Parodies of things that are now much more famous than the actually thing

Examples, please. Ready? Go.

foghorn leghorn

I meant "actual thing", obviously. Dare I disturb a mod from their slumber? No, silly of me even to think it -- as you were.

"You are Old Father William" is very well known, but I doubt many people who aren't students of Eng Lit are now aware of Robert Southey's didactic poem "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them"

I guess the teenage mutant ninja turtles count, starting out as a parody of the X-Men and Frank Millar's Daredevil?

this maybe isn't quite the same thing, but there must be a lot of acting performances and or characters that are based to an extent on real people where the character becomes more famous than the person? like Peter Sellers' Bluebottle voice from the Goon Show being based on Ruxton Hayward

Monty Python & The Holy Grail > Knights of the Round Table

Recently found out that "Burlington Bertie from Bow" is a parody of an earlier song called "Burlington Bertie" where the character is an actual toff (real toffs wouldn't be from Cockney Bow, corblimey guv'nor!)

Irving Berlin so nicked the concept of "Burlington Bertie from Bow" for "We're a Couple of Swells" didn't he???

Yep, Soref, Hannah Barbera cartoons are full of that sort of thing most of which I was completely unaware until I started looking them up on Wikipedia.

I mean, I guess for most people Penelope Pitstop would be better known than the Perils of Pauline, but not if you're a silent film buff like Pam Hutchinson.

Don Quixote

You could lift a bunch of examples from SNL. Esoteric one: Phil Hartman's Admiral Stockdale is more famous than Admiral Stockdale. Same thing with Weird Al. (Or as I like to call him, "Weird" Al.) I don't know how well know Greg Kihn's hit single is today.

'nyan cat' > cats
'the office' > actual office work
'donald trump' > politics

at the risk of being trenchantly trenchant, this is pretty much a defining feature of the century?

'Allo 'Allo! probably more famous than Secret Army

wonder if by now "Thus Spake Zarathustra" has been used in more cartoon parodies, tv commercials, product demos, keynote speeches, etc. vs. the number of people who have actually sat through the entire 2001: A Space Odyssey

Spinal Tap almost works but it's more of a general style parody than a direct parody. still any rock n roll excess is "dialing up to 11".

there's a building society advert on UK TV at the moment that makes non-ironic use of Nimrod from the Enigma Variations and I always find it jarring because I'm so used to hearing it used in ads in a jokey, mocking way (in fact I think there's another advert currently in rotation which uses it that way, and also features poetry? the plusnet one where he quotes 'If')

the big one is Don Quixote

...which has already been said. very early on. great. the parody of myself that is me is much, much better known than any version of myself that wasn't a self-parody

anyway the other big one is Aristophanes

Probably a bunch from The Simpsons. I suspect that many people who hear the Cape Fear theme these days immediately think of Sideshow Bob.

I realize a lot of this depends on age. I only found out a few nights ago that the episode in which the Rush Limbaugh-eque conservative blowhard tries to put Mayor Quimby on the spot by describing the brutal hypothetical murder of his family was taken pretty much straight from a famous exchange during the '88 presidential election.

(the scene in question, that is, not the entire episode. I don't suspect Bush of fudging the election with the votes of dead pets.)

Monty Python & The Holy Grail > Knights of the Round Table

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 26 April 2018 00:49 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

smdh

northanger abbey > mysteries of udolpho

there is no way "holy grail" is more famous than the king arthur legends

...was taken pretty much straight from a famous exchange during the '88 presidential election.
― incel elgort (cryptosicko)

I agree with your basic point about The Simpsons, but not with that particular example: the Bernard Shaw/Dukakis exchange is one of the half-dozen most infamous (and most replayed) presidential debate clips ever.

(Disregard--you mentioned the age qualifier.)

candide's pangloss > actual optimists like alexander pope

Going back to the first example, Bugs Bunny is another one. It was Clarke Gable who said "whats up, doc?" eating a carrot in It Happened One Night but its no longer him known for that...

I keep thinking of things that fit the latter criteria without quite satisfying the former. EG, the McDonaldland characters, which are just a ripoff of Krofft's Pufnstuf characters but arguably more well-known.

@Seinfeld2000 became more popular than the original what-if-Seinfeld-was-still-on-today twitter account it parodies, @SeinfeldToday

that was probably a very random example but it was the first one that came to mind lol

Another Age-Qualified One: The Sinatra Group skit on SNL vs. The McLaughlin Group.

there is no way "holy grail" is more famous than the king arthur legends

Isn't this somewhat determined by where you live? I mean, sure, if you're from the UK then you're immersed in Arthurian stuff -- Arthur's Seat, Camelot, Tintagel, Glastonbury etc, reading Gawain & the Green Knight at school &c. Elsewhere maybe not so much.

Another Simpsons: The Murphy Brown parody at the end of "Selma's Choice" (Selma singing "(You Make Me Fell Like A) Natural Woman" to Jubjub).

Thats what that was?!

@Seinfeld2000 is a great example.

Largely agree with GG about Monty Python & King Arthur, but the basics of the myth are more famous, so Monty Python doesn't count.

i uploaded that murphy brown scene to youtube in 2014 because it had been so forgotten that there wasn't a copy on any video site by then.

Airplane! was reportedly enough of a beat-for-beat takeoff of zero hour! that they bought the rights to the latter film so they wouldn't get in trouble for making an unauthorised remake, but how many people remember zero hour! now?

Stretching both "parody" and "famous" maybe, but blank generation > Beat Generation

The pop music of the 1890s and 1900s is now basically only known via parodies and heavily stylised interpretations, barbershop quartets, 'One Froggy Evening' etc. Actually 30s and 40s cartoons are full of this stuff.

^^On the Abrams/Zucker tip: Police Squad!/Naked Gun vs. numerous & sundry '70s cop shows.

Yes, Airplane/Flying High an excellent example.

And also re the old timey pop songs. I recall having had no idea as a kid that "puttin on the ritz" was from the... 30s? Til my *grandma* went "oh we used to dance to this song!" and 14 year old me rolled my eyes and went "UH NO WAI".

One thing where this happens is where there is a rake of parodies of an omnipresent TV ad, where the parodies extend further in time and space - IE I was watching US TV shows on non-US channels in the 80s, so I’ve seen a ton of jokes about “Where’s the beef?” or “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” but never saw the original ads.

Led Zep

Def Leppard

Fucking Star Wars (for fucks sake)

roxanne > cyrano de bergerac ??

general parodies of Cyrano > the Rostand play i'd've thought

The Rostand play > the author Cyrano de Bergerac

Roxanne is less a parody than an adaptation though?

wonder if by now "Thus Spake Zarathustra" has been used in more cartoon parodies, tv commercials, product demos, keynote speeches, etc. vs. the number of people who have actually sat through the entire 2001: A Space Odyssey

It's also a whole tone poem in and of itself.

was gonna point this out like

Yeah, but that's not what the reference is.

in america, boris badenov is better known than boris godunov

pretty sure this isn't true in russia

if we're talking about classical music known mainly for their use in a "humorous"/comedic context, there's that bit from "romeo and juliet", as well as "morning mood" from grieg's "peer gynt". there was a generation that grew up thinking that the lyrics to "ride of the valkyries" were "kill the wabbit", but i think maybe now it's better-known through apocalypse now?, which isn't a parody. a whole lot of opera was like that when i was a kid - allan sherman's "hello muddah hello faddah" was definitely better known than "dance of the hours", but they're both pretty thoroughly forgotten now i think. there was a parody of the "toreador song" from carmen that was part of camp lore - maybe it still is, but i doubt it.

Stretching both "parody" and "famous" maybe, but blank generation > Beat Generation

xp Yeah do wonder how many people are aware of Cyrano de Begerac as actual non fictional character.
I have his A Voyage To the Kingdoms of the Moon and the Sun because I was interested in early sci fi and its precursors.

Don't Look Back In Anger -> Look Back In Anger (song) -> Look Back In Anger (play)

Combine Harvester by the Wurzels is much more famous than the Rollerskate Song that most don't know the original

First I heard of the original was a certain scene in Boogie Nights, which made for some fairly confusing associations

The play is awful but so is Don't Look Back In Anger.

in the 70s at least parodies of Toulouse Lautrec the man (comedian on knees wearing long overcoat, shoes on the knees), must've been way more familiar than his actual work

Oh, it's about relative fame! Sorry! I'd still say the play was more famous than the Bowie song thouhg.

the play is considerably more famous, even if we're only talking the title

Bowie song isn't a parody tho, and the Oasis song only a parody in the metaphorical sense

I dunno, any Bowie single is bound to be better known these days than even the most famous play from the 50s, hard to test though

Yeah, not parodies of course

as a kid i was probably far more familiar with characters like Charlie Chan or even Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe thru cartoon and film spoofs of the originals

i don't think the Bowie single is one that's familiar to non-Bowie fans tbh

Apparently Combine Harvester itself is a cover version(!?)

A version of the song entitled "Combine Harvester", with new rustic-themed lyrics by Irish songwriter Brendan O'Shaughnessy (including "I've got a brand new combine harvester An' I'll give you the key"), was recorded by Irish comedian Brendan Grace, whose version scored No. 1 on the Irish Charts during 1975. For the UK Singles Chart, West Country comedy folk act The Wurzels scored No. 1 for two weeks during June 1976 with a version of this.

LOL, so many Of Mice And Men parodies in Warner Bros cartoon.

Oh boy am I learning stuff today

Brendan Grace (born 1 April 1951) is an Irish comedian and singer. He is known for his comedy schoolboy character "Bottler", the role of Murphy in the 1995 movie Moondance, and his 1996 appearance in the Irish TV sitcom Father Ted as Father Fintan Stack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKxrJQlSMXs

god yeah "i will pet him and love him and call him George" was in my consciousness for 20 years before i knew what it came from

So great that they quickly spotted the obvious comic potential of Of Mice And Men.

the book must've been a popular hit from the off for those gags to work, but i guess it has the edge on most of Steinbeck's stuff in being short

Pretty sure it's the film they were referencing rather than the book.

coming back to "Hello Muddah Hello Faddah", Ulysses was the punchline in a bunch of jokes i didn't understand as a kid. also Lolita in some Tony Hancock episode

didn't know about the 1939 movie tbh

Some writer at Warner Bros obviously saw it and thought, "Does no-one else find this funny?"

it is one of the top 5 funniest things ever tbf

alongside serial sexual predator Pepe le Pew

Anyone Said Betty Boop? (based on either Helen Kane or Baby Esther)

sadly Betty Boo is not > Betty Boop

the count from sesame street > bela lugosi's portrayal of dracula

another one not exactly correct but obv i knew Top Cat long before Bilko

pretty sure there's an old Dom quote somewhere about only knowing the Star Wars stories thru Family Guy

alongside serial sexual predator Pepe le Pew

― songs by bands by Sondheim (Noodle Vague), Thursday, April 26, 2018 11:49 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

isn't Pepe based on Charles Boyer in Algiers? if so, he counts as well

i think that's right yes

THe Beatles to the Crickets Buddy Holly's backing band or the Hollies to Buddy Holly at least in terms of things being named in pastiche of other things.
Possibly The Monkees to the Beatles' Help up to a certain point but I think that's been repopularised a lot over the last couple of years.

Pepe was always my least favourite WB character as a kid, not so much for the 'problematic' aspects which went more or less over my head, but I just didn't find him funny at all - I think because I wasn't aware enough of what he was parodying, not necessarily Boyer specifically, but that 'type', the over the top French beau was something I had no reference for? I remember seeing a Pepe le Pew cartoon years later as a teenager or an adult and finding it hilarious.

(I think another part of it is that Pepe is funny because of his obliviousness and that kind of comedy of obliviousness where you can see what the character can't is maybe something that kids don't tend to 'get'? because they themselves are oblivious of so much of how the world works maybe, so comedy about breaking social rules doesn't really work for them?)

the other WB character I didn't like was Foghorn Leghorn, I think again because he was a parody of something but I had no context for the thing he was parodying? but I had no context for the Lenny from Of Mice And Men stuff either, and I always thought that was funny. maybe not a 'type' in the same way that Pepe and Foghorn Leghorn are though

can't remember when i decided he was so funny but the physical stuff, that loping skip while the cat he's pursuing is frantically sprinting away always made me laugh i think

Foghorn pacing out the length of the dog's chain and drawing a line in the dirt is also comedy gold no matter what age you are

I had no idea Foghorn Leghorn was a parody of anything until someone mentioned it on ILX about month ago. I just thought he was a big bumptious chicken. And funny too.

On top of spaghetti more popular than on top of old smokey - loosing a meatball from somebody sneezing much more interesting than losing a lover for courting to slow.

Wait, really? I was v familiar with Old Smokey as a kid.

I might be able to believe that the anarcho-syndicalist commune in Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail is more famous than irl anarcho-syndicalism but I don't believe that anyone has watched that movie without having heard of King Arthur; nor that anyone watches This Is Spinal Tap without being aware of the existence of 70s and 80s hard rock bands. Fame doesn't require that people know the original subject in exhaustive depth.

Monty Python & The Holy Grail > Knights of the Round Table

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, April 25, 2018 8:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

West coasters, is Round Table Pizza is more famous out there than the Knights of the Round Table?

Life of Brian > Jesus

(I can definitely believe that the People's Front of Judea / Judean People's Front is more famous than whatever internecine leftie schism is being parodied - if there is a specific one)

see also the tooting popular front / citizen smith

there is no way "holy grail" is more famous than the king arthur legends

true, and it is probably a bad example. the Monty Python thing can't even exist without prior knowledge of the Arthurian legends.

however MP jokes are sort of the automatic go-to reference above any literary lore. imo "Fame" = "Current relevancy". gonna take a guess that any modern cartoon or skit or whatever that references King Arthur will inevitably reference it through the lens of Python.

fwiw there was a irl event that prompted me to include that here. yesterday there was a big round table i was sitting down to and I said "Oh i like this round table here" and immediately the people near me went off into Python references. nobody was quoting "The One and Future King"

the cartoon characters are def a goldmine for this, Bug Bunny probably the source for so many old time gangster & movie star tics, references meant for people in the 30s and 40s that are now historical trivia entirely owned by Bugs in the pop culture.

Then there's Monty Python's Summarize Proust sketch and Philosopher's Song - for that matter, the Germany v. Greece Philosophers' World Cup Final sketch - I still have never read 'A la recherche du temps Peru' and have no clue about most of the philosophers they mention.

... sorry, that has nothing to do with parodies.

.. du temps Peru, lol.

It'll be just gone 8am.

The Muppet Show > vaudeville

i thought temps Peru was a gag i hadn't heard before, think it's gonna stick

Muppets Tonight > 30 Rock

NV's display name reminds me: some of Lewis Carroll's pastiche poems in Alice fit into this. The originals are increasingly obscure while people still read Alice.

Some of Tenniel's illustrations too, I think.

Not "much more" famous, but I wonder if "Lola Heatherton" is slightly better-remembered than Joey Heatherton at this point, since Joey's fanbase is aging out.

I had definitely seen Joey Heatherton's mattress commercials in the '70s but knew nothing about her and didn't at first make the connection when confronted with Catherine O'Hara's force-of-nature character on SCTV.

^^ that reminds me - Peter Serafinowicz's Brian Butterfield character = more famous than that guy from the advert it was originally based on

Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3M3Igjnbhs

Feel like there are dozens of examples like this in my childhood, if not with parodies then certainly with puns, where it was years before I had any idea what they were riffing on.

Is Eat it thought of more or less fondly than Beat It?

Probably a bunch from The Simpsons.

Someone posted a Hooray For Everything! clip on fb the other day, and I thought, does anyone anywhere remember Up With People?

I think a lot of SNL impressions are more famous than the people they are impersonating. When someone does a George HW Bush voice for example, they aren’t going George HW Bush, they’re doing Dana Carvey DOING George HW Bush

Up With People is still going afaik. xp

Don't Look Back In Anger -> Look Back In Anger (song) -> Look Back In Anger (play)

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

look back in angora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_fmUYyWSyE

for the longest time i thought the mirror routine was a Bug Bunny joke. then i thought it was a Marx Bros. joke. turns out it's a really old 19th century vaudeville routine

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/21/the_mirror_routine_in_movies_supercut_from_duck_soup_the_marx_brothers_and.html

The Energizer Bunny.

thanks, i had no idea what was going on with that whole Energizer/Duracell thing

Up With People is still going afaik. xp

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, April 26, 2018 11:03 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Holy crap, indeed it is:
https://upwithpeople.org/

goddamnit there's some super classic book that is all sarcastic and negative that was a response to another super posi book and we all know the response book and I can't think of it HALP

Utopia?

how to lose friends and alienate people?

The New Testament?

I think a lot of SNL impressions are more famous than the people they are impersonating. When someone does a George HW Bush voice for example, they aren’t going George HW Bush, they’re doing Dana Carvey DOING George HW Bush

see also Tina Fey!Sarah Palin and/or "I can see Russia from my house"

goddamnit there's some super classic book that is all sarcastic and negative that was a response to another super posi book and we all know the response book and I can't think of it HALP

― kurt schwitterz, 26. april 2018 20:28 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Voltaires Candide

Whiney polling autechre threads > autechre threads

in the '70s the "Nixon voice" we all did was based on the TV impressionists' version

post-2k Chuck Norris memes vs. people that have actually seen Invasion USA

Totally. Norris’ were kind of third teir in terms of 80s action flicks to begin with. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one, and I grew up as a pretty undiscriminating viewer of 80s cable.

I can't remember the last time I've seen a sincere motivational poster.