Sometimes the Simpsons parodied things so well, that it’s only later on in life that I realize iconic and hilarious Simpson moments were actually parodies.
The Cape Fear episode. The Citizen Kane episode. The Thelma and Louise episode. The Planet of the Apes musical.
fuckin’ classics
The Planet of the Apes musical.
This one threw my head for a spin. Had to take a deep dive to disentangle what was original and what the Simpsons added.
And frankly, some of the Simpsons musical numbers would have done the original films credit.
Dr. Zaisu song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2E1m90YSpA
Dragon Ball Abridged
This does not fit the criteria so im sorry in advance, but it reminded me of the “Somebody That I Used To Know” song and that there is a really cool “5 people 1 guitar” cover that has 200M views which is a good 8% of the original video with 2.4B views.
They actually use 9 hands on that guitar (10 if you consider the one holding the top end)
There’s a difference between a parody and a cover. Weird Al does parodies, this is a cover.
The venture Bros
What were they parodying ?
Saturday Morning cartoons, super heros and stuff.
Spinal Tap. The reactions to it are telling enough: allegedly Steven Tyler didn’t think it was funny, and the Edge just wept.
getting lost backstage is a joke ozzy didnt like because it happened to him so many times 😂
They were just jealous they couldn’t go to 11.
Steven Tyler didn’t think it was funny
This Is Spinal Tap should have had one of the band members with a pre-pubescent girlfriend, but I guess that would have been too over the top even for them.
In case anybody doesn’t know this, '70s rockers were notorious for their consumption of literally underaged girls. Tyler in particular even assumed legal guardianship of his bit of jailbait so he could take her on tour with him.
I think the Documentary Now! episode, “Juan Likes Rice and Chicken” is better than Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Link for the lazy
Don Quixote
The Princess Bride
Cold Comfort FarmI think a lot of Whitest Kid’s U Know stuff genuinely transcends the topics its mocking by how good it is.
For example: WKUK - Kennedy Assasination
That song at 3:41 swims into my head from time to time, when I’m feeling stressed or overworked or uncertain about the future:
Somewhere out in space there is a place,
Where I can do what I want to,
And all at my own pace.Somewhere out of time I hope I’ll find,
A place where I can just unwind,
And work on my own mind.Oh send me a signal, oh give me a prayer,
I just need to know that there’s some spot out there,
Where I could be me and you could be you…Just a pure sentiment longing for free time, personal agency, co-existence, brotherhood, and harmony – which I think are topics everyone can click with.
I’ve spent the last couple of hours re-watching WKUK skits because of you.
Man those guys are funny.
Great actors too, Trevor himself had just such a way with expression delivering lines both wacky and straight
RIP local sexpot.
Spaceballs.
Merchandising! Merchandising! Spaceballs the t-shirt! Spaceballs the lunchbox! Spaceballs the FLAMETHROWER!!! The kids love this one.
Does it count if I only read summaries of both works, not the works itself?
“A true story” is a parody on the “travelogue” that were popular in ancient Greece, like Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad. 800 years later, they had a resurgence in the Roman Empire, like when Virgil wrote the Aeneid. Still 200 years later, A True Story was written by Lucian.
In the preface, Lucian complains that the genre was ruined by authors making up unbelievable tales to trick their dumb readership. So he thinks it better to just admit that all he says is a lie.
The story goes on how Lucian then set sail across the Atlantic, got caught in a storm so terrible it blew him to outer space, and meet the all-male civilisation that lives on the moon, who carry their children through the calf of their leg.
Lucian and his crew return to Earth, get swallowed by a whale, explore the Islands of the blessed, see the Sinners being punished (the ones who lied in their stories being punished the hardest) and reach a distant continent. Lucian says what happened there will be shared in the sequel, which a comment describes as the biggest lie of all.
Gintama.
Took me a while to realize the whole post-war samurai living in an era of peace premise was just Kenshin but with aliens.
people keep saying Idiocracy but i wouldnt consider it a parody, but a satire, and also i cant help but complain that the film makes more of an accidental pro-eugenics statement than anything about authoritarian politics
Does idiocracy count?
No, it’s satire. Or it used to be anyway. But it’s not a parody of anything.
I think we’re seeing things happen that not even Idiocracy could predict.
It’s not a parody it’s a documentary so no.
the onion
Airplane! lapped Zero Hour! so hard most people don’t know about the existence of the latter
it also spawned the whole genre and although Leslie Nielsen made lots of movies before this, his legacy is this as well as the other parody movies
Yeah they cast a lot of guys like Peter Graves and Robert Stack that normally appeared in the over-serious thriller type movies. So Leslie Nielsen was just one of that group of actors they cast to have guys deliver silly lines in that stern serious tone that they did in actual serious movies.
But of course Leslie Nielsen was amazing at it, and didn’t need to do those over-serious movies anymore. And don’t call me Shirley!
It definitely remade Leslie Nielsen’s career. He (along with Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges) were known as very serious drama actors, and the thing is, they play their roles as such. Although they may be absurd, they deliver their lines perfectly seriously.
Leslie Nielson in particular was so hysterical his career shifted into comedy, starring in Police Squad! and The Naked Gun, and then a string of movies mostly not made by the ZAZ that used him wrong, frankly. Where they have him being silly and making funny faces…he was excellent at delivering an absurd line as if it was perfectly serious.
Robert Stack apparently kept trying to play it like a comedy, and it took them a while to convince him to play it completely straight.
It really worked that Johnny played by Stephen Stucker was the only character who seemed to know what genre of film he was in. You get one character who gets to be wacky.
he represents the perfect straight man. the end of airplane when he goes back to the empty cockpit, it’s the coup de grace
There’s that perfect moment where he and Peter Graves share a moment. “How long until you can land this plane.” “I don’t know.” “Well can’t you guess?” “Well, not for another two hours.” “…You can’t take a guess for another two hours?” The fun of it is they got serious acting talent to deliver this dumb midwest humor dialog.
I’ve seen a lot of people mistake it for a parody of Airport, which…I think there’s a reference or two in there but Airplane! is a parody of airline disaster thrillers in general and Zero Hour specifically. The sick kid and the stewardess singing with the guitar is actually a reference to Airport 1975.
Airplane! II, The Sequel is a parody of Airport, with the whole bomb in the suitcase plot.
TIL Airplane! is a parody.
It’s such a close parody that they actually secured the rights to remake it. Much of the dialogue is exactly the same.
Shit, I’m going to have to watch the original.