# What makes good parody? Give examples **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420 "2005-01-12T19:28:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/21 "2005-01-14T05:45:36Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > **Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Jeremy.** Best. Freudian. Slip. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/22 "2005-01-14T06:11:53Z")
Hee hee! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/23 "2005-01-14T13:58:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Bugsy Malone. It ain’t satire. It ain’t drama. It ain’t comedy. It MUST be parody. An all kids’ cast play Prohibition-era gangsters. So badly conceived it makes me type the next sentence backwards: smoking they were fuck the what? **Bugsy Malone** was a traditional movie musical, just done with kids. It was for people who love musicals, and is a perfectly good film. Gimmicky, sure, but entertaining – which is the point of musicals. Good Parodies: **Bored of the Rings, Airplane!, This is Spinal Tap, Take the Money and Run, Galaxy Quest** (though that’s more a pastiche\* than a parody), **Son 'O God comics** (in the old **National Lampoon** ), various **Harvard Lampoon Parodies** (notably their **Life Magazine Parody** ), the National Lampoon High School Yearbook and Sunday Newspaper parodies, and, of course, **43-Man Squamish**. Bad Parodies: The **Austin Powers** films (they get some of the parody right, but don’t bother being funny about it), **High Anxiety** (Brooks was just showing he saw a bunch of Hitchcock films – much of it wasn’t particularly good). The biggest pitfall of bad parody is when they refer to something but don’t make it funny. \*A parody is a ridiculous version of something real; a pastiche is an affectionate version – not necessarily funny. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/24 "2005-01-14T14:21:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings works best when it shows off its attention to detail – when it parodies the maps and footnotes, and in drawing caricatures of the peoples and characters. (IMHO the authors weren’t too good at writing a story, so it tails off a bit. The best parts are the preface and first few chapters.) I agree with you about the detail. This line sticks with me:“The land was rich with many an oast and tilth, not to mention rippling rilns and rolling ferndocks.” The line is _almost_ a direct quote from Tolkien, but that “not to mention” isn’t in Tolkien, and its offhand style points up the fact that these odd, archaic words for land forms aren’t exactly well-known to most of Tolkien readers, who can probably make sense of this only by context. Gotta disagree about their ability to tell a story, though. It;s there, and inwardly consistent. It just wasn’t there main focus. By the way, I suspect that a few folks here have been confusing **Galaxina** (a circa 1980 pretty poor sf spoof starring the tragically slain Dorothy Stratton) with **Galaxy Quest** (a very good recent SF pastiche (as pointed out above)) Other good parodies: A lot of the MAD movie and TV-show parodies The recent graphic novel parodies that have ben showing up in MAD Harvard Lampoon’s **Alligator** , their spot-on James Bond parody. (I don’t much care for the Austin Powers flicks. They have their moments, but they stray too fasr from the subject and get too involved with grossness. “giving James Bond a booger fetish”, indeed.) The book I’m currently reading – Terry Pratchett’s **Maskerade** , which does a devastating job on the many stupidities in Gaston Leroux’s **The Phantom of the Opera** (and its many incarnations). ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/25 "2005-01-14T14:43:14Z")
There were two laughs I got from DRACULA- DEAD & LOVING IT. These may have been brief examples of good parody in the midst of a bad parody. Or I may have just been so desparate for laughs, I grabbed onto the few I could salvage… 1.) Dracula-Bat’s big poofy white Coppola ancient-Dracula 'do; 2.) Renfield trying to steady his Master’s coffin in the ship’s hold & being slammed against the walls as it rocks back & forth. And a third potential laugh that didn’t make it- Dracula is reduced to dust, Renfield is mourning over the ashes & draws a smiley face in them -“There, you look just like your old self”. I would have laughed IF he’d drawn some fangs on the smile. But he didn’t. Whereas YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN had me laughing almost 30 (!?!?!) years ago & still has me laughing now. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/26 "2005-01-14T15:14:09Z")
> [@](#): > > **Bugsy Malone** was a traditional movie musical, just done with kids. It was for people who love musicals, and is a perfectly good film. Gimmicky, sure, but entertaining – which is the point of musicals. THAT must be why I didn’t like it. I saw this one night years ago the same time I saw Ringo Starr’s **Caveman** (another amusing parody that sends up **One Million Years B.C.** and **When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth** ) and assumed it was supposed to be a spoof. I don’t really remember singing except the big pie fight at the end. Definitely not my cup of tea. Okay. It’s a crappy musical instead of a crappy spoof. I thought it was just anther crappy Scott Baio parody – anyone else here remember **Zapped**? Bleccch. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/27 "2005-01-14T17:09:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > By the way, I suspect that a few folks here have been confusing **Galaxina** (a circa 1980 pretty poor sf spoof starring the tragically slain Dorothy Stratton) with **Galaxy Quest** (a very good recent SF pastiche (as pointed out above)) Um, I think I’m the only one who cited **Galaxina**. If you think I confused it with **Galaxy Quest** , take another look at my description of the former: > [@](#): > > Galaxina, intended as a parody of science fiction, failed because the director had no particular affinity or understanding for his own subject matter; it wound up looking like a porn video without the nudity or sexual content. If you’ve actually seen both films, there’s no mistaking which one I described. For all its faults, **Galaxy Quest** didn’t look like heavily edited porn. Actuall, I have a great idea for **Galaxy Quest** , but I’ll start another thread to deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/28 "2005-01-14T18:03:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > By the way, I suspect that a few folks here have been confusing Galaxina (a circa 1980 pretty poor sf spoof starring the tragically slain Dorothy Stratton) with Galaxy Quest (a very good recent SF pastiche (as pointed out above)) > Um, I think I’m the only one who cited Galaxina. If you think I confused it with Galaxy Quest, take another look at my description of the former: > > Quote: > Galaxina, intended as a parody of science fiction, failed because the director had no particular affinity or understanding for his own subject matter; it wound up looking like a porn video without the nudity or sexual content. > If you’ve actually seen both films, there’s no mistaking which one I described. For all its faults, Galaxy Quest didn’t look like heavily edited porn. > > Actuall, I have a great idea for Galaxy Quest, but I’ll start another thread to deal with it. Actually, you aren’t the one I was thinking of – you clearly knew what the film was. I suspect that other people citing **Galaxy Quest** after you either misread it or mistook **Galaxina** for the more recent and familiar movie. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/29 "2005-01-15T04:27:49Z")
I’ll echo others and say that a good parody _must_ display a good understanding of the original material. This normally requires affection for the subject matter, even if it’s just of the “it’s so bad it’s good!” type. It may be possible to do a great mean-spirited parody of a work you don’t like, but I can’t think of any offhand. I don’t think it’s available there anymore, but [Ugo.com](http://Ugo.com) used to have a series of Flash cartoons called **Behind the Music That Sucks** – a parody of VH1’s **Behind the Music**. I thought all the episodes were fairly amusing, but the funniest by far were the ones where you could tell the writers had some respect or affection for their targets. The Iggy Pop and Eric Clapton episodes were hilarious, and in their own twisted way fairly accurate depictions of those men’s careers. It’s funny because it’s true! The Britney Spears episode, on the other hand, was just the usual jokes anyone could make – she’s dumb, she was on **The Mickey Mouse Club** , she might have breast implants, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/30 "2005-01-15T07:30:57Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It may be possible to do a great mean-spirited parody of a work you don’t like, but I can’t think of any offhand. The closest thing I can think of is Shatner’s “Get a life!” fuck-you-very-much skit on Saturday Night Live. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/31 "2005-01-15T08:21:31Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It may be possible to do a great mean-spirited parody of a work you don’t like, but I can’t think of any offhand. If anybody else happened to watch it, I saw a rerun of Saturday Night Live with a Weekend Update that backed that up. It was basically a guy impersonating golfer Greg Norman and saying mean things about Greg Norman. Wasn’t funny. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420/32 "2005-01-15T17:11:04Z")
Would it be safe to say that a good parody should easily be liked by the people who are being parodied? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-good-parody-give-examples/284420.md?page=1)