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"Weird Al" Effect: Difference between revisions
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Related to the concept of a [[Forgotten Trope]], except it is not tropes but works or personalities that have been forgotten. Could be an extreme expression of [[Rule of Funny]] (The music may not have had much staying power, but at least the parody is funny). See also [[Adaptation Displacement]], [[Popcultural Osmosis]], [[Older Than They Think]], [[Coconut Effect]], [[Covered Up]] and [[Revival by Commercialization]].
Not to be confused with some people's tendency to attribute all parody songs to "Weird Al", which is [[Misattributed Song]].
{{examples}}
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* When hearing Bill Haley and the Comets music to "Rock Around the Clock," do you expect to hear: "Sunday, Monday, [[Happy Days]]"?
* There was once a Russian musical piece called "Days of our life". They had to stop playing it because whenever they did, ''everyone was laughing at remembering the parody''. Today, the music is recognizable, and most people at least remember the first lines of the parody ("''A large crocodile lady was walking on the streets''").
* In Brazil, a certain child's song ("Criança feliz, feliz a cantar. Alegre a embalar seu sonho infantil."<ref>Happy child, happy and singing. Joyful in going through its juvenile dream.</ref>) is overshadowed by its parody version
* Even though he had a long solo career, wrote ''entire albums'' for Frank Sinatra and The 4 Seasons, and became a prolific ad jingle writer, Jake Holmes is mainly remembered now because [[Led Zeppelin]] (ahem) [[Plagiarism|"borrowed"]] his song "Dazed and Confused".
* Fans of [[The Dead Milkmen]] might think the joke of "Watching Scotty Die" is just the fact that it's [[Lyrical Dissonance|a peaceful-sounding]], country-esque ballad about a young boy dying from exposure to poisonous chemicals... In fact it's a parody of the significantly [[Tastes Like Diabetes|sappier]] "Watching Scotty Grow", a Bobby Goldsboro hit released more than 15 years earlier.
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== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] fans in the 1990s probably thought that the "monster" wrestlers ([[Mick Foley|Mankind]], [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]], and so forth) were highly original gimmicks. They might be disappointed to learn that Gorilla Monsoon had been wrestling under the same basic shtick more than a generation earlier.
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*** To be fair, [[Tom and Jerry|at least one]] of the cartoons that they parodied is still very well known.
** ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' themselves started out as a parody/response to Disney's ''[[Silly Symphonies]]''. Nowadays, ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' are considered perhaps the most famous cartoon shorts of time.
** Few modern viewers would even know about ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel]]'' were it not for the Daffy Duck short ''[[The Scarlet Pumpernickel]]''.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', ''[[Futurama]]'', ''[[Family Guy]]'', ''[[American Dad]]'', ''[[South Park]]'', ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', [[DreamWorks]],... all suffer from this. All these series parody many aspects of pop culture like TV series, film, politics,... that are misinterpreted or not recognized by everyone, especially people who are younger than the creators of these shows.
* This is simultaneously Parodied and [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Animaniacs]]'' when the Warners meet Rasputin. They toss him into a dentist's chair and announce that they need to give him some "Anastasia." A girl in a tiara and a poofy dress then hit Rasputin on the head with a hammer. Dot [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|turns to the camera]] and deadpans, "Obscure joke. Talk to your parents." This episode predates ''[[Anastasia|the Don Bluth movie]]'' by several years, so the joke may have lost its obscurity on some kids after the movie came out.
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*** Another musical relation in ''The Simpsons'' shows Homer singing modified lyrics to [[Covered Up|Frank Sinatra's]] "It Was A Very Good Year" (when he was remembering the time he bought his first six-pack at a liquor store with an obviously fake ID -- [[Fridge Logic|It's best not to think about how he got away with it]]). Anyone thinking of the song nowadays is likely to think of Homer's rendition.
* [[Richard Nixon]] is nowadays better remembered by children as the head in a jar in Futurama than an actual US president from the 1960s-1970s.
* ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
** He's also drawn to look like an older version of Blacula, complete with early 70's sideburns and mustache.
** Its parody of the [[H.P. Lovecraft]] mythos, "The Crank Call of Cthulhu", must go over the heads of most young viewers as well.
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