I only rented *Zero Hour * recently, and I was amazed at how close Airplane! stayed to it.
Firesign Theater albums are full of references to stuff I hadn’t read yet, like to Skin of Their Teeth, plus a quote from House on Pooh Corner which I didn’t get until I read it to my kids one day.
Everything I know about Star Wars I got from Spaceballs, Weird Al, and Robot Chicken.
About 98% of all recent pop-culture (since I stopped reading Entertainment Weekly about 7-8 years ago) I get entirely from watching E!'s The Soup. That show is not only the funniest thing on TV, its the voice of reason which prolongs my faith in the future of Western Civilization!! 
[QUOTEFrom my own youth, more than anyone else Edward G. Robinson and Peter Lorre are familiar to me as Bugs Bunny parodies. I could recognize their faces and voices instantly despite never having watched any of their films.[/QUOTE]
That’s one of the saddest things I have heard in weeks.
I still haven’t seen the Ring cycle . . . but I have seen Anna Russell’s explanation of it. (Not parody, but funny, and educational, too!)
I hadn’t thought of Groo in years. Aragones, wasn’t it?
I have learned a lot in this thread. That Basketball Jones was a spoof, for instance. I had no idea.
RR
Well, I’ve since seen a couple of Lorre’s films, but truth be told I haven’t seen much from before the '60s.
Anyone else noticed the “Ayn Rand Dating Service” ad at the bottom of the page," for admirerese of Ayn Rand’s novels"?
There’s probably tons of pop-culture parodies in Python than fly right over the heads of Americans, and just seem like another non-sequitur among many. Lemon curry?
On the other hand, rewatching the old Warner Brothers cartoons with a bit more knowledge of the movies (especially, oddly enough, the Warner Brothers movies) of the era can be pretty rewarding. There’s a scene in one where a tired-looking guy sitting at a bar pushes a typewriter toward the bartender, who says, “Here’s your change , Mr. Milland,” and gives him a bunch of tiny typewriters…
Now that you mention it, what is that about? I know it has to be referring to Ray Milland, but I don’t get the typewriter reference.
RR
With respect to the OP I am forty-mumble years old and have lived in the US my whole life and have never seen the movie It’s a Wonderful Life but have seen innumerable parodies on sitcoms or whatever.
The Lost Weekend
Ray Milland’s character, a writer, is an alcoholic. In desperation for money to pay for a bottle, he pawns his typewriter. The joke is getting “change” for one’s typewriter.
Don’t bet on it. I was about almost at the end of The Maltese Falcon before I realized why Joel Cairo’s voice sounded so familiar. Peter Lorre was not one tenth as ugly as the cartoonists draw him; and, in the films I’ve seen, he was not one tenth as creepy as the impersonators play him. I have seen a fair number of his films, but never the ones on which the caricatures are based. (I’m guessing either M or The Cat and the Canary.)
He was extraordinarily creepy in M. An outstanding portrayal. You can see the compulsion that he cannot deny. The kind of acting that gets people ostracized because he was so damn good that people would wonder if he was a child-molesting murderer. That good.
My only knowledge of 2 Girls 1 Cup comes from the numerous “reaction” videos.
I hope to keep it that way.
Actually, that’s the film of his that I saw first, and I did recognize him. Sure he was a caricature in the cartoons, but so were Bogart, Robinson and all the rest.
I had never heard of Marlene Dietrich before Lili Von Shtupp , as portrayed by Madeline Kahn. Fwiggin’ funny!
Links are YouTube.
Seriously… it was a show! I thought they pulled that right out of thier asses. Wow!
Which remimds me that I only know that through parody/satire/homage. (That is the one where the guy is walking, and it’s all black, except for al lthe neon signs for bars/booze/etc…?)