Would Quiet Riot’s cover of Slade’s Cum On Feel the Noize fall under the definition of a parody? From Wiki,
By the way, if you haven’t seen the side-by-side Zero Hour/Airplane! comparisonit’s worth the watch—you’ll appreciate Airplane! on a whole new level!
Oh, c’mon, “MacArthur Park” is famous for being the Worst Song Ever, thanks to Dave Barry.
Or even likes human bodies that actually bend in ways that a human body can actually bend.
Not really. For one thing, that story is largely bullshit. They probably did hate the idea of covering the song, but Banali’s claim that the record is the very first take can’t possibly be true.
I was going to mention this. More broadly, there are many, many cartoon characters who are based on live-action characters or real people, and many are probably better known than the originals. These mostly fall more into the category of tributes or ripoffs than parodies, however.
Good point. Kenny Delmar’s Senator Claghorn is probably the most familar case. But Betty Boop’s singing style – the “boop-boop-a-Doop” that gave her her name – was lifted from singer Helen Kane, the “Boop-Oop-a-Doop” girl, as she was known. She brought suit against Fleischer studios in 1932, claiming basically that they stole her act.
During the trial, Fleischer’s attorneys showed footage of “Baby” Esther Jones, an African-American performer at the Cotton Club who used the same style earlier than Kane. They had a vocal recording, too, and a witness who testified that Kane had seen Esther’s act. Kane lost the case.
Esther used the verbal interpolation “boo-boo-boo” and “doo-doo-doo” to punctuate her songs, which Kane had changed to “boop-oop-a-doop”, but the difference apparently wasn’t judged significant enough.
Esther herself is thought to have died by 1934, when the case came to trial. She never sued, although she might arguably have had a case. From her pictures, she looked kinda like Betty Boop, as well.
I’d wager that you’re wrong. MacArthur Park is a very, very well known song. Weird Al isn’t as popular as his fans think he is.
But, I don’t see any means of settling our wager.
Three Stooges short “Men in Black” with its theme of “for duty and humanity” and “Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr Howard” pages is a parody of the 1934 Clark Gable Myrna Loy film “Men in White”
Maybe people under 30(arbitrary cutoff) are less likely to know the original.
I’m also thinking that Al’s parody got more publicity than normal due to it’s subject matter.
Still, can’t imagine how to get the numbers.
Hm, it’s not really a parody or a satire, but Lord of the Flies is clearly a reaction to The Coral Island. How may people have even heard of The Coral Island today (and of those who have, how many of them know about it because it was brought up when they were reading Lord of the Flies in English class?)
The Roadrunner and Coyote are probably just as well known as Tom and Jerry who they were parodying.
Well to be fair, "Bored of the Rings"was hilarious, a nice antidote to all the Tolkein worship that went on back then.
“Electric Boogaloo” as a subtitle to a sequel is well-ensconced in popular culture, but few people know or have seen the movie sequel title it actually came from (Breakin’ 2).
Is this a whoosh or do you have a very strange definition of “relatively recently”?
If the cut off date is around 30 yo, then I would think most yungins know “Are you talking to me?” from Aladdin instead of Taxi Driver. (To be fair, most of the Aladdin references)
Or The Simpsons’ Cape Fear episode. (I think about 50 more Simpson ones just popped into my head)
I listen to a good bit of Weird Al, but I’d be surprised if more people know Jurassic Park vs MacArthur Park, but I bet that’s also generational (I’m not entirely sure I know Weird Al’s version. ETA: Nevermind. I had that album. Huh. How do I not remember it? Memory is weird.) I can’t really think of one of his songs that I would say definitively is better known by the general population than the original. I think psychonaut’s suggestion of “I Lost On Jeopardy” might work, but I do hear the original “Jeopardy” (“Our love’s in jeopardy, baby…”) often enough on 80s stations that I’d guess it’s fairly familiar to people (like me) who grew up in that era, but “I Lost on Jeopardy” might eclipse it in the popular culture. Among Weird Al fans, sure, I wouldn’t be surprised that his parodies are more well-known. In the general pop culture? I’m not so sure.
Easily? I’m not much of a Wagner fan—I’d rather watch Bugs than sit through the Ring cycle any day—but Wagner’s operas are performed to sold-out houses all the time, all over the world, and that’s been going on for about 175 years. I doubt that one Bugs Bunny cartoon could eclipse all that.
I saw it for the first time last summer. I was about half an hour into it before I realized it was the original of AIRPLANE.
Here’s a list of over 100 covers of MacArthur Park.
I love Dave Barry, but his notorious “worst song” poll is largely responsible for the myth that MacArthur Park is an obscure, unpopular song. It isn’t and it never was.
That’s understandable; it’s an entirely different kind of movie altogether.