Cracked #287

Cracked's January 1994 salute to TV violence arrives with a cover by John Severin that perfectly captures the era's hand-wringing over the small screen — a wide-eyed, gap-toothed kid gets a television set literally crashed down over his head while caricatures of Beavis and Butt-Head grin menacingly from inside it, one wielding a lit stick of dynamite. The cover promises a Beavis and Butt-Head channel-surfing parody alongside riffs on The Fugitive and America's Most Wanted, making this a snapshot of exactly what had parents and pundits clutching their pearls in 1994. Severin's loose, expressive linework gives the whole absurd scene an anarchic energy that suits Cracked's gleefully lowbrow humor to a tee.