Good show, guys. I was familiar with the Jerry Lewis comic series only from the DC house ads in my family's 1960s comics, but never had a desire to read one--including the one with Batman and Robin as guest stars. Between the Lewis comic,
Cracked and
MAD, I see a pattern in their satires: breaking the fourth wall to take aim at the behind the scenes issues as much as anything else.
It seems the various parodies either did not know how to create a straight parody of the TV material, or thought it was more interesting to dive into the cultural impact of Dozier's brief run, hence the focus on merchandising, imitators on the street (and on TV), actor squabbles and fads in the broad sense, etc.
Perhaps it was wise to adapt the Dozier series in that way, because
Batman and
The Green Hornet occupied their own universe, and to the talents at
MAD, Cracked, DC and Marvel, they would be more aware or sensitive to ideas such as creator greed, jealousy, overblown trends, because that was an issue in their own field.
Whatever the case might have been, at least the Dozier series received a good amount of parody coverage in the 60s, instead of decades later, when it became "cool" to mock certain old series (e.g.
Leave it to Beaver).
There's one more parody that slipped my mind:
"The Mean Hornet!" from
Not Brand Echh #9 (August, 1968). At first glance, you might wonder why Marvel was barely getting around to a
Green Hornet parody more than a year after the series had been cancelled (even
Batman was gone by the time this issue hit the newsstands), but author Roy Thomas was clever in opening the piece by asking:
"Ya don't remember that, huh? Well, don't feel too downhearted, Charlie! Apparently, nobody else does, either..."
So, a few introductory lines covered Marvel's late-to-the-game adaptation. which sort of walk the same path as
Cracked and
MAD:
Hit and miss results, but two big cameos from the Peacock network helped to make the trip worthwhile.
