Surprisingly Accurate Parodies

K

Kunmui

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When cartoon writers try to do parodies, they sometimes have almost no knowledge of what they are parodying. Apparently, comic books have been stuck in the silver age and all anime characters speak like they were in Speed Racer or a Hong Kong dub of a 70s martial arts film. However, there are times you are relived that these parodies actually know their source material.

"Bat's All Folks" from Tiny Toons Adventures is a good example. While other cartoons might have just imitated the 1989 Batman movie, these people knew the Bat Mythos, which isn't a surprise since two of those people were Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. They even had a Dark Knight Returns reference!

"Super Strong Warner Siblings" from Animaniacs is another good example. Other Power Rangers parodies might have just referenced the bright suits and monsters, but here you get the feeling that Paul Rugg actually watched an episode or two of the show. It makes references to the teens being perfect goody two-shoes, the obvious property damage, Rita's formulaic plans and even Zordon's "fuzzy mouth". Oh, and the constant rock music in the background.

Can anyone think of parodies that you were surprised were accurate?
 
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic did a surprisingly good parody of the Benny Hill Yakkity Sax chase sequence - TWICE. The music even sounded pretty close to the original. They obviously couldn't do the 'run past the women whose clothes fly off' part of the parody, but the rest of it was pretty dead on.
 
I wasn't a fan of the show, but I remember Kids Next Door doing a (surprisingly accurate) parody of the Animatrix. The segment about the first rouge robot that killed its master, only they made it about the first adult that spanked a child.
 
That's what made WBA so great in the 1990's: the writers were well aware of the stuff that they were spoofing right to the point where you don't even know that it was a parody until you got older.

Two examples of this:

"Sepulveda Boulevard": A brilliant Tiny Toons episode that was written so well, that it's great even if you have no clue that this was a parody of Sunset Boulevard.

"The Cloud": A funny Freakazoid episode in it's own right (thanks in part to the running gag about the moterboat ride closing in Disneyland), but is made even more funny when you discover that the episode is spoofing the B-Movie The Crawling Eye (right down to the film's credits sequence).
 
There was an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy that had its plot be a parody of the novel God Emperor of Dune. When I saw Mandy as a giant worm-like creature who constantly made clones of Billy for centuries, I was like, "No way!".

In fact, I think the show creators were Dune fans, because the Gom Jabbar shows up in another episode.
 
Just a couple of weeks ago Family Guy did a surpisingly accurate short parody to street fighter, complete with all the fighting game mechanics!:eek:
 
"Right!"

I think the Transformers episode of Panty & Stocking is a case of not only being an accurate parody but possibly the only accurate Transformers one. There are alot of generic ones which seem to run with bland jokes like 'Hey, hey guys! What if the Transformers turned into toilets and fridges and junk?'. Panty & Stocking instead directly parody the franchise. Everything from the G1 style designs, the live action movies and lesser known stuff like the promotional art of Studio Ox gets a look in. It's very clear the staff knew their stuff and when they say they're parodying Transformers, they ARE parodying Transformers.
 
Speaking of American Dad, there was another episode that did a SchoolHouse Rock parody explaining the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, complete with animation done in the SHR style, complete with a catchy song that totally wouldn't have been out of place airing on ABC Saturday mornings between Scooby-Doo and Superfriends.
 
Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy from "SpongeBob", while parodying the Adam West Batman and Robin, also seem a decent enough parody of Aquaman and Aqualad (down to, well, knowing who Aqualad even *is*, and going past the usual "guy who swims and communicates with fish" bits), including a mostly-accurate parody of the old 60s Filmation Aquaman show's opening (the fish and shark swimming past the camera, the narration lines, Mermaid Man throwing a water ball at the camera at the end). Their archnemesis is "Man Ray", apparently a take-off on Black Manta, Aquaman's archfoe, and they have a "Mermalair" (the "Aquacave")...
 
The Justice Friends from Dexter's Lab would qualify as an avengers parody. They didnt just make the standard captain america, thor, and hulk parodies, they went above and beyond, also satirizing other avengers such as scarlet witch, iron man,black panther and the vision. The only ones who arent avengers parodies are Captial G (who could still be seen as a black goliath/giant man 2 homage) and Tiki Torch (human torch parody?). Not to mention the silver spooner and barbequer (galactus parody)
 
The Daily Show did it first; they had a dead-on Schoolhouse Rock style parody number explaining mid-term elections, with the same type of animation and music. (This was back when Stephen Colbert was still a Daily Show correspondent.)
 
One neat thing about Dexter' Laboratory was a short that used one of the Justice Friends character to do a parody of those Hostess ads that were in comic books in the1970s and 80s with Marvel and DC characters, complete with a cheesy, made up villain (The Mathamagician). If those Hostess ads were animated, it would've been this.
 
Animaniacs had a pretty dead on shot at Friends in one episode. I still watch that one to this day when I'm feeling down or have annoying memories of Friends-mania.
 
Does anybody remember the Duck Dodgers TV series? They had an episode "Samurai Quack" that was a fairly accurate parody of Samurai Jack. I remember Dodgers trying to use the time portal, only to be told it wasn't real; nobody expected him to actually try and use it. And of course: "walking, walking, walking..."
 
Not to mention trying to get rid of those black Widescreen bars that appear whenever a fight to suppose to happen. Oh, and Genndy Tartakovsky making a voice cameo as the guy who sets up the time portal gag.

"You're lucky I didn't cut you to ribbons."
"Not with a Y7 rating, you won't." :D
 
I just thought of this one:

I remember Freakazoid had a Jonny Quest-like parody called Toby Danger, that mimicked Jonny Quest's heavy-black outline animated style and music, and I think they even got Don Messick (or a really good soundalike) to do the voice of the Dr. Quest-like character.
 
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