Road To

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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

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

Road to Morocco was added to the National Film Registry in 1996.

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This series provides examples, straight or parodied, of:

• 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.
• Book Ends: Road to Morocco.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bob Hope addressed remarks directly to the audience several times per movie.
  • Aside Glance
  • Possibly in Morocco, they need to disguise themselves as locals, and Hope says something about, "No problem; Special Effects will take care of it." Then he calls out, "Hey, Special Effects!" and their clothing is immediately transformed into local garb.
• The Cameo: Several, particularly in the last two films.
• 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 side splittingly hilarious wrestling match with a gorilla.
• The Cavalry: They arrive just after the fact in Rio, although it's not for lack of trying.
• 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.
• 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

"Like Webster's dictionary, we're Morocco bound"

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• 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 Road to 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
• 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

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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