Shallow Parody: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Super Mouse 6320.png|link=Mighty Mouse|frame|[[Don't Explain the Joke|See, it's funny because]] it's [[Superman]], only he's not a man, but a mouse! Ah ha ha... Genius satire.]]

 

{{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.''"|''[[Serious Business|Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm - and After. Compiled with an Introduction & Notes by Dwight MacDonald]]''}}

 

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]].

 

== 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.