I’m fairly certain the Trumpy Bear is deliberately marketed ironically (maybe the first ironic product?), Liberals buy them for the irony but Conservatives take it for face value and buy them too.
Not exactly what the OP is asking for, but…
When Conan O’Brien was still on NBC, they had a recurring bit where they’d show an absurd, over-the-top, laws-of-physics-defying action sequence from the television show “Walker Texas Ranger”. Then Chuck Norris would walk out on stage and wave, and the studio audience cheered wildly. Conan would swear they were real scenes from Norris’s show, and hadn’t been altered by his staff. They sure looked like parodies.
Her voice definitely comes across as an SNL parody…
OMG! It plays like a live-action version of some sick joke on Family Guy. Wow!
Directed by Crazy Joe Davola!
Bumped.
Look! It’s Jesus!
That’s the title of a photo book I bought at Goodwill**. It’s pictures and histories of Jesus, Mary, and such being seen in pieces of lumber, tortillas, rocks etc. The authors never make it clear if they are pointing and laughing or joining in joyous praise of the Lord.
** I often see religious objects at GW that make me ask if they are parodies or genuine devotional works. I LOVE Goodwill!
nevermind
From 1978 - an actual conversation:
“Did you hear that the new Pope is Polish?”
“OK, what’s the punchline?”
I enjoy collecting religious items that skirt Poe’s law or are show questionable judgement. I recently threw out a stuffed rabbi who danced and played Hava Nagila. He would no longer dance and I couldn’t find a way to get him open and examine his electronics.
That’s something you don’t often see written about a rabbi.
The well known South Park episode All About Mormons?. There are a few added details and of course some mild (by South Park standards) mockery, but the story of Joseph Smith is pretty much a straight account of Mormon canon. And hilarious enough that it led to a successful spin-off musical…
In the South Park episode on Scientology, some scenes have ‘This is really what Scientologists believe’ on the screen to help the viewer distinguish parody from the real thing
A South Park ninja! And yes, the Scientology one is an even better example.
I had a similar reaction to the trailer for Star Wars. I thought it was going to be a parody of the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials—sort of like Flesh Gordon, but without the sex. Some of my friends had the same reaction; they kept mentioning that hilarious shot of R2-D2 toppling over like a beer can.
Of course, once we saw the movie, we forgot all about that trailer.
I mean, yes and no. I don’t think a show like that really either is or is not a parody. It’s certainly not the case that there’s one very serious show called “floor is lava”, and then there’s another that’s making fun of the first one, and you saw the first one but assumed it was the second one. Rather, the show is somewhat tongue in cheek. It’s goofy. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s certainly a riff on something like American Ninja Warrior.
My daughter reminded me the other day of a program we sometimes watched on Russian TV called Look, I Cook! A hot Polish babe invited real chefs on to cook while she lounged by a swimming pool sunning herself and chatting with guests before eating all the food. At first I thought it was (like Posh Nosh) a parody of cooking shows, but they were dead serious.
As one perceptive guest noted: “You call the show Look, I Cook!, but you never cook! All you do is lie around and let other people cook!”
True, but I guess what I was hoping for was not just a parody, but a show about making a ridiculous show like Floor is Lava. I kept thinking that at any moment we were going to hear someone holler “CUT!” and then the next scene would be in the writers’ room, where Tina Fey would play the person in charge and we’d watch a comic “behind the scenes” story of producing the show.
I guess that show would not strictly be a parody; it would be a show that contained a parodic version of a game show.
The Honest Trailers episode dealing with the movie Jupiter Ascending does the same thing.(Look at 2:59 in, for instance)
And I actually like that movie, dammit!
“For his first miracle, he made a lame man blind.”