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Shallow Parody: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.ShallowParody 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.ShallowParody, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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More egregious cases will often ignore elements that justify the more ridiculous aspects of the work or mock the original for things the original doesn't even have.
Note this is sometimes unavoidable. For example, if you're parodying a film that hasn't come out yet, the trailer may be all you have to go on (although parodying something that has not yet branded itself into the public's consciousness would seem a little pointless). Occasionally, the parodists may make good guesses and succeed anyway. However, if you're making a parody of ''[[Citizen Kane (Film)|Citizen Kane]]'' and [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"|all you know]] is the "[[It Was His Sled|Rosebud]]" scene... well, there really is no excuse.
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.
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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]].
{{examples
== Comic Books ==
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* One of many, '''''many''''' flaws in the [[Seltzer and Friedberg]] "parody" films, such as ''Date Movie'', ''Epic Movie'', ''Meet the Spartans'', and the aptly named ''Disaster Movie''. In fact, ''Disaster Movie'' parodied films which were ''[[Narrow Parody|not released at the time the script was written]]''. As a result, it included parodies of films which flopped and were already forgotten by the time ''Disaster Movie'' made it to theaters.
** Tellingly ''not'' the case with ''[[Superhero Movie]]'', not by [[Seltzer and Friedberg]], though often assumed to be. Though not a great movie by a long shot, it is a rather direct parody of the first ''[[Spider-Man]]'' film, as is the better for it.
** It's been argued that [[Seltzer and Friedberg]] don't, in fact, do parody at all. What they do is pop culture ''acknowledgements'', feeling secure in the knowledge that there exist in America enough people [[Viewers
** ''[[Vampires Suck (Film)|Vampires Suck]]'' mostly averted this, except for a couple of throwaway gags.
* Somewhat more excusable example: ''[[Airplane!]]'' includes a parody of a famous scene from ''From Here to Eternity'' despite none of the writers having watched that film. Mind you, that's ''one'' parody in a film which included... well, a lot.
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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|Trolls]] and [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|so-called-experts.]] The [[Grand Theft Auto|GTA]] San Andreas review was quite noticeable for getting the main character's name wrong despite knowing his initials.
* 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.
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_15665_7-least-faithful-comic-book-movies.html This] ''[[Cracked]]'' article that 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.''
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** 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 (Video Game)|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 Mini
* 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.
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*** Except for the one he catches. That one is a dead ringer for [[Pokémon Colosseum|Shadow Lugia]].
** While the ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'' episode "[[Trapped in TV Land|Channel Chasers]]" visits two [[Animesque]] shows, the one with poor lipsync and bizarre enunciation is specifically a parody of ''[[Speed Racer]]'', so it's somewhat better than most other examples.
** [[Dexters Laboratory]] did anime parody twice, once specifically of ''[[Speed Racer]]'' and later in the series of common anime villains traits (like being [[Bishonen]] and wearing [[Scary Impractical Armor]]). The only problem was that the villain from the latter was a [[Card
** ''[[Popeye]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYRPvz-LV-k versus anime]'' is an internet animation that does this.
* A lot of animated shows parody comic book superheroes. Almost all of them act as if comic books stopped being published after the [[Silver Age]] and the last comic book adaption released was the [[Adam West]] ''[[Batman]]'' series.
** And some go into the notion that Superheroes aren't about fighting evil but violence and that every supervillain in the history is [[Card
* There was an episode of Droopy, Master Detective that was a satire of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', and apparently, whoever wrote that episode was under the impression that Juliet was [[Distressed Damsel|a princess who got captured]] [[Super Mario Bros|and that Romeo rescued her.]]
* 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]]'' and ''[[A
** 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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