So many of the US comedies that everyone takes for granted over here… I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Gilligan’s Island etc. Never seen any of them.
I also saw the Brady Bunch Movie on HBO without ever having seen an episode of the actual show.
50sThe Continental, an actual TV show circa 1952, inspired a MAD magazine parody and a recurring SNL character. Guess which versions I’m familiar with.
I have never seen *Airport * or *Zero Hour * or any of those disaster movies.
I can damn near quote every line of dialogue from Airplane! though.
I eventually got into Conan through the parody Groo the Wanderer.
When I was a kid, there were numerous movies that I only knew about from reading the satirizations in Mad magazine.
Many of the poems in Lewis Carroll’s Alice books are parodies that have long outlived the originals that they were parodying.
The Simpsons. For every one I’m proud of myself for getting, (Bart reaching for the “cupcakes” ala A Clockwork Orange), there’s several that go right past me (Milhouse when Toys R Us is shut down mimicking the expression of the Frenchman crying as Hitler invades Paris)
*Their origin
that I did miss
only know 'em
spoofed like this
Burma Shave*
Speaking of Zero, I’ve never played the game Zero Wing. I only know it from AYBAB2U.
I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.
Oh, no, wait, I’m not.
Very few Americans ever did. It was never released as a home game here.
Most of the satires/parodies on SNL and other sketch comedy shows are usually of people or shows I’ve never seen. Joe Franklin, for instance.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to listen to much current music (a school thing, not a family restriction), but I was a huge Weird Al Yankovic fan… so most of his parodies were, to me, just funny songs, and it wasn’t until years later that I began hearing the originals.
Especially in the final scenes, where every other line is a famous quotation.
I was in the hospital recovering from mono when I was 18 (back in 1980) and while there I saw Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on TV for the first time ever. I had only seen Eddie Murphy do the parody on SNL prior to that. I remember laughing uncontrollably when I saw Mr. Rogers that day. The nurses thought I was insane.
I know American Idol only from parodies.
It was also spoofed in a Popeye cartoon which is how I first became aware of it.
This one is old and mostly known only by scholars of Mark Twain and bad Victorian-era poetry but during the Grangerford-Shepardson episode of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Grangerfords proudly show Huck some of the death-obsessed drawings and maudlin poetry done by their now-deceased daughter, Emmeline. Although modern first-time readers may view Emmeline as some sort of Goth precursor, she is actually a lampoon of the once-popular but now-forgotten poet, Julia A. Moore whose work was similarly morbid and maudlin and whom Twain detested.
I only know Ayn Rand from the various parodies and homages…The Simpsons (Maggie’s great escape), Bioshock, eavesdropping in coffeehouses.
I’ve gone as far as reading critiques and summaries of her works and views, but have never felt it worthwhile to churn through her books.
Surely you can’t be serious!
I first heard Tom Lehrer’s “Lobachevsky” decades ago, but it was only recently that I heard “Stanislavsky”, the Danny Kaye routine it’s based on.
I forget whether I had heard Tom’s “The Elements” before I had heard the Major-General’s song from “The Pirates of Penzance”.
Now I’m getting old enough that I’m experiencing the same thing, 'cause I’m just not keeping up with the new music.
Sounds serious to me. And don’t call him Shirley.