Best self-parody ever has to be Randy Newman’s in The Simpsons.
Over the years, Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels did a number of commercials riffing on their characters.
This one was probably the weirdest:
And then there was Jay Silverheels’ appearance on the Tonight Show:
Very obscure. In Phineas and Ferb Dan Povenmire wrote a song called “Boat of Romance” which was a reference/ parody of Love Boat. While doing Milo Murphy’s Law they wrote a parody of that song called “Toboggan of Love”. Since Weird Al Yankovic does the voice of Milo he sang the song as well. So, they literally “Weird Aled” themselves.
One of Stan Freberg’s finest. Another of his commercials where a famous person parodied their own work was the Ann Miller commercial for Great American Soups
It helps you understand it if you realize that this commercial was itself a parody of the Lark cigarette commercial where they played the William Tell overture while a truck rolled by asking people to “show us your Lark pack!”
Eventually they eliminated the William Tel Overture and substituted their own music – probably on account of the Stan Freberg Pizza roll commercial
Once upon a time there were TV commercials advertising cigarettes. Full-page magazine ads and billboards, too.
That was freaking epic. And the cow bell was a parody within a parody.
I found this… its elvis costello parodying his song “the angels want to wear my red shoes” with elmo
Daniel Craig is a good sport.
And of course he parodies himself plenty in his new self-written parody biopic “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”. He mocks his whole shtick in the “Eat It” bit, probably the funniest joke of the movie:
Al decides to become a “serious artist” and write original songs, coming up with “Eat It” a totally original, not at all parody song, which he is very proud of. Then his manager calls him up and says Michael Jackson decided to do a parody of his song, called Beat It. And Weird Al flies into a rage. “He took my totally original song and just changed the words to it? How the hell can he do that? Isn’t that against the law?!?”
Hilarious!
Nitpick: That was Family Guy, not Simpsons.
ffolkes was quite good.
Here I disagree. They were more or less just having fun.
Very obscure: a Sesame Street video (back when they were actual videotapes) we owned had parodies of rock songs and singers. One, for example, was entitled “Cooperation” and was a knockoff of the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Also on that tape was a little number about varying geometric forms called “Hip to be A Square” and sung by Huey Lewis himself.
Lots of singers have appeared on Sesame Street doing altered versions of their own hit songs.
Feist counts to 4
Nora Jones, Don’t know Y
Spin Doctors two princes
The movie “Young Doctors in Love” had several actors from the soap General Hospital send up their own characters.
At the end of Sting’s “Love is the Seventh Wave,” he sings, “every breath you take, every move your make, every cake you bake, every leg you break,” in a bit of a parody of “Every Breath You Take.” That drove me nuts for years, as I could have sworn I heard it on the fade-out of the original, but was never able to find it there. Well, that’s why.
Matthew Fisher, former organist for Procul Harum, put out a solo album, including “Going for a Song,” which is about a musician who is tired of playing a song over and over again in every concert. He quotes the organ part of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
James Taylor makes fun of himself and his audience in the song “That’s Why I’m Here”.
The lyrics are about meeting up with long-lost friends and swapping stories of what’s happened in life.
In the first verses, the friends talk;
Then James answers sarcasticly, referring to himself, and those silly folks who come to his concerts :
"Oh, fortune and fame’s such a curious game-
Perfect strangers can call you by name.
And pay good money to hear “Fire And Rain”
Again and again and again "
That was amazing; Roger and Pete looked like they were really enjoying themselves.