Straight Dope Message Board

[NDP]

Originally Posted by Don Draper

Most young'uns now are probably more familiar with "Monty Python's Holy Grail" than they are with the actual Arthurian legends or the knights of the round

Similarly, most people below the age of 35 probably don't realize "Monty Python's Life of Brian" is at least partially a satire of 50s biblical epics like "Ben Hur".

[kaylasdad99]

Originally Posted by The Other Waldo Pepper

That's understandable; it's an entirely different kind of movie altogether.

Originally Posted by Nametag

It's an entirely different kind of movie.

Originally Posted by slitterst

It's an entirely different kind of movie.

It's an entirely different kind of movie.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by bibliophage

Northanger Abbey is in part a parody of Gothic novels. It isn't Jane Austen's most famous work, but it's probably more famous than the novels it parodies, like The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe.

Those were at least remembered by people who studied Gothic literature, but (according to Wikipedia) some of the other novels mentioned in Northanger Abbey -- like Castle of Wolfenbach and Necromancer of the Black Forest -- were so thoroughly forgotten that they were believed for some time to have been parody titles invented by Austen until their rediscovery by Austen scholars.

Originally Posted by Don Draper

Most young'uns now are probably more familiar with "Monty Python's Holy Grail" than they are with the actual Arthurian legends or the knights of the round table.

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are referenced so often in pop culture that I'd be surprised if many people saw Holy Grail without having at least some passing familiarity with Arthurian legend. However, I could believe that more people alive today have seen Holy Grail than have read Le Morte d'Arthur or any of the earlier tales. And Holy Grail does in many ways specifically parody tropes from the medieval tales, not the general pop culture understanding of King Arthur.

[Gyrate]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Who's more well known might be a split decision right now with the new tv series and the flop of the most recent movie, but many people aren't aware that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as a parody of Daredevil.

Quite a lot was taken from Daredevil/Elektra, including the canister that blinded Murdock being the same one that mutated the turtles and "Splinter" being an obvious joke reference to "Stick". But the whole thing was also a parody of four trends in comic books at the time: teenaged heroes (e.g. Teen Titans); mutants (e.g. X-Men); ninjas (including Elektra); and anthropomorphic characters (e.g. Usagi Yojimbo). Mashing them all up into one ridiculous unified entity was a stroke of genius. In turn, the TMNT spawned a number of parodies itself.

On another topic, the first time I watched Wreck-It Ralph and saw Alan Tudyk's name in the end credits, I suddenly realized he'd been doing Ed Wynn the whole time. Wynn's vocal stylings (probably most familiar from Mary Poppins, where he played the floating, giggling Uncle Albert) have lived on beyond their originator.

[Horatio Hellpop]

Originally Posted by erysichthon

You might want to look up the definition of "parody." Printing a famous poem with funny illustrations isn't parody.

It can be. Robert Crumb did some "Classic Comix" during his WEIRDO period, undercutting the meanings of various works without much changing the text. His version of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson" was particularly brutal, though his Krafft-Ebing's "Dementia Sexualis" was pretty good too.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by buddha_david

Why would they lie? Lots of songs have been recorded in a single take. And it happens to be kind of song (like "Wild Thing") that sounds better the worse you play it.

Because it's a better story than "the manager wanted us to do a cover so we said okay." And yeah, it's not exactly rocket science, but they had to come up with an arrangement for the song. It isn't just that they claimed to have recorded it in a single take; they claimed it was the first time they played it.

Also, Metallica never lied about Diamond Head cover songs being their own. They've always been very upfront about how their style was inspired by the NWOBHM scene.

I didn't say they lied. I said they only recently started talking about it. There are lots of interviews with Lars where he admits that they let people believe it was their own song early on.

[Jamaika a jamaikaiaké]

Originally Posted by erysichthon

You might want to look up the definition of "parody." Printing a famous poem with funny illustrations isn't parody.

Hey, be nice. It's an entirely different kind of movie.

[edwards_beard]

Originally Posted by Really Not All That Bright

Because it's a better story than "the manager wanted us to do a cover so we said okay." And yeah, it's not exactly rocket science, but they had to come up with an arrangement for the song. It isn't just that they claimed to have recorded it in a single take; they claimed it was the first time they played it.

I didn't say they lied. I said they only recently started talking about it. There are lots of interviews with Lars where he admits that they let people believe it was their own song early on.

Please direct us to any of their interviews. And again, what is "recently". The original release of Garage Days Revisted shows that they credited the correct songwriters.

Also, this link is to a show in 1992 where they had diamond head on stage with them to perform Am I Evil? (this footage was released on their first Fan Can) I wouldn't say 1992 is recent.

The Actual Performance

[furryman]

Hundreds of years from now cartoon characters will be wearing fruit covered hats, how many will know who Carmen Miranda was?

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by edwards_beard

Please direct us to any of their interviews. And again, what is "recently". The original release of Garage Days Revisted shows that they credited the correct songwriters.

Also, this link is to a show in 1992 where they had diamond head on stage with them to perform Am I Evil? (this footage was released on their first Fan Can) I wouldn't say 1992 is recent.

The Actual Performance

While I listen to Metallica, I'm hardly an expert on them, and I knew from the early 90s that that song was a cover, as well as "Helpless," another Diamond Head cover from Garage Days Re-revisited. If it was a "secret," it was an open one.

[Malthus]

A relatively ancient example: the Scottish ballad "the Twa Corbies" is, apparently, a cynical parody of the English ballad "The Three Ravens".

In the original, three ravens discuss eating the dead body of a knight, but remark that the body is too well guarded by the knight's loyal hound, hawk and "lemman" (mistress) - the latter herself dies of grief, after burying him.

In the parody, two crows discuss eating the dead body of a knight, and note that the coast is clear - as his body has been deserted by his hound, hawk and lady:

"His lady's taen another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet."

They then discuss, in detail, how they will eat his body (and use his hair for nest-building).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ravens

I have known "The Twa Corbies" for years, and only learned that it was a parody of the more saccharine ballad fairly recently.

[Dave Hartwick]

Groucho Marx's walk was supposedly a mockery of an 1890s fad among upper class East Coast young men. Nowadays it's also an exercise, named for Groucho.

[Peter Morris]

The Man With The Golden Gun is much more famous than The Man With The Golden Arm

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by edwards_beard

Please direct us to any of their interviews. And again, what is "recently". The original release of Garage Days Revisted shows that they credited the correct songwriters.

Also, this link is to a show in 1992 where they had diamond head on stage with them to perform Am I Evil? (this footage was released on their first Fan Can) I wouldn't say 1992 is recent.

The Actual Performance

The term I used was "relatively recently," which is to be fair probably misleading. I should have said something more like "after they got big." The last interview I remember it being mentioned in was the NWOBHM episode of Metal Evolution. I'll try to find a YouTube link to that segment.

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by Mahaloth

Is Deadpool a parody of Deathstroke? I know Deathstroke, but I missed that Pool was a parody.

He's not. He was a ripoff, who was developed into a humorous character in part to move him away from 'Stroke.

[Skywatcher]

Originally Posted by Horatio Hellpop

Alan Sherman's songs are better-known to one generation of kids than the classical pieces they parody ("Hello Fadduh, Hello Muddah" et al), but that was an isolated, localized effect.

Whenever I hear "Taste of Honey" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, my mind immediately goes to Allan Sherman's "Waste of Money".

[Malthus]

"The Old Dope Peddler" by Tom Lehrer is a parody of "The Old Lamp-Lighter", which has almost completely faded from view.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Dope_Peddler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Lamp-Lighter

[norvalnormal]

_Our Gang_'s Alfalfa singing "Just an Echo (woo hoo)" onstage to woo (who?) Darla--took me a half century before I heard the "straight" original version ...

[dougie_monty]

Originally Posted by Malthus

"The Old Dope Peddler" by Tom Lehrer is a parody of "The Old Lamp-Lighter", which has almost completely faded from view.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Dope_Peddler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Lamp-Lighter

It's just as well. Every time I hear that old song (usually a version by someone like Vaughn Monroe) I break down.

[dougie_monty]

Originally Posted by norvalnormal

_Our Gang_'s Alfalfa singing "Just an Echo (woo hoo)" onstage to woo (who?) Darla--took me a half century before I heard the "straight" original version ...

You mean the version in which the frog accompanies Alfalfa?

[Annie-Xmas]

I'm sure many, many, many more people know of Lady Mondegreen than of The Bonnie Earl O' Moray

[psychonaut]

True, but a misheard word or phrase is not a parody.

[bonzer]

Originally Posted by Sangahyando

There's some entertaining "interweaving" in the Flashman novels: a few characters from Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays show up in them now and again, including Tom Brown himself.

Rather delightfully IMO, at the end of the Indian Mutiny (the novel Flashman In The Great Game), Flashy is congratulating himself on his having made it alive and in one piece, through sundry horrific perils in that conflict, when he receives a present sent out from England: the book Tom Brown's Schooldays -- historic-accurately, it had just been published then (late 1850s). It's a gift from a bitter enemy of his, Lord Cardigan, which causes Harry F. to wonder what that's all about. He soon finds out: it's been sent to him exactly because of its very unflattering portrayal of him. He's still relatively young and un-philosophical about things; he gets furiously angry at this bastard Thomas Hughes for describing him in his true colours, and for the harm that this is likely to do to his reputation.

Not to mention that Flashy had just (inevitably undeservedly) received his VC for his role in Mutiny. One has to wonder about the extent to which Fraser had this all planned out when he embarked on the series.

[astorian]

Since others have mentioned Foghorn Leghorn copying Kenny Delmar's Senator Claghorn...

Today, Pepe LePew is probably better remembered than Charles Boyer or the dashing thief Pepe LeMoko that Boyer played.

[Penfeather]

I learnt the other day Monty Python didn't originate the phrase "And now for something completely different", it was originated by presenter Christopher trace on the BBC children's program Blue Peter, and later half-inched by the Pythons.

[Peter Morris]

This whole thread is obviously a parody of the lesser known original.

[digs]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

This whole thread is obviously a parody of the lesser known original.

Ah, but decades from now, everyone will think of this thread, long after they've forgotten the original.

[Suburban Plankton]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

This whole thread is obviously a parody of the lesser known original.

It's posts like this that make me wish The Dope had a "Like" button.

[Jackmannii]

Hah, two different threads which failed to mention the umpteen subtitled alternate takes ("parody" may not be the correct term) on the movie "Downfall", of which this is the most notorious and best example.

[BrickBat]

Here's an example of a case of that that really bugs me:

In the movie 'Downfall' there is an underground bunker scene where Adolf Hitler, upon being told the truthful disappointing news of the true hopelessness of the German military situation by a group of his top officers, goes into an epic maniacal raving diatribe against his officers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR5q0ajW8Ko

What bugs me is that that this scene is very often used by wags by substituting the original subtitles to ones used to carry some parodic humor about another subject. So much so that most people know that scene only as a stand-alone clip, and not that it's part of a great film. When told of the film, they're completely indifferent.

[digs]

Originally Posted by Suburban Plankton

It's posts like this that make me wish The Dope had a "Like" button.

Pretty cynical crowd here, we'd have to have a row of buttons:

◊ LIKE

◊ SMILING SARDONICALLY

◊ SMIRKING

◊ SNEERING AT

◊ DISLIKE

◊ DISLIKE THE POST BUT STILL HAVE A WARM SPOT FOR THE POSTER DUE TO A CAT THREAD IN MPSIMS

[F. U. Shakespeare]

For a time in the mid-1980s, the TV ads (for the Yellow Pages?) with David Leisure (who also played "Joe Isuzu") parodying Joe Friday were probably better known than Dragnet was.

[digs]

Even as a first grader watching them on prime time, I always thought The Flintstones were a ripoff of The Honeymooners. Enough that I'd get mad and ask grownups why that was legal.

And I wondered that about Yogi Bear, too... and hey, a couple of articles think Yogi was based on Art Carney. Specifically, his Ed Norton character from...

The Honeymooners! Bam!(vintage 60s Magic Microphone drop...)


Oh, and I'd bet a lot more people know Edna Mode from The Incredibles ("NO CAPES!") than designer Edith Head.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by Don Draper

Most young'uns now are probably more familiar with "Monty Python's Holy Grail" than they are with the actual Arthurian legends or the knights of the round table.

I guess it depends on how you mean it. While (for instance) I've never read any of the original Arthurian legends, their gist is a deeply embedded and well-known part of our culture. When Graham Chapman's King Arthur in MP&HG tells Dennis the Peasant how "the Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held Excalibur aloft" and so forth, pretty much everybody knows what he's referring to. Maybe we don't know the dialogue of the original, but we know the gestalt of it.

Same with Young Frankenstein. Maybe we know it better than the specific Frankenstein movie that it was playing off of, but we all know Frankenstein's monster (even if we think "Frankenstein" was the name of the monster, rather than that of his creator), whether we've ever seen Young Frankenstein or not. And we know of the monster due to the original movies. Young Frankenstein wouldn't have even made sense if its audience hadn't been at least somewhat versed in the original.

[digs]

Good points, RT.

Susan Sontag coined the term semiotics to denote things we ALL seem to know. I'd love to see a breakdown by age/demographics as to who "just knows about" what things.

[digs]

Quick tangent on semiotics, I worked in advertising, where we really rely on common ground with viewers. But when it doesn't work, it's hilarious...

We take you now to the boss's conference room...

"No, this is a GREAT idea! See, it riffs off The Hour Of The Wolf. Ingmar Bergman? C'mon, it's a classic! See, we shoot it on the same remote Scandinavian island... what? Why all the blank faces? It was THE movie of '68, everyone saw it! Max Von Sydow? Liv Ullman? You've seen it! So we build our tagline on the guttural Swedish monologue in the final scene, all my friends can quote it ... Stop laughing, this'll worrrrrk!"

So for a parody to work, enough people have to really know the original. Parodies that don't work? They guessed wrong (or didn't do their research).

[nightshadea]

wasn't the tick ben endlunds middle finger to marvel and dc whom hed worked for at times?

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by F. U. Shakespeare

For a time in the mid-1980s, the TV ads (for the Yellow Pages?) with David Leisure (who also played "Joe Isuzu") parodying Joe Friday were probably better known than Dragnet was.

I don't remember those ads, but I'd not be particularly sure of that.

If it was contemporary to his time as Joe Isuzu, it would have also have been contemporary to the rather successful 1987 comedy movie version.

If it was earlier, it would have been in shouting distance of Jack Webb's death, at which point the show was still well known enough that the LAPD honoured him by 'retiring' Joe Friday's badge number. (And Webb had been working on another revival when he died.)

[furryman]

Originally Posted by Don Draper

Don't call me Shirley!


Most young'uns now are probably more familiar with "Monty Python's Holy Grail" than they are with the actual Arthurian legends or the knights of the round table.

Similarly most people have heard of Don Quixote, but hardly anyone has heard of the dozens of Roland and his knights inspired stories that the book parodies.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by digs

Susan Sontag coined the term semiotics to denote things we ALL seem to know.

Not sure if serious or joking...

[digs]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

Not sure if serious or joking...

Or an idiot. Just repeated something that someone told me years ago, and I forgot to challenge them for a cite...

Or even look it up. So I finally did that, and that label goes back a lot farther than I'd thought. Sorry!

[Penfeather]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

Not sure if serious or joking...

Everyone knows its called Symbology.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by digs

Or an idiot. Just repeated something that someone told me years ago, and I forgot to challenge them for a cite...

Or even look it up. So I finally did that, and that label goes back a lot farther than I'd thought. Sorry!

Don't apologise. I thought it was a lovely illustration of exactly how the "everybody knows..." type of thing gets started.

Originally Posted by Penfeather

Everyone knows its called Symbology.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Kamino Neko

If it was earlier, it would have been in shouting distance of Jack Webb's death, at which point the show was still well known enough that the LAPD honoured him by 'retiring' Joe Friday's badge number. (And Webb had been working on another revival when he died.)

A revival was made and aired in 1989 (alongside a revival of Adam-12). Both shows lasted for two seasons.

There was then another revival in 2003 with Ed O'Neill playing Joe Friday. That series was also renewed for a second season but the studio made the inexplicable decision to bring new characters into the show and minimize Friday's presence in the series. The show was cancelled two months later.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by furryman

Similarly most people have heard of Don Quixote, but hardly anyone has heard of the dozens of Roland and his knights inspired stories that the book parodies.

Which included those of the Arturian cycle, so "similarly" isn't quite the right word... so, some of the stuff he parodied is sort of lost, but not all. And some of it came back alive during the romantic period and later with fantasy novels: Cervantes wasn't around to parody Ivanhoe or the Dragonlance, but damn if he wouldn't have liked to.

[terentii]

Originally Posted by Hail Ants

When I first saw Young Frankenstein on HBO in the early 80s I had never heard of the song Puttin' on the Ritz, so I had absolutely no clue what it was that Peter Boyle's monster was mumbling during the chorus! Also, I think the first time I did actually hear the song was a few years later when the freakazoid band Taco did their remake of it.

Surely you know the dance routine in YF was a parody of Fred Astaire's in the eponymous movie?

https://vimeo.com/31922652

Again in a Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder film, I had no idea the "We don't need no stinking badges!" line in Blazing Saddles was a parody from the old, classic film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Still thought both were pretty funny on their own...

The first time I saw BS in 1973--74, the cinema was packed, and I was literally the only one there who got the joke (I grew up watching movies of the 1930s--50s on TV). Everybody else was wondering what the hell I was laughing at.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by RTFirefly

I guess it depends on how you mean it. While (for instance) I've never read any of the original Arthurian legends, their gist is a deeply embedded and well-known part of our culture. When Graham Chapman's King Arthur in MP&HG tells Dennis the Peasant how "the Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held Excalibur aloft" and so forth, pretty much everybody knows what he's referring to. Maybe we don't know the dialogue of the original, but we know the gestalt of it.

Holy Grail was the first I had heard of the Lady of the Lake. The story I was familiar with was pulling the sword from the stone, thanks to T.H. White (and later Disney). It wasn't until much later when The Once and Future King inspired me to slog through Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur that I came upon the Lady of the Lake in her original-ish form. But in general I agree that the concept of King Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, the Round Table, etc. are pretty ingrained in English-speaking culture.

[furryman]

Originally Posted by Nava

Which included those of the Arturian cycle, so "similarly" isn't quite the right word... so, some of the stuff he parodied is sort of lost, but not all. And some of it came back alive during the romantic period and later with fantasy novels: Cervantes wasn't around to parody Ivanhoe or the Dragonlance, but damn if he wouldn't have liked to.

What I meant was I'd never heard the story of Roland before Don Quixote. There's one chapter where Cervantes mentions the titles of some of the books in the Don's library. I think you'd have to be an expert on Spanish romantic literature to know the names of the books he parodies.

[Crafter_Man]

Originally Posted by Chronos

I don't know how common this is, but I knew "On Top of Spaghetti" for years before I learned of the existence of "On Top of Old Smokey". And even when I did learn of the other song, it was through yet another parody of it ("On top of old Smokey, all covered with grass and stuff, I lost my poor sweetheart, because I didn't run fast enough")

There's evidence On Top of Spaghetti, which was published in 1962, is actually a parody of The Pizza Song, which was released in 1961 by Dick Biondi. The Pizza Song, in turn, was a parody of On Top of Old Smokey.

If this is accurate, then On Top of Spaghetti is a parody of a parody, and I further wonder if this is the only case of a parody of a parody.

[pulykamell]

I've always known "On Top of Old Smokey," and then the first parody I learned went something like:

On Top of Old Smokey
All covered in blood
I shot my poor teacher
With a .44 slug
I went to her funeral
I spit (or shit) on her grave
When everyone threw flowers
I threw a grenade

I didn't learn the "On Top of Spaghetti" version until much, much later. The teacher version I heard probably in 4th grade. The spaghetti version probably not until 8th grade or something.
Different childhoods, I guess.