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!
Everyone knows its called Symbology.
Don’t apologise. I thought it was a lovely illustration of exactly how the “everybody knows…” type of thing gets started.
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.
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.
Surely you know the dance routine in YF was a parody of Fred Astaire’s in the eponymous movie?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 
I call it Nameology.
The Battle of New Orleans was more of a novelty song than a parody but there was a parody called The Battle of Kookamonga
More of a tribute than a parody but there’s a Bugs Bunny cartoon that uses Spike Jones Hawaiian War Chant which is another parody that’s more well known than the original.
I don’t think I’ve heard it presented unironically since about 1974. And then only because there was a cat on WJW radio in Cleveland named MacArthur and he used it as the theme song for his talk show. With intentional irony, IIRC.
Ah, the original first-person shooter in Gothic Literature. I recall the game slowing way down when Matilda reloaded her flintlocks in real time. Eliza Parsons had a long career, publishing Castle of Wolfenbach in 1793 and Creating a Worksheet in Excel 2002 more than two centuries later.
It was even more obvious when the lost tapes reappeared. Every last one of them, IIRC, corresponded to a Flintstones episode, down to the dialog.
Betty Boop is a lot more famous than Helen Kane, the 20s vaudeville singer with the baby-doll flapper look, high breathy voice, and the boop-boop-a-doop catchphrase.
Spaceballs. Have the young kids these days even heard of Star Wars?
I’ve seen old interviews where Hetfield said that Metallica is basically the two Heads, Diamond and Motor, smooshed together.
I image many people associate “Oh, the humanity” with WKRP’s turkey drop and not the Hindenberg disaster. Ditto “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” and not GWTW’s “…I will never be hungry again.”
How many people know the poem Casabianca?
Okay, and how many know:
*
The boy stood on the burning deck
His heart was all a-quiver
He gave a cough, his leg fell off
And floated down the river.
*
or one of 100 other versions?
Yogi Bear vs. Yogi Berra. And if you believe the similarity in names was a coincidence, I will sell you a bridge.
Yes, so I assumed Airplane was a parody of Airport. I’d never heard of Zero Hour back then.