The Onion is way better than real life, especially currently.
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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As an animation nerd I gotta mention Shrek. As a parody of "Disney princess movies" it killed the entire genre dead.
The only time Disney tried to play the tropes somewhat straight again was the Princess and the Frog, and THAT was a major flop (though racism probably also played a part in that).
Since then Disney only made remakes or titles like Frozen that spend 70% of their runtime mugging at themselves and poking fun at their own tropes (... While still circling back to them anyway and failing to make any point or commentary)
On a less "this made a major cultural impact" note and more of a "this personally completely altered my entire sense of humour and replaced the original in my heart" -- SnapCube's Realtime Fandub Games Sonic Adventure 2
Oh oh ohohoh! Just remembered JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Very much a manga that was poking fun at contemporaries like Fist of the North Star... And while it didn't outlive or outdo them per se, it definitely gained a life of its own, continuing to this day and actually being quite influential in its own right.
The only time Disney tried to play the tropes somewhat straight again was the Princess and the Frog, and THAT was a major flop (though racism probably also played a part in that).
Probably, I watched because of my kid recently, and it striked me as one of the better Disney movies. In fact, it's a pretty awesome one compared to recent bigger hits like Frozen and etc.
I also quite liked it. It feels like a 'classic' Disney movie.
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.
Deadpool It was a parody of DCs Deathstroke, right down to the guy's name Slade/Wade.
While that's true, it took a few writers before he really came into his own. It was the 2000s before he was the meta, witty, merc with a mouth. The parody was a lot more on the nose and it traded some of the parody for the meta, witty Wheaton-isms and pop culture references. Parody Deadpool and Deadpool Deadpool are arguably different characters.
Amish paradise. I find the song better than the original(s)
Idiocracy started as a parody, and is now becoming a reality.
Idiocracy has transitioned from pessimistic take to optimistic. At least in Idiocracy everybody listened to the smart one and enacted changes that helped.
GhatGPT will save us
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.
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
Yugi Oh The Abridged Series
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.
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.
Spaceballs.
Weird Al's White And Nerdy, so much better than Ridin Dirty.
Airplane parodying the airliner movies like Zero Hour
Dr Strangelove parodying atomic terror movies like Fail Safe
Dr. Strangelove was released before Fail Safe. The story goes that they were both being filmed around the same time and Kubrick used his pull with the studio to make sure Fail Safe was released later in the year.
Seems a really odd thing to insist your parody is released before the movie it's parodying. And I don't think there were all that many movies about the terror of nuclear war until after the Cuban missile crisis. It takes a couple of years to make a movie and Dr. Strangelove came out less than two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it was pretty much the first of it's kind.
Seems to me like Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy, not a parody.
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.
r/TheDonald. If I remember right, it started as a meme sub before he actually ran, then it was overtaken by actual supporters.
Pretty much everything from Weird Al.
Definitely White and Nerdy, and Like a Surgeon and Amish Paradise are on par.
Word Crimes for taking a song about dubious consent and changing it into a legitimately educational song.
Hot Fuzz is the best buddy cop movie I've ever seen.
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.
Just as Shaun of the Dead is the best zombie movie (come fight me)
And no one talks about the 3rd film
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.
Blazing Saddles. It killed the western genre for a long time because of how well it parodied them
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