I’d have to say The Village People is mocked more than any other band. Village People parodies are a recurring bit on Jay Leno’s show. A recent Diet Dr Pepper TV ad parodied the Village People with an elderly version of the band (using their “some things aren’t as good as the original” premise). Over the years I have seen several other examples. Comedians tend to pick on the Village People a lot. The most remarkable thing about the Village People still being mocked to this day is that they were a three-hit wonder over 20 years ago (“YMCA”, Macho Man", “In the Navy”) and yet they are immortalized by how often they are ridiculed.
As a comparison, The Spice Girls were also a target of parody and ridicule during their brief popularity in the mid to late 90s, but you don’t hear much about them now. The Dr Pepper commerical could have used an elderly version of the Spice Girls for this spot, but they used the old tried-and-true standby, the Village People.
So, which other bands seem to be targeted the most by parodists, comedians, etc.?
I don’t think the Village People are “mocked” so much as they are imitated or affectionately parodied. And that’s mainly because their costumes made them so immediately recognizable and identifiable.
If “SNL” wanted to do a parody of, say, KC & the Sunshine Band, they’d have to get the music and the vocal imitations just right. But to parody the Village people, all you have to do is get an Indian headdress, a cowboy hat, a black leather jacket and a hard hat… and you’re in business.
For singers/bands that are genuinely mocked and vilified… well, Michael Jackson has long been a target for geneuinely vicious ridicule and insult (come of it deserved. no doubt). So have all the “boy bands.” And few bands have ever beem as reviled as the Bee Gees were in the late 70s.
Well, yo ucan’t point at the many inane boy-bands, there were so many of them and they seemed to be all the same that if you made a parody of a specific band you would be hard pressed to tell which one was being parodied.
Instead a few mockeries of boy-bands were done as a general genre mockery.
Truth is Villiage People were pretty much ignored until later (Wayne’s World 2 started that trend IIRC). Give Spice Girls a dozen years or so and you’ll be seeing some more parody of them.
The Dreaded “Lulu”?
Status Quo - (though that is more affectionate, I think)
Boy bands in general, as previously said.
Michael Flatley - Ok not musician exactly, but…
Daniel O’Donnell ( and if you have not hard of him, that is a fine thing for you )
Rod Stewart, - if not moocked, he ought to be
hmm - brain not working - been watching too much Fawlty Towers tonight - when brain comes back, so does Celyn.
Oh, and if Tony Bliar’s student band , “The Ugly Rumours” is not mocked, well, I am sure it ought to be.
Bono gets made fun of a lot for going against the grain of what a rock star should stand for. OTOH, Keith Richards gets made fun of for being exactly what a rock star “should be”.
A group of Japanese comedians running a variety show similar to SNL came up with this song making fun of boy bands and their popularity. Much to their chagrin, the song itself became an instant hit
