, and genre movies.

Although extremely silly, even as spoofs go, the artwork by Severin was good, with spot-on caricatures. One "plot" element is a Kirk sex-change which was the theme of a story in the "New Voyages" paperback collection of fan-written efforts the next year. But, what was with the red shirts on the cover?

I think it would have been funnier if all of a sudden the guys on the ship started chasing the female Kirk, like he did the women. Missed opportunity there to insert a little commentary. Today, "Cracked" only exists as a website, but it's a darn funny one and worth bookmarking. They even still have the occasional Trek article, like this one.

Since today's post centers around the silly, here's a cool candid shot of Nimoy as he "cracked" up with Kelley and Shatner during the filming of "The Apple." Perhaps they just got a load of David Soul's silver wig and eyeliner makeup!

The crew never knew that the whole time Spock was laughing at them behind their backs.