"Weird Al" Effect: Difference between revisions

** Likewise, half of Khan's lines from ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' are quotes from ''[[Moby Dick]]''. You'll be more likely to hear someone quote "I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up!" than "I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up!"

*** More people nowadays are likely to have seen ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'' than have read ''Moby Dick'', which it also quotes. At least they went out of their way to specifically name the book.

* The introduction fanfare from [[Also Sprach Zarathustra]] by Richard Strauss is known to a general public as "the fanfares from" or even "the theme song of" the ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''. What is more, it was labelled "Fanfare for 2001: A Space Odyssey" on a ballroom dance compilation CD, probably because it was labelled so on the album "Hollywood's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2." where it was lifted from for the ballroom CD.

** There's also an entire subset of the population who refers to it as [[Professional Wrestling|"oh hey, isn't that]] [[Ric Flair]]'s [[Professional Wrestling|entrance music?"]].

** Cervantes was the victim of a trope misunderstanding when an anonymous writer calling himself "Avellaneda" published a false sequel to ''Don Quixote''. The sequel completely missed the cleverness of Cervantes' references that mocked tropes of the chivalric genre (the noble knight's [[Bag of Holding|Unlimited Knapsack]], the magic [[Healing Potion]]), instead choosing to write a slapstick and completely unfunny book that no one ever reads now. The book is signed as "Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda, born in Tordesillas", but that's a fake name, and the prologue is riffed with insults to Cervantes and unashamed flattering to his main rival, Lope de Vega. Apparently at the time the book came out the writing style was famous enough to identify the author without need of giving his real name, and given the volume of [[Take That]] in Cervantes' canon sequel it's more than likely that Cervantes knew perfectly who he was. However, precisely for this reason nobody bothered to ever write down Avellaneda's real identity. Now, 400 years later, Cervantes and Don Quixote are as famous as ever, while we only know the other as "that guy that insulted Cervantes in a [[Fanfic]]".

** Another case of [[Weird Al Effect]] in ''Don Quixote'' is that both books were a satire and as such, contained a lot of references not only to now disappeared chivalry books (the second part contains extensive parodies of ''Tirant lo blanch'', one of the better chivalry books and a Cervantes favorite) but to Spain's popular culture at the XVII century: (respectful) [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|caricatures of then famous celebrities]], unrespectful [[Take That|caricatures of contemporary writers]], [[Shout-Out|quotes from Cervantes’s favorite poets]], [[Hurricane of Aphorisms|popular proverbs]], then contemporary [[Urban Legends]], [[Double Entendre|phrases that can be taken in at least two different ways]], [[Once More with Endnotes|all of them completely unknown for the modern reader if not by the notes provided in the reprints]]. [[Don't Explain the Joke|Cervantes's book was incredibly funny when he published it, but it's very difficult to see it like this now]].

* [[Agatha Christie]]'s collection of stories starring [[Tommy and Tuppence]], ''Partners in Crime'', uses a device in which each story is a [[Homage]] to a different crime-writer. While many of them are still famous today, a few are now hopelessly obscure. (Anyone familiar with the blind detective Thornley Colton? Anyone?)

* Stella Gibbons's comic novel ''[[Cold Comfort Farm]]'' has outlived the rustic romances it parodied.

* A number of 18th century poets such as [[Colley Cibber]] are mainly known even to academics for being mocked and parodied by [[Alexander Pope]] in ''The Dunciad'' and other works.

* ''1066 and All That'', a 1930 parody of the patriotic Whiggish school history books of the early 20th century has long outlasted the works it is parodying.

** While on the topic of ''[[Harry Potter]]'': A lot of the creatures, spells, and other magical phenomena in the book have their roots in [[Older Than You Think|much, much older]] literature. Basilisks, for example, are at least [[Older Than Print]]. However, with the exception of elements used frequently in modern works (werewolves, for example), most ''Harry Potter'' fans aren't fully aware of how little of Harry's world originated with J.K. Rowling. (The exception is that if you're even vaguely aware of alchemy, then you'd know at least that Rowling did not invent the Philosopher's Stone.)

*** And Nicolas Flamel was a real person, who supposedly ''did'' invent the Philosopher's Stone.

* Few people remember that the character of C.S. Forester's [[Horatio Hornblower]] was an homage to and [[Affectionate Parody]] of, at the time, well-known British naval officers; particularly Lord Horatio Nelson. Many of Hornblower's adventures, as well as his career progression, closely parallel Lord Nelson's. These days, all but Nelson are largely forgotten by those who aren't historians or military strategists; and Nelson himself is little-known outside of Great Britain.

* Believe it or not, [[Aldous Huxley]]'s ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'', the [[Trope Maker]] for [[Dystopia]], was written because the writer found so much [[Fridge Horror]] in one of H. G. Wells's later novels (written long after Wells had [[Jumped the Shark]]) that Huxley considered that novel to depict more of a dystopia than a utopia. Today, ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' is considered a classic, and practically no one knows or cares about Wells's book, ''Men Like Gods''.