Road To



The Road to ... movies are a series of comedy films starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, usually with Dorothy Lamour. Each of the films is a parody of a particular film genre.


 * Road to Singapore (1940)
 * Road to Zanzibar (1941)
 * Road to Morocco (1942)
 * Road to Utopia (1946)
 * Road to Rio (1947)
 * Road to Bali (1952) -- The only one in color
 * The Road to Hong Kong (1962) -- with Joan Collins

It inspired some other movies, including The Road to El Dorado.

This series provides examples, straight or parodied, of:
""Like Webster's dictionary, we're Morocco bound""
 * Be Careful What You Wish For:
 * In Morocco, Hope's character gets his hands on a magic ring...
 * Hope's magic flute in Bali, which backfires horribly when Crosby tries his hand at it.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bob Hope addressed remarks directly to the audience several times per movie.
 * Aside Glance
 * Book Ends: Road to Morocco
 * Captured By Cannibals: In Road to Zanzibar, with the cannibals thinking Hope and Crosby are white gods... until, that is, the cannibals decide to test their divinity by having Hope get into a sidesplittingly hilarious wrestling match with a gorilla.
 * The Cavalry: They arrive juust after the fact in Rio, although it's not for lack of trying.
 * The Cameo: Several, particularly in the last two films.
 * Cymbal-Banging Monkey
 * Darkest Africa: Once again, from Road to Zanzibar. It uses all the standard Pulp Africa tropes and subverts the heck out of them.
 * Demoted to Extra: Dorothy Lamour, in The Road to Hong Kong. She actually wasn't going to appear in it at all after Crosby insisted on (and got) a younger female lead in Joan Collins, but Hope intervened to at least get her a cameo appearance.
 * Drink Order
 * Dueling Stars Movie
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Road to Singapore is a lot more subdued and conventional than the films that followed.
 * Fake Nationality
 * The Gay Nineties
 * Genre Savvy
 * Greek Chorus: Humorist Robert Benchley, in Road to Utopia.
 * Harpo Does Something Funny
 * Heterosexual Life Partners
 * Hollywood Mirage
 * Identical Grandson: Used to hilarious effect at the end of Road to Utopia. ("We adopted him.")
 * Incredibly Lame Puns


 * Invisible Backup Band
 * Large Ham
 * Ham to Ham Combat
 * Literal Genie
 * Logo Joke
 * MacGuffin
 * Medicine Show
 * No Party Like a Donner Party
 * Oscar Bait: Lampshaded and spoofed in many of the movies, notably in Morocco.
 * Overly Polite Pals
 * Pardon My Klingon
 * Plot Armor
 * Road Movie
 * Running Gag: "Pattycake, pattycake.."
 * Setting-Off Song
 * The Smurfette Principle: Lamour
 * Sneeze of Doom
 * Thirsty Desert
 * Those Two Actors
 * Throw It In: The most memorable incident involves a camel.
 * Title Theme Tune: "We're off on the road to Morocco..."
 * Travel Montage
 * Universal Adaptor Cast
 * Vagabond Buddies
 * Vitriolic Best Buds
 * We Need a Distraction
 * What Could Have Been: Road to the Fountain of Youth, planned in the late 1970s but called off after Bing Crosby's death.
 * The first film, Road to Singapore, was at one point planned as a vehicle for George Burns and Gracie Allen.

References in other works:

 * Spies Like Us
 * The Road to El Dorado
 * Family Guy episodes "Road to Rhode Island", "Road to Europe", "Road to Rupert", "Road to Germany", and "Road to the Multiverse"
 * Taz-Mania episodes "Road To Tasmania", "Return Of The Road To Tasmania Strikes Back" and "Yet Another Road To Tasmania"
 * Duckman episode "Road to Dendron"
 * The Tale Spin episodes "For Whom the Bell Klangs" and "The Road to Macadamia"
 * The Legend of Tarzan episode "Tarzan and the Fugitives"
 * The ALFTales cartoon episode "The Aladdin Brothers"
 * They Might Be Giants song "Road Movie to Berlin"
 * History of the World Part One The "Roman Empire" segment. Mel Brooks and others sing "We're off on the road to Judea!"
 * Ishtar