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Pretty much everything from Weird Al.
Word Crimes for taking a song about dubious consent and changing it into a legitimately educational song.
Definitely White and Nerdy, and Like a Surgeon and Amish Paradise are on par.
Amish Paradise came to me, even over White N’ Nerdy
Blazing Saddles. It killed the western genre for a long time because of how well it parodied them
Austin Powers did nearly the same with Bond/spy flicks for a while. From Wikipedia:
Daniel Craig, who portrayed James Bond on screen from 2006 to 2021, credited the Austin Powers franchise with the relatively serious tone of later Bond films. In a 2014 interview, Craig said, “We had to destroy the myth because Mike Myers fucked us”, making it “impossible” to do the gags of earlier Bond films which Austin Powers satirized.
That’s interesting. I always felt the newer Bond films were taking themselves a bit too seriously. I suppose this might be why.
And then they made Blofeld to be James Bond’s brother which was never a thing in any Bond movie before. That was just a thing they did in Austin Powers.
Austin pretty much forced them to play it straight. It’s was a stupidly huge movie back when it came out.
Hot Fuzz is the best buddy cop movie I’ve ever seen.
Just as Shaun of the Dead is the best zombie movie (come fight me)
Why would I fight you? I’ve got your back! Now, let’s go to the Winchester for a pint until this all blows over.
Hahah, such an iconic line
And no one talks about the 3rd film
I honestly couldn’t get into it, I find it less endearing. Maybe should give it a rewatch
I thought it was ok, but not even close to the other two.
Same. It was ultimately pretty forgettable except for the bathroom fight scene, which is literally all I remember of it.
Hot Fuzz is one of the better examples in this thread, because it doesn’t run solely on ribbing buddy cop films. If you’ve never seen a buddy cop film in your life, Hot Fuzz is still a perfectly good comedy with some surprisingly touching moments.
Knowing what it parodies makes it better, of course, but it doesn’t look down at them.
For my wife Spaceballs is the original and Star Wars is the spoof.
But more seriously, too many people didn’t register that Scream was a parody. That way it managed to surpass older slashers.
I wouldn’t call Scream a parody. Scary Movie was the parody. Scream was just self aware that it was a scary movie in a universe where scary movies exist.
I watched the original Scream years after seeing Scary Movie, and realized Scary Movie is just Scream on cocaine. A lot of the jokes are the same or just slightly different.
What’s the line between being self aware and a parody?
What’s the line between being self aware and a parody?
I feel like this would require a Venn diagram. Not so much a “this crosses the line” but some movies are parody, some are self aware, some are both and some are neither.
Funnily enough, I looked up self awareness vs parody, and the first movie based article specifically addressed those two movies.
To summarize, parodies show why those things being parodied are dumb, while self awareness is embracing the tropes while not taking itself seriously. Which answers my question.
What’s the line between being self aware and a parody?
How many lines of blow does it take before you stop writing a self-aware script and devolve into parody?
I saw Spaceballs before I saw Star Wars. I cannot take any Star Wars movie seriously now.
Imagine that.
A movie set in the future with advanced space craft yet has guys dueling with pink glowsticks.
I didn’t need Spaceballs to come to that conclusion when I was about 9.its not in the future though its a long time ago
Before Spaceballs, contemporaneous with Star Wars, we had “Hardware Wars”:
You’ll laugh!.You’ll cry! You’ll kiss three bucks goodbye!
My gf used to believe that Scary Movie was the original. She didn’t had idea that there was an actual movie called Scream.
Can confirm scream was one of the first horror movies I watched and I just figured the rest were like that.
Galaxy Quest!
Still the best star trek movie
By Grabthar’s Hammer…
I giggle every time about that please-kill-me-face.
Airplane parodying the airliner movies like Zero Hour
Dr Strangelove parodying atomic terror movies like Fail Safe
Dr Strangelove parodying atomic terror movies like Fail Safe
I legit didn’t know it was parodying something else. I thought it was just gallows humour.
Nobody watches the other airliner movies, but at least with Airplane! you know you’re watching a parody.
Edit: Per other people in this thread, apparently not.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a parody of a book by Peter George called Red Alert.
The book plays it perfectly straight. They started to adapt the book into a movie, but found they kept having to cut elements out to keep it from being absurd or funny because of the sheer…bullshit that is mutually assured destruction, so they leaned into it and made it a farce. And now just about no one is aware of Red Alert.
Dr. Strangelove was released before Fail Safe. The story goes that they were both being filmed around the same time and Kubrick used his pull with the studio to make sure Fail Safe was released later in the year.
Seems a really odd thing to insist your parody is released before the movie it’s parodying. And I don’t think there were all that many movies about the terror of nuclear war until after the Cuban missile crisis. It takes a couple of years to make a movie and Dr. Strangelove came out less than two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it was pretty much the first of it’s kind.
Seems to me like Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy, not a parody.
Fail-Safe is amazing though. And I actually prefer that it’s a computer glitch, that no individual causes everything to go bad, because the problem is the system
Naked Gun.
Austin Powers.
Team America: World Police
The dicks, pussies, and assholes speech was based on an actual speech.
by who? where can i read it? how did i not know this? this sounds fascinating!
That’s fucking awesome
I’m Matt Damen!
Gary?
Weird Al’s White And Nerdy, so much better than Ridin Dirty.
r/TheDonald. If I remember right, it started as a meme sub before he actually ran, then it was overtaken by actual supporters.
It was so weird watching that live.
Any book written by future historians that accurately talks about this period of time will have a chapter devoted to Pepe the Frog and… God damnit it’s all just so stupid.
I’m sad I missed that, actually.
or r/TheDarnold
when sam darnold starting tearing up the league with the vikings it seemed that sub was right all along
of course this is the vikings we’re talking about so obviously it came crashing down
The best parodies are humorous takes that treat the source material with repect.
Shaun of the Dead
Galaxy Quest
Army of Darkness (person out of time becomes a leader against evil)
Galaxy Quest belongs at the top of any such list. It’s widely considered to be one of the best Star Trek movies.
By Grabthar’s hammer, what a movie.
WHAT’S MY LAST NAME??!?
…Maybe I’m the plucky comic relief…
“Let’s get out of here before one of those things kills Guy” is still low-key one of my favourite lines.
Yeah! The wild part is that many hardcore Trek fans - myself included, of course - just take it for granted that Galaxy Quest will be included, and toward the top end, of any ranking of Trek films.
Army of Darkness (person out of time becomes a leader against evil)
So an isekai
How dare you‽ You’re right, but how dare you‽
thanks i hate it
Hot Fuzz is up there for me too
I guess Army of Darkness is an indirect parody of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court?
I am sure that is one of the inspirations.
I mean I’m trying to wrap my head around what work it would be a parody of. like, Hot Shots! is primarily a parody of Top Gun with some scenes parodying other films.
Evil Dead 1 was a horror film. It’s not a parody, or a comedy, it’s a horror film. Evil Dead 2…defies definition. It’s as much a remake as it is a sequel, it’s still a horror movie though it leans more on comedy. Army of Darkness, better known by its actual title “The Studio Wouldn’t Let Us Call It Evil Dead 3” is a horror themed action comedy. It’s not really making fun of an existing work the way Hot Shots! or Airplane! does.
He is an overpowered white guy in a new land like John Carter adventure type stories. He is a chosen one the prophecy foretold! Person out of time who brings knowledge from the future to win war against evil. The deadite army is a comedic take on the stop motion armies of the dead from B movies. He even fights his evil twin!
It is a parody of a genre, not a single movie or series.
I remain unconvinced that Army of Darkness is a parody. A comedy yes, but…Sam Raimi didn’t set out to say anything about the genre, he’ll tell you he just wanted to entertain his audience. A fun setting to throw your protagonist into to see what breaks isn’t necessarily a parody.
k
I’m not trying to convince you, just explaining why I see it as a parody.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
Spinal Tap. The reactions to it are telling enough: allegedly Steven Tyler didn’t think it was funny, and the Edge just wept.
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.
getting lost backstage is a joke ozzy didnt like because it happened to him so many times 😂
Bugs Bunny far surpassed It Happened One Night. His manner of speaking, saying “doc,” and his obsession with carrots are a direct parody of Clark Gable’s character from that movie, but modern audiences don’t realize he’s a parody at all and instead assume the carrot thing it based on rabbits’ real dietary preferences.
now i gotta go watch that movie. it apparently cause undershirt sales to sharply decline
Amish paradise. I find the song better than the original(s)
Nobody every mentions “I Think I’m a Clone Now”.
I can be at home while I’m out of town
Man, thank you for adding that (s).
Stinks that almost no one knows Gangster’s Paradise is a remake.
Also the Weird Al style parodies. Dog Eat Dog is one of the best Talking Heads songs ever.
Also White And Nerdy
Cunk - parodying Attenborough and cosmos style docs
Starship troopers - more of an active ignorance of source material
Happy Gilmore
Starship troopers - more of an active ignorance of source material
It can be pretty telling how someone reacts to Starship Troopers being what it is, and I love it for that.
Gotta squash them bugs
