this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 44 minutes ago

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is better than Hamlet. Sure, it had the benefit of an extra couple of centuries of progress in art, but I think it still counts.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Amish paradise. I find the song better than the original(s)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Does it count if I only read summaries of both works, not the works itself?

"A true story" is a parody on the "travelogue" that were popular in ancient Greece, like Homer's Odyssey and Illiad. 800 years later, they had a resurgence in the Roman Empire, like when Virgil wrote the Aeneid. Still 200 years later, A True Story was written by Lucian.

In the preface, Lucian complains that the genre was ruined by authors making up unbelievable tales to trick their dumb readership. So he thinks it better to just admit that all he says is a lie.

The story goes on how Lucian then set sail across the Atlantic, got caught in a storm so terrible it blew him to outer space, and meet the all-male civilisation that lives on the moon, who carry their children through the calf of their leg.

Lucian and his crew return to Earth, get swallowed by a whale, explore the Islands of the blessed, see the Sinners being punished (the ones who lied in their stories being punished the hardest) and reach a distant continent. Lucian says what happened there will be shared in the sequel, which a comment describes as the biggest lie of all.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 hours ago

Idiocracy started as a parody, and is now becoming a reality.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 hours ago

Blur - Song 2 was intended as a parody of American rock and is laden with nonsense lyrics. It's their most known song in America by a wide margin and might even be their most known song globally.

Woohoo

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yugi Oh The Abridged Series

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago

Same should be said for DBZ Abridged. I seriously do a double take every time I see an original episode now, as the voice actors and characterizations from Abridged have replaced the canon ones in my head.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 hours ago

Bugs Bunny far surpassed It Happened One Night. His manner of speaking, saying “doc,” and his obsession with carrots are a direct parody of Clark Gable’s character from that movie, but modern audiences don’t realize he’s a parody at all and instead assume the carrot thing it based on rabbits’ real dietary preferences.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 12 hours ago

Spaceballs.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 16 hours ago

Weird Al's White And Nerdy, so much better than Ridin Dirty.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 15 hours ago

Still the best star trek movie

[–] [email protected] 50 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Airplane parodying the airliner movies like Zero Hour

Dr Strangelove parodying atomic terror movies like Fail Safe

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Dr Strangelove parodying atomic terror movies like Fail Safe

I legit didn't know it was parodying something else. I thought it was just gallows humour.

Nobody watches the other airliner movies, but at least with Airplane! you know you're watching a parody.

Edit: Per other people in this thread, apparently not.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

r/TheDonald. If I remember right, it started as a meme sub before he actually ran, then it was overtaken by actual supporters.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

It was so weird watching that live.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Cunk - parodying Attenborough and cosmos style docs

Starship troopers - more of an active ignorance of source material

Happy Gilmore

[–] [email protected] 122 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Pretty much everything from Weird Al.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 hours ago

Definitely White and Nerdy, and Like a Surgeon and Amish Paradise are on par.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 16 hours ago

Word Crimes for taking a song about dubious consent and changing it into a legitimately educational song.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Hot Fuzz is the best buddy cop movie I've ever seen.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 12 hours ago

Hot Fuzz is one of the better examples in this thread, because it doesn't run solely on ribbing buddy cop films. If you've never seen a buddy cop film in your life, Hot Fuzz is still a perfectly good comedy with some surprisingly touching moments.

Knowing what it parodies makes it better, of course, but it doesn't look down at them.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Just as Shaun of the Dead is the best zombie movie (come fight me)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Why would I fight you? I’ve got your back! Now, let’s go to the Winchester for a pint until this all blows over.

[–] [email protected] 117 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Blazing Saddles. It killed the western genre for a long time because of how well it parodied them

[–] [email protected] 78 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Austin Powers did nearly the same with Bond/spy flicks for a while. From Wikipedia:

Daniel Craig, who portrayed James Bond on screen from 2006 to 2021, credited the Austin Powers franchise with the relatively serious tone of later Bond films. In a 2014 interview, Craig said, "We had to destroy the myth because Mike Myers fucked us", making it "impossible" to do the gags of earlier Bond films which Austin Powers satirized.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 24 minutes ago

That's interesting. I always felt the newer Bond films were taking themselves a bit too seriously. I suppose this might be why.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Steve Oedekerk, the writer/star of King pow: enter the fist, is amazing in every way - especially if you were consuming media in the 90s. He

  • wrote and directed when nature calls
  • cowrote the nutty professor
  • wrote including Patch Adams
  • wrote Nutty Professor II: The Klumps - wrote and directed Bruce Almighty
  • created thumbnation
  • executive produced Jimmy Neutron and his studio gave us two Jimmy Neutron movies
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Kung pow is one of my favorites. Ironically my wife hates it, but loves when nature calls.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

I weirdly dislike most of these things. Nature calls was fine.

Still glad people found joy in his work though. Obviously talented.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

Airplane! lapped Zero Hour! so hard most people don't know about the existence of the latter

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 22 hours ago (7 children)

For my wife Spaceballs is the original and Star Wars is the spoof.

But more seriously, too many people didn't register that Scream was a parody. That way it managed to surpass older slashers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

Can confirm scream was one of the first horror movies I watched and I just figured the rest were like that.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

I wouldn't call Scream a parody. Scary Movie was the parody. Scream was just self aware that it was a scary movie in a universe where scary movies exist.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 21 hours ago (10 children)

The best parodies are humorous takes that treat the source material with repect.

Shaun of the Dead

Galaxy Quest

Army of Darkness (person out of time becomes a leader against evil)

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 19 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 59 points 22 hours ago (6 children)

Naked Gun.

Austin Powers.

Team America: World Police

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