Today I’ve started seeing (3 or 4 times now) a new commercial with a familiar beat to it, and recognized it from a catchy song from My Little Pony. Judging that the commercial was unlikely to be based on that, I googled to find that the MLP song was based on this. I had no idea.
Anyone else got examples of things that it took you forever to realize was an intentional play on something else?
Well that definitely went over my head and I watch MLP regularly.
There’s a fairly popular anime meme with a warrior woman “dressed” with bandages wrapped around her chest. I’m pretty sure this is a reference to something Japanese, but I don’t know what. Coincidentally they did this in a MLP comic.
That’s a sarashi.
Der Tag des Malers (The Night of the Painter)(1997) by Werner Nekes. A review mentioned Balzac’s Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu and Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse which I’m familiar with, but it’s a very difficult film if you don’t recognize all the paintings being referenced.
I gave up a long time ago. I stopped listening to pop music in the 90’s, rarely watch network TV (online only), no cable or satellite. Keeping up with references to pop culture is too much work now.
I watched * Kentucky Fried Movie* a long time ago. It wasn’t until years later when I watched Enter the Dragon that I realised that the one segment was a parody.
With the exception of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, all of the poems that Lewis Carroll parodied in his Alice books have been forgotten. I had never read any of the originals until I saw them in Martin Gardner’s annotation.
Same here, but I found the parody Fistful of Yen to be a far more entertaining film than Enter the Dragon, which struck me as pretentious and dull.
Loo: And who are they?
Dr. Klahn: Just lost drunken men who don’t know where they are and no longer care.
Loo: And these?
Dr. Klahn: These are lost drunken men who don’t know where they are, but do care! And these are men who know where they are and care, but don’t drink.
I can’t remember anything from Enter the Dragon, But I remember this!
Scientist 1: A toy robot!! [panics, smashes through glass window to escape]
Scientist 2: A toy robot? [stares at robot, confused by his colleague’s reaction]
Toy Robot: Eat lead, sucker. [shoots Scientist #2 with chest-mounted machine gun]
Scientist #2: Aaaahh! [mortally wounded, smashes through second glass window]
I bet most country fans who listen to “Bud Light Blue” by Coffey Anderson will go to their graves without ever learning where the refrain comes from.
Many Looney Tunes ones from old celebrities of the times that I only understood through this board or by googling…
“How do you do!”
“I wish my friend George was here”
“I’m only three and a half years old”
etc.
Gulliver’s Travels is one for sure. I know Swift is parodying politics and morality with the different groups of people that Gulliver meets on his journeys and I’ve read about them and had them explained in classes but we are pretty far removed from that time so most of it, while still appreciated, doesn’t quite hit home for us.
There’s a non-Bugs Looney Tunes that is a sendup of Hollywood celebrities, that was completely obscure to me. This was shown in the normal Saturday morning Bugs Hour, and I can’t imagine any 8 year old in 1970 getting anything out of it.
If you want a quick guide to the references in Gulliver’s Travels, see if you can find a copy of The Annotated Gulliver’s Travels, part of that whole “Annotated” series. The annotations are by Isaac Asimov!
https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Gullivers-Travels-Jonathan-Swift/dp/0517539497
(Wow! It’s gotten expensive. Look for a copy in the library.)
Ah!! I remember one: the references within Loony Tunes to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men - the whole Abominable Snowman with a Bunny Rabbit named George, I came to realize, is about George and Lenny in OMaM, where Lenny is the snowman, and Bugs is a combination of George and the Thing that Lenny can’t control himself over, like the bunny he killed, which happens before the book starts but is referred to.
Whoa.
Voice from the back: Where am I?
Dr. Klahn: Put this man in another cell. And get him a drink!
Guard: What would you like to drink?
Prisoner: I don’t care.
Regards,
Enormous Genitalia
This is Klaw’s bodyguard. He is tough and ruthless. This is his chauffer. He is rough and toothless.
I was a big fan of Brendon Small’s “Home Movies”. It was a Squiggle-animation series about a boy and his friends who made little movies. His next series was “Metalocalypse”. It was about a Part-American, part-Scandinavian death-metal band Dethklok. It was amusing but I’m sure most of it went over my head since I was not a fan of that music genre. I’m looking at a list of musician guest voices and it looks like it would be impressive if one were into the music.
I loved both of those shows, but have no recollection of any of the guest voices. Huh.