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Narrow Parody: Difference between revisions
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Good parodies have different levels of accessibility, stretching from popular, new stuff to older classics. With a smaller pool of things being parodied, writers will feed on more generalized tropes.
The '''Narrow Parody''' occurs when the writers are afraid the target audience might be too young (or just [[Viewers are Morons|too stupid]]) to catch the expected references, and have no concept of [[Parental Bonus]], so they just narrow the field down to [[Fleeting Demographic Rule|things made in the last few years]]. This can work against the writers, as works hailed as "classics" make for good parody, while fluff often doesn't. In many cases, the parody itself is also painfully obvious and laboured, going for the cheap laugh rather than trying to make any kind of point about what is being parodied.
If done poorly, the parody aspect seems more like a cover for ripping off the most recent movies, as sometimes there's nothing particularly iconic about the things being parodied. Much of this depends on your definition of "narrow".
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Student Council's Discretion]]'' is very guilty of this, with nearly all of their parodies being of shows from the last 2–3 years (the closer the better), including series from the same season. The times they reference something older are few and mostly refer to super-popular series like ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' and one [[Appeal to Obscurity]] to make a "nobody will get this" joke.
==
* The later films in the ''[[Scary Movie]]'' series ended up like this. Originally, they worked, as most [[Horror Tropes]] were [[Trope Codifier|codified]] in [[The Eighties]] or earlier, so anyone with even a passing familiarity with the horror genre will get the jokes. However, later gags became a lot more obvious and telegraphed while the pool of references narrowed from broader subgenres of horror ([[Slasher Movie|slashers]] in the first, [[Haunted House]]/[[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghost]] movies in the second) to specific, recent movies (some of which weren't even horror). The first big complaint from fans was the inclusion in the third film of an extended parody of ''[[8 Mile]]'', which had nothing to do with horror movies.
* ''[[Seltzer and Friedberg|Epic Movie]]'' by [[Seltzer and Friedberg]], including parodies of such "epics" as ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]]'' and ''[[Nacho Libre]]''.
* ''Disaster Movie'' suffered from this as well. It has [[Shallow Parody|half-assed]] parodies of ''[[Juno]]'', ''[[Hannah Montana]]'', ''[[Iron Man]]'', ''[[Sex and the City]]'', ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'', ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'', ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'', ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', ''[[Hancock]]'', ''[[Alvin and the
==
* Many a sketch comedy show has fallen into this trap. ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' manages to avoid it most of the time, but some of the lesser seasons have succumbed.▼
* ''[[Sesame Street]]'' often falls into this as part of its attempt to add [[Parental Bonus]]es. It's often borderline impossible to do a true parody of the subject matter, so they simply copy the title, the appearance of the characters, and the general setting. [[True Blood|True Mud]], for example, was about a man's attempt to get a waitress to serve him Mud (as opposed to spud, cud, and a dud).▼
== Music ==▼
* Narrowly averted by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "The Saga Begins", a parodic retelling of ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I: [[The Phantom Menace]]'' written and released ''before'' the film's premiere. Instead of relying on the little information that could be gleaned trailers, he spent a great deal of time and effort seeking out leaks and spoilers for the plot, and wrote the vast majority of his lyrics based on what he could assemble and infer, which resulted in an almost-complete work that needed only minor revision and polish based on an advance showing for charity he saw.▼
* ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' tended to rely on this trope, especially in the 1990s. (They've since gotten better.) One 1995 issue, for example, has multiple references to Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." (A ''[[Cracked]]'' issue from the very same month did likewise.) Good luck explaining to the average teenager in [[The New Tens|the 2010s]] exactly what this was.
** Parodied in 1954, before ''Mad'' even was a magazine, in a [["Faux To" Guide]] parodying their imitators by introducing into a lampoon of ''[[Julius Caesar]]'' such unexplained elements as the ''[[Dragnet]]'' theme and:
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* A cartoon from [[The Nineties|the late 1990s]] shows the Greek gods and goddesses of Olympus being portrayed by then-popular celebrities. Some of the cameos made a good deal of sense, like [[Sylvester Stallone]] as Ares and [[Madonna]] as Athena. But when it came to "casting" Poseidon (the god of the sea), the cartoonist awarded the role to...Tiger Woods, who has nothing at all to do with maritime or nautical themes. How did the cartoonist justify this move? By having Poseidon ''hit a golf ball with his trident''. Still a huge stretch.
==
▲* Many a sketch comedy show has fallen into this trap. ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' manages to avoid it most of the time, but some of the lesser seasons have succumbed.
▲* ''[[Sesame Street]]'' often falls into this as part of its attempt to add [[Parental Bonus]]es. It's often borderline impossible to do a true parody of the subject matter, so they simply copy the title, the appearance of the characters, and the general setting. [[True Blood|True Mud]], for example, was about a man's attempt to get a waitress to serve him Mud (as opposed to spud, cud, and a dud).
▲== [[Music]] ==
▲* Narrowly averted by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "The Saga Begins", a parodic retelling of ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I: [[The Phantom Menace]]'' written and released ''before'' the film's premiere. Instead of relying on the little information that could be gleaned trailers, he spent a great deal of time and effort seeking out leaks and spoilers for the plot, and wrote the vast majority of his lyrics based on what he could assemble and infer, which resulted in an almost-complete work that needed only minor revision and polish based on an advance showing for charity he saw.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Recent {{when}} episodes of ''[[South Park]]'' have included parodies of ''[[Mr. Popper's Penguins]]'' and ''[[Jack And Jill]]'' based solely on their trailers.
* The ''[[Animaniacs]]'' song "Video [[Stealth Pun|Revue]]", set in a video store (which ''in itself'' makes this sequence dated) is basically a [[Long List]] of characters and plot points from random movies from the 1980s and early '90s, some of which are barely remembered today (if that).
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Show Genres]]▼
[[Category:Parody Tropes]]▼
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
▲[[Category:Parody Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Show Genres]]
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