Shallow Parody: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|"''The objections to breadth in parody are that it is not sporting to hunt with a machine gun, that jocularity is not wit, and that the critical edge is blunted. Most of what passes for parody is actually so broad as to be mere burlesque.''"
Simply put, this trope is what happens when [[The Parody]] is created by people who [[Did Not Do the Research]]. Instead, they watched the trailer (or the commercials or just absorbed it through [[Popcultural Osmosis]]) and then wrote the parody from that. Close enough, they decide.
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Also note that this trope does not encompass all bad parodies. ''Just'' knowing what you're parodying does not automatically make your parody funny... but it's at least a start.
However, [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]. Sometimes these parodies can be understood as effective parodies of trailers, of basic premises, or as exaggerations of elements in [[The Theme Park Version]] of said subject matter. For many people a '''Shallow Parody''' can be funnier than an overdone [[Affectionate Parody]] because of the lack of obscure inside jokes. Still, people who are actually fans of the subject of the parody will, more often than not, laugh at said parodies rather than with them (at best). It's notable that some of the below examples are intentional shallow parodies and derive humor from getting things wrong.
Often caused by [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]. Related: [[Narrow Parody]], in which the target is something relatively recent due to the assumption the target audience won't recognize something older even if it's riper for spoofing; and [[Parody Failure]], where the parody writers actually do what the piece's real creators would do, but think themselves as writing a clever spoof. Compare [[Outside Joke]], where a joke is only funny to people who [[Did Not Do the Research]].
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▲{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Mad]]'' magazine (and the [[Mad TV|TV series]]) sink to this. It can be justified, as the parody has to fall close to the date of the work's release, and often the writer(s) are working on early script drafts or leaked information.
** For example, the parody of the first ''[[Harry Potter]]'' movie included a scene that was in the book, but was left out of the movie.
** ''Mad'' parodies used to be written after the film was released and thus published a few months later, in part to keep on top of what movies were well-known enough to warrant them. One late-1970s article had them "selling" prematurely written parodies of movies and TV shows that ''weren't'' popular (''Gable and Lombard'', for instance) at a discount. This lag still applies to TV
** The ''Watchmen'' parody claimed that "The book is still great" while making fun of many of the things that were directly lifted from the book. This is a recurring trend; MAD will often make fun of a work at the time of its release, then later unfavorably compare newer works to it, but it is rarely this inconsistent.
*** On the same note their ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' parody included the subplot from the book about some of the dinosaurs stowing away on a commercial freighter, a subplot that was dropped quite early during the production of the movie.
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** They also did a parody of ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men 2]]'' from a draft script of the movie, as it poked fun at subplots that weren't actually in the film.
** Similarly to the ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' example: the parody comic of ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'' was based on the first draft screenplay, which was ''significantly'' different from the finished film. In their rush to get a parody out on time, they ended up parodying something that only barely resembled the movie itself.
** From the animated TV show's ''[[Naruto]]'' parody you'd think they only watched the first 3 or 4 episodes.
* Marvel's ''Marville'' hopes irrelevant pop culture is enough to count as parody.
** It even explained the shallow parodies to people in the first page. Like nobody would get the jokes.
* Marvel's parody comic ''Not Brand Ecch'' portrayed the [[Doom Patrol]] as shameless rip-offs of the more popular [[X-Men]] when in reality the Patrol came first.
** Though only by a few months at a time when comic book scripts were written longer in advance than that. Not to mention that the creator of Doom Patrol used to work for Marvel.
* ''[[Cracked]]'', when it still was a magazine [[Follow the Leader|along the lines of]] ''Mad'', had an issue (#248 or #249 or thereabouts) covering [[Batman (film)|the 1989 ''Batman'' film]] wherein a [[Batman (TV series)|Burt Ward-style]] Robin complains that not only is he absent from the film, but he's dead in the comics. Never mind that it was Jason Todd who died and Dick Grayson was currently Nightwing. (To be fair, in the eyes of most casual ''Batman'' fans that is basically nit-picking.)
** Pretty much any ''Cracked'' magazine parody, for that matter. They did little more than re-tell the movie or TV show straight up, with [[Parody Names]].
* The [[
* In a glaring example of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], ''[[Rat-Man]]'''s first story was a parody of Tim Burton's ''Batman'', which the author had never seen. Despite this, it won the [[wikipedia:Lucca Comics and Games|Lucca Comics]] award for the best script and set the foundation for what in Italy is considered one of the funniest comics ever published.
* It's very amusing indeed to read old comics and magazines from the early/mid-1960s and come across a Shallow Parody of [[The Beatles]]. One can just imagine a stodgy, middle-aged writer writing one in hope of [[Take That|shaming those silly kids]] for falling for [[It Will Never Catch On|this ridiculous fad.]] Shallow Parodies of the Beatles usually have them all dressing, looking and speaking identically (hilariously, this usually means that they all look and talk like Ringo Starr), and have them endlessly singing "Yeah Yeah Yeah" (far from the Beatles' best or most notable song, but likely a victim of [[Popcultural Osmosis]]). Later parodies would have them playing concerts in their "Sgt. Pepper" uniforms (which they never did) and occasionally would depict John Lennon in his iconic 1969-era look while the rest of them still looked like they did on the Ed Sullivan Show. Nowadays, of course, parodies like this have effectively died out.
* Some comics with [[Squirrel Girl]] in them would have rather blatant, shallow parodies of things that were currently big issues in comics (usually Marvel's [[DC Comics|main competitor]]). Then, just to make sure [[Viewers are Morons|the drooling idiots didn't miss it]], one of her squirrel friends would pop up in the margins with a nice big sign [[Anvilicious|to really hammer it home]]. "[[Take That|Monkey Joe says]]: [[Batman|Any character being an urban legend longer than a year or two is idiotic]]!" One wonders how hard they had to resist the urge to put a little Bat-logo at the end of the sentence.
== Film ==
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* ''[[Starship Troopers]]''- was said to be a parody of the novel after it was released, despite the fact the Verhoeven only read the first few chapters.
** The movie has "parodies" of specific scenes from the books, but they mostly amount to taking the scenes and stripping them of the philosophy and context. Verhoeven tries to sell them as "ironic", despite being markedly less aware of the implications than the original scene. If you didn't know that the book was written first, you'd think that it was actually a scathing rebuttal of the movie.
* In general, if [[Michael Bay]]'s movie style is parodied, it will focus on things randomly exploding. Just explosions happening the entire time, for no reason whatsoever. If the parody is ''particularly'' adventurous it might bother to have something about a slightly melodramatic romance, but generally all that seems to be required for a "spot on" Michael Bay "parody" is just throwing in a bunch of random explosions.
== Literature ==
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Mad TV]]'' once did a parody of ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' during its final season where Batman (played by Matt Braunger) couldn't afford good gadgets because of current economic issues and make it seem like that without gadgets, his villains could easily kick his ass. If only the writers knew that the Dark Knight Batman was ''trained by ninjas'' and that he hasn't been an (extremely) gadget-heavy hero since the campy 1960s TV show starring Adam West.
** Also somewhat [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] considering that this is also (vaguely) the plot of ''The Dark Knight Returns''.
* Zigzagged with ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''. Some of their parody sketches will be dead-on with what they're parodying; others...not so much.
** On the one side of the spectrum, there are shallow parodies that are just there to serve as the backdrop for an ''SNL'' recurring character to appear <ref>(cf. The "Mad Men" parody on Jon Hamm's first episode quickly devolved to a sketch featuring Jason Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig's characters, "The Two A-Holes" [it was even retitled "Two A-Holes Visit An Ad Agency in the 1960s"], the "Basic Instinct" parody that had Julia Sweeney's Pat character, the "Crying Game" parody that also Pat in it, the "Glee" parody that had Kristen Wiig's Gilly character)</ref> or are intentionally made shallow to [[Deconstructive Parody|deconstruct the work]] (as seen in the Digital Short ''Party at Mr. Bernard's'' or the "Little Mermaid" sketch with Reese Witherspoon as Ariel telling Eric [played by [[Will Ferrell]]] that she's an actual half-human, half-fish creature whose father had sex with a mackerel to create her) or shoehorn a political message or warped Aesop (as seen in their other parody of ''[[The Little Mermaid]]''
** On the other side of the spectrum, you have the ''SNL'' parodies that are actually well-researched and spot-on, such as the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' parodies (which use characters that aren't featured in the movie trailers, use the first names of the Hogwarts teachers, and mention things like butterbeer) <ref>-- including the one that had [[Daniel Radcliffe]] on it as a washed-up Harry Potter who still lives in Hogwarts ten years after he was supposed to graduate</ref> and the one-off parody of ''[[There Will Be Blood]]'' from the season 33 episode hosted by Tina Fey (which was a Food Network show called "I Drink Your Milkshake," in which Daniel Plainview [Bill Hader] travels to America's malt shops and literally drinks their milkshakes). Bill Hader's Daniel Day Lewis is pitch-perfect, and the sketch references moments in the film that ''aren't'' [[Memetic Mutation
** [[They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste|Intentionally used]] with the sketch "What Is Burn Notice?" from the season 35 episode hosted by Ashton Kutcher. The sketch was a game show in which the contestants have to tell the host (Jason Sudeikis) what the premise of ''Burn Notice'' is about, because he apparently doesn't know. The joke being that even though ''[[Burn Notice]]'' is purportedly one of the most popular shows on television, no one you know has ever seen it.
* ''[[Get Smart]]'' usually did targeted parodies pretty well, considering its entire premise was general parody. However, its parody of ''[[The Avengers (TV series)|The Avengers]]'' falls into this. Donald Snead and Emily Neal are British, styled correctly and have a lot of sexual tension, but that's where the similarities end. Snead bears very little resemblance to John Steed personality-wise, and Mrs. Neal's use of a deadly lipstick is particularly glaring, much more reminiscent of April Dancer than Emma Peel. The episode is funny, but it's pretty clear the creators are unaware of just how stylistically different ''The Avengers'' was from most other spy shows.
* Done intentionally and fully admitted to on the "Movie Trailers That Are Destroying America" segment of ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', where Colbert thinks of ridiculous reasons to consider movies offensive based entirely on the trailers.
* French and Saunders did a sketch about the ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' apparently without having read the books or seen the movies: Gandalf and Frodo repeatedly mention Frodo's quest to ''find'' the one ring to rule them all.
** A better example of the same flaw can be seen in ''[[Dead Ringers (TV series)|Dead Ringers]]''` early LOTR parodies, in which indeed Gandalf sends Frodo on a quest to ''find'' the Ring. Later on they were better researched.
** Similarly on ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'' with a sketch about rumours of a movie version of ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and imagining it directed by various people (Nick Giannopoulos, [[Woody Allen]] and [[Michael Moore]]). For some reason the first one had two Hobbits with a dynamic suspiciously similar to Frodo and Sam, and not a dwarf in sight.
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== New Media ==
* ''[[Something Awful]]'''s "Truth Media" reviews are an intentional combination of this and [[Stealth Parody]] in regards to "leaked scripts" of movies and other "sneak-peek" reviews of popular media. A particularly noteworthy example was their ''[[Star Wars]] Episode II'' "leaked script" review, mostly because pretty much everything they predicted wound up being true.
** Truth Media usually tries really hard to get everything ''wrong'' so they can post and mock the inevitable replies from [[Troll
* As an [[April Fools' Day]] joke, Maddox of ''[[The Best Page in The Universe]]'' did a trailer for a fictional film, ''[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af08 Vague Genre Movie]'', mocking shallow parodies such as the [[Seltzer and Friedberg]] ones mentioned above.
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_15665_7-least-faithful-comic-book-movies.html 7 Least Faithful Comic Book Movies] talks about Ang Lee's ''[[Hulk (film)|Hulk]]'' movie and how it differed from the comics, saying that [[The Incredible Hulk]] ''didn't'' delve into psychological themes and that it spent an odd amount of time focusing on Bruce Banner's father. The thing is, though, Bruce Banner's multiple personality disorder and abusive childhood became a huge part of his mythos starting as far back as the 80s with Joe Fixit (and maybe even earlier than ''that'') and continued during the 90s. Assuming this is still canon then that accounts for ''over half of the The Hulk's canon.''
== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''Pop Culture Shocke Therapy'' uses
== Professional Wrestling ==
* [[Professional Wrestling]] gets this treatment all the time. Apparently, most observers over the age of 35 or so not only have never heard of [[John Cena]], but seem to believe that [[Two Decades Behind|the "Attitude Era" never happened]]. In the general public mind, a professional wrestler is [[Always Male]] (which is the fault of [[World Wrestling Entertainment]] itself, but never mind), [[Monochrome Casting|invariably a white Southerner]], has a ridiculous gimmick of the [[Something Person]] or [[Wrestling Doesn't Pay]] variety (which until recently was self-parodied by [[TNA]]'s "Shark Boy"), wears outrageously colored tights or [[Underwear of Power]], and [[Screaming Warrior|talks like he has " 'roid rage."]] Oh, and he's likely to be [[Dumb Muscle|a big, dumb, ugly guy too]]. In fact, [[Small Reference Pools|the only three wrestlers whom non-wrestling fans seem to have ever heard of]] are [[Hulk Hogan]], "Macho Man" [[Randy Savage]], and the "[[Ultimate Warrior]]" (maybe [[Andre the Giant]] or [[The Undertaker]], if you're lucky). The fact that there have been witty, urbane, or even downright ''effeminate'' wrestlers such as [[Gorgeous George]] or "Superstar" Billy Graham - and that these archetypes existed [[Unbuilt Trope|even before wrestling gained truly mainstream popularity]] - is simply not perceived by most people.
* CHIKARA made "CP Munk," a chipmunk version of [[CM Punk]]. That was the whole joke.
** That arguably includes elements of [[Totally Radical]] as well, since in the indies it's considered unbelievably hip to be a CM Punk fan.
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* Every parody of ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]'''s Garrison Keillor is based around: "The News From Lake Wobegon" (which is just one segment of a two hour show), his alleged need to [[The Simpsons (animation)|"be more funny"]] (his style of humor is intended to be subtle and whimsical, not broadly comedic, and he also has a strong satirical streak), his excessive folksiness (which is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek), and his voice (which is so distinctive that most imitators can't seem to do it properly. A lot of Keillor imitations end up sounding more like Stuart McLean of ''[[The Vinyl Cafe]]''.)
* The 2000s British radio comedy ''[[Atomic Tales]]'' parodies 1940s and 1950s American radio sci-fi drama. The only problem is that it largely does so based on the popular conception of what such shows were like rather than what they were actually like. A major feature of the parody is unsubtle, invariably rightwing, "moral lessons" at the end, despite the fact that such radio drama rarely had characters deliver political speeches (not least because they were primarily adventure stories largely intended for children and were supposed to be escapist). Another target of the parody is the notion that science is "evil" despite the fact that such shows often celebrated scientific endeavour and achievement in a way, ironically, that makes them look naive now; the "dire warnings" aspect usually came-about from "mad scientists" who twisted science to evil purposes rather than science being evil itself.
* ''That Mitchell & Webb Sound'', the radio predecessor to ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'', had a few notable examples.
** One of the most glaring ones is a [[Batman]] parody that portrays an older Robin as a deadbeat layabout who mooches off Batman and only sits around the Batcave watching TV and playing videogames, while Batman laments that his ward shows no interest in growing up and leaving the house to become a solo masked crimefighter, "Robin-Man or something." Seems Mitchell and Webb had absolutely no idea that the original Robin became a solo crimefighter ''dedades'' ago, as there is absolutely no reference to Nightwing, or to the fact that there has been more than one Robin.
** Likewise, a series of skits in the fourth season parodying ''[[Pinocchio]]'' bore almost no resemblance to the source material, centering mainly around how Pinocchio was an annoying, wide-eyed and overeager goof who kept getting in Gepetto's way and was oblivious to the fact that his "Papa" absolutely hated him and made several attempts to send him away or even outright murder him. Which is almost the opposite of the original book, where the problem was that Pinocchio kept running ''away'' from Gepetto, and was a bit of a [[Jerkass]] from the start.
** The same series had a number of skits parodying the [[Stargate Verse]], all of which are solely built around the premise of people getting reprimanded for throwing their rubbish into the Stargate, or using it as a supply cabinet, or a toilet, etc.
*** ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'', on the other hand, had fewer
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== Theater ==
* ''The Drowsy Chaperone'' [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|purports]] to be a forgotten Broadway musical from 1928, but bears very little resemblance (especially in its songs) to the musicals of [[The Twenties]] it aims to parody. This may have to do with actual musicals of the period being rarely seen on stage generations later except in [[Adaptation Decay
* Travesties, in which characters from other works were placed in ridiculous situations that had little to do with the original, may be older than deeper parodies. As Macdonald notes in his [[Serious Business|careful dissection of the delicate art of parody]], this was a sure recipe for dumb, cheap laughs. ''[[Disaster Movie]]'' and its ilk are therefore [[Older Than You Think]], and demand [[True Art Is Ancient|our respect and veneration.]] Then again, with a name like Travesty, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|at least you know what to expect when you go into it.]]
* Parodies of/jokes about [[Cirque Du Soleil]], no matter the medium, can wind up as this. Apparently, ''everybody'' in a given troupe is French or French-Canadian, they spend the whole show posing or contorting pretentiously if they aren't weird clowns who accost helpless audience
* This is [[Older Than Feudalism]]. [[Aristophanes]]' portrayal of [[Socrates]] in ''[[The Clouds]]'' has pretty much nothing to do with Socrates' actual views as a philosopher, and treats him as a combination of a pre-Socratic natural philosopher and a rhetorician. It also includes the common misconception of natural philosophers as atheists (which they generally weren't). Unfortunately, the misconceptions voiced by the play were partially responsible for Socrates' execution.
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** One claimed to mock [[Sherlock Holmes]] while not actually being anything like a Sherlock Holmes story. Also suffered from [[Small Reference Pools]].
** The second game had levels that didn't even fit the TV theme and were more like generic platformer levels, like the prehistoric stages. It also featured Gex...restating famous movie lines in a appropriate context. Not even doing a voice like in 3. Just...repeating them. Hilarious?
** In the 2nd game's prehistoric levels, Gex would say lines from Planet of the Apes. "Dr Zaius, would an ape make a human doll that talks?" "You cut out his brain, you nutty baboon." He didn't even repeat them as Charlton Heston said them, he asks the first one quite casually rather than the accusatory way it was said originally, though the second line was hissed.
* Most parodies of ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'' will name the main character "Ash" and give him his counterpart from [[Pokémon (anime)|the anime]] Ash's personality, when the game character's actual name is Red. Likewise, his rival will be named Gary instead of Blue, and if Team Rocket shows up, they'll usually be the more-or-less anime-exclusive Jessie, James and Meowth. In general, the parody will base itself mostly on the anime, even though it's quite different from the games. Even parodies made by gamers and fans are, at times, guilty of this.
* ''Thelemite'', and '''how'''. It's a fairly good game on its own merits, but as a parody of ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', it sort of kind of resemble the original game if you squint, and seems to have been written by someone who heard a summary of the game and once saw a picture of Alex Mercer. For starters, their Mercer stand-in becomes a "mutant ninja" who flies around kicking people complete with [[Power Glows]] and [[Kiai]]. This is roughly the equivalent of a parody of [[The Incredible Hulk]] that's utterly convinced the Hulk is a [[Token
* An advertisement for the racing game [[Blur (video game)|Blur]] acts like the [[Mario Kart]] games are kiddie games that are about "making friends" rather than competition. Only the complete opposite is true, especially in online races with other players. Wi-Fi competitions can be BRUTAL.
* The movie Dragon Brain in [[Grand Theft Auto IV]] appears to be a parody of [[High Fantasy]] films in general, but most of the jokes are about merchandising and CGI, rather than about typical fantasy movie cliches.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1156 This] ''[[PHD]]'' strip was apparently written by someone whose entire understanding of ''[[
* ''[[Lil Formers]]'' seems to think that all of the humor in ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' came from endless repetitions of "more than meets the eye". The quotation was only used twice; once by Optimus Prime at the end, and again by [[Unlucky Everydude|Sam]] near the beginning, and even then he remarks on how lame his use of it was.
** Anytime [[Lil Formers]] parodies Transformers that aren't ''Generation 1'', this trope comes in full effect. The films, [[Transformers Animated]], the Unicron Trilogy... Eventually, ''[[Shortpacked]]'' did a [http://www.shortpacked.com/2009/comic/book-8/07-when-robin-didnt-meet-that-other-guy/smallbots/ strip] parodying Moylan's tendencies to not research his stuff at all and only mock them because they're "new" and "not G1".
* Intentional in ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'', which purports to be a [[Film Noir]] parody, but has very little in common with the genre except for using lots of black and white, taking place in a '[[Anachronism Stew|vaguely Prohibition-era]]' setting, and having three fedora-wearing detectives as the main characters ([[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|who don't actually do any crime-solving until right at the very end]]). They don't even act like film noir characters, except for Problem Sleuth, who is occasionally [[Wrong Genre Savvy]] and dreams of solving crimes for 'hysterical dames'. In this case, it's just to contribute to the surrealism of it all.
** While ''Problem Sleuth'' is a Shallow Parody of Film Noir, it is also an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Adventure Game
* ''[[Unwinder's Tall Comics]]'': [[The Rant]] for [http://tallcomics.com/?id=56 this page] [[Discussed Trope|discusses this trope]]. Parker noted that everybody and their mother has parodied ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' at some point, but the majority seem to only reference the scenes (the bit about the sled, "Rosebud", etc) that have spread via [[Popcultural Osmosis]]. Parker deliberately set out to avoid doing that with his parody, so he imagined a ''Citizen Kane'' sequel made by a director who's obviously familiar with the original but still managed to completely miss the point. Furthermore, Parker wasn't content to simply make "the ''Citizen Kane'' parody for people who actually watched the film"
* The author of ''[[Electric Wonderland]]'' admitted to have written [http://www.platypuscomix.net/electricwonderland/index.php?issue=10&pageType=index&seriesID=11 this parody] of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' without watching the show, instead relying on [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara's]] ''History of Power Rangers'' video about the series.
* In-universe in ''[[Bobwhite]]''. [http://www.bobwhitecomics.com/?webcomic_post=20110429 Cleo tries to play] an ironic ukelele cover version of [[Lady Gaga]]'s "Born This Way". She gets a few lines in before admitting that she's never actually listened to the song.
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* [[The Randomverse|ItsJustSomeRandomGuy's]] parody of [[True Blood]] consists mainly of pointing out that the main characters have lots of sex onscreen.
** It also only makes fun of the TV version of Sookie Stackhouse. In the books Sookie is more pragmatic, logical, and nowhere near as cheery as TV Sookie due to [[Adaptation Decay]]. Also, while you could argue that the books aren't 'Great Literature' it's more on the level of the Dexter series rather than Twilight in terms of writing/character depth...but, again, [[Adaptation Decay]].
* [http://www.the-editing-room.com/ "The Editing Room"] is a satirical website consisting of "abridged screenplays", whereby the author takes the mickey out of a film by having its character [[Lampshade Hanging|hang lampshades all over the place]] and by snarking away at story points. Most are quite clever, but after a while some seem juvenile and shallow.
** [[It Gets Worse]] when you realize that the writer doesn't even bother to do any research into the background of the movie, or at times doesn't appropriately represent the story.
* [http://www.slate.com/id/2291119 A review] of ''[[Game of Thrones]]'' on Slate.com attempted to parody [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]... by using a prose style more reminiscent of [[The Eye of Argon|Jim Theis]] than George R. R. Martin.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXIk696BlVg Peter Coffin's parodies] of the ''[[Twilight (novel)|New Moon]]'' trailers are the [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] version of this trope. It's also [[Justified Trope|Justified]], as the intention was to fool ''Twilight'' fangirls into thinking they were the real trailers - so he had to make them right after said trailers were first released. And it works; if the videos themselves aren't hilarious enough for you, the angry responses from fans about how they were TRICKED!!!!1111 will be.
* Invoked in [[MSF High]], in-game. Lily, when asked to cosplay as her boyfriend, instead did a
** Why? {{spoiler|She loves him too much to attempt to imitate him, which she knows would probably be more of a [[Deconstructive Parody]]}}
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* A ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch parodying ''Into the Blue'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] this, with creator [[Seth Green]] explaining that [[Animation Lead Time|it was written before the movie came out]] and that they could only make the parody based on their guesses of what the movie would be like. He goes on to state he's sure that ''[[Into the Blue]]'' by now will be a complete success and received several Academy Award nominations.
** The skit runs thus:
{{quote|'''Paul Walker''': We're going to have to go... ''[[Title Drop|Into The Blue!]]''
'''Jessica Alba''': Into the blue?
'''Paul Walker''': Into the '''blue'''
...
'''Jessica Alba''': I'm in a ''bikini!''
'''Paul Walker''': I do ''lots'' of situps... }}
* Most Western Animation parodies of Anime seem to fall into this. Many draw from extremely small reference pools, and are done by people that seem to fall into one of three camps: saw half an episode of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', saw two minutes of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', or has some vague memories of watching ''[[Speed Racer]]''. If they're really, really, really on the ball, they might get so edgy and modern as to crack jokes about [[Dragonball Z|powering up for three months and yelling while looking constipated]].
** ''[[The Simpsons]]'' had something resembling an anime parody on the season 12 episode "HOMR." While at an animation convention, Bart and Lisa watch a Japanese cartoon (which Bart refers to as "Japanimation," which actually isn't used as much as the term anime) in which a robot-wolf-like creature captures a female warrior who turns into a prawn and destroys the robo-wolf, who then turns into a pair of wind-up shoes and walks away. So the point Al Jean (the episode writer) is making is "Ha-ha-ha, [[Widget Series|anime is weird]]" (which Bart and Lisa lampshade). Oddly, it seemed more like a parody of American science-fantasy cartoons from the '80s (''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|Masters of the Universe]]'', ''Thundarr the Barbarian'' etc.) than actual anime. Same thing with the "Battling Seizure Robot" parody from season 10 (though that's was more of a reference to that infamous ''Pokémon'' episode "Electric Soldier Porygon," which was banned after viewers suffered seizures).
** ''[[Futurama]]'' has shown no improvement with its "Action Delivery Force" bit. For being first aired [[Two Decades Behind|in 2011]] and the most topical gag is Amy in a [[Sailor Moon]] knock-off outfit. And while older animes, like the heavily referenced [[Voltron]], weren't known for overly fluid animation or [[Macekre|quality adaptations to America]] the dubs never spoke with sterotypical [[Bad Bad Acting|Japanese accents]] either.
** For a dizzying combination of the traits described above, there's the recurring ''[[Pokémon]]'' parody Tinymon in ''[[Johnny Test]]'', whose hero looks like Ash Ketchum, acts more like a Bruce Lee parody and, naturally, talks like ''[[Speed Racer]]''.
*** The "Tinymon" in [[Johnny Test]] also have more complex a and unnatural appearences making them look more like [[Digimon]] than Pokémon.
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* An episode of ''[[Drawn Together]]'' included ''[[Daria]]'' as a victim of torture in Hot Topic's basement. She quips this is men's fault, which is missing the point, since she tends to be misanthropic towards everyone regardless of gender. (The mischaracterization was probably because Daria looks so much like the stereotypical [[Straw Feminist]], being [[Hollywood Homely|"ugly"]] and all.)
** A ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' episode also featured a parody of Ms. Morgendorffer... or rather, Mr. Morgendorffer. In the segment, sometime after the events of the show and being interviewed by Michael Moore in a "Where Are They Now? 90s" send-up, Daria became a post-op FTM transgendered person named Daryl. Daryl drolly explained the procedure to Moore, who in turn lost his lunch. That was based on the other generalized misperception (by many who didn't watch the show as well as some of the characters in the show itself) of Daria as being emotionless or "The Misery Chick". Being ''Robot Chicken'', though, it's entirely conceivable they made the parody ''for'' the people who didn't watch ''Daria''.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlwzVqFNCA This] trailer for a canceled animated movie called ''Blue Planet'' begins with a rather shallow parody of ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' and ''[[A Bug's Life|A Bugs Life]]''.
** The movie itself was eventually released as an FMV On-Rails shooter called ''[[Deadly Tide]]''.
* The writers of ''[[Futurama]]'' spare no opportunity to mock PCs. The only problem? They've apparently never actually used one. For instance, in the televised version of ''Into the Wild Green Yonder'' (the original DVD release used a different joke), one of the robots thinks, "I'd like to thank my operating system, Windows 7, for... ... ''System error''." Windows 7 being most famous among users for ''never crashing''.
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[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:Parody Tropes]]
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