Theme: Parodies of Other Films

Parody (in the sense used on this site) is a form of Comedy that spoofs other works. Usually in parodies, a particular work or entire genre is taken where its elements and tropes are comically exaggerated or punctured. The most common parodies here are of other films and tv shows, sometimes of other media like books and comic-books.

The superhero parody began with tv’s Batman (1966-8) and its deliberate puncturing of the tone of the comic-book. This begat a long line of superhero parodies, even a mini-spate of ones about superheroes with no powers. Other genres to have attracted a sizeable number of parodies has been the Vampire Film and the Slasher Film.

The British Carry On films of the 1960s took a different genre with each film and played it for raucous farce. Mel Brooks cornered the field on parodies during the 1970s, spoofing a different movie genre with each film. Airplane (1980) popularised the spoof movie and created a number of copycat comedies based around spoofing either genres or individual films. The parody of the individual film is also frequently the stuff of short sketches on tv comedy shows.

The 2000s saw the popularity of the Scary Movie franchise, which spoofed assorted horror films, repeating them with a series of crude and vulgar gags and led to many imitators. This led to the rise of directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer whose line of empty-headed and inane gags based on recent hits took the genre to its nadir.