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Affectionate Parody / Live-Action TV

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  • Japanese comedy show Akan Keisatsu (Featuring core Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende cast members Hamada and Matsumoto of the comedy duo Down Town) features a section named "Tousou CHUU", parodying Run For Money: Tousouchuu, a long-running game show also produced by Fuji Television. The hunters in the game are replaced by a significantly larger amount of crossdressers (who are generally slower compared to the originals, though there are still one or two on par with them), all of which are led by KABA-chan. Losers (tagged by any one of them) not only get eliminated like in the original but will be lipstick-kissed by them, with a photo sent to other participants. What makes it more terrible is that, up until recently, no player has won this game.
  • Batman (1966): This article argues that the mere fact of playing a relatively ambitious live-action production of a superhero (viewed at the time as an inherently worthless material) had to be played as a superficial, deliberately light self-parody devised by mainstreamers who never even suspected that a rich timeless fantasy was lurking underneath.
  • The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Zeppo" is, like Enchanted, a parody of the show itself, using strictly Xander's point of view to show loads and loads of out-of-context In Medias Res snippets of Buffy cliches and tropes that any Buffy fan could tell would make sense in context if the full story was ever told, but come across as hilariously random, nonsensical, and melodramatic as shown.
  • The Carol Burnett Show did many parodies over the years that would qualify for the trope, but one of the most celebrated was the show's 1976 takeoff of Gone with the Wind, called "Went With the Wind" (with Burnett playing "Starlett", sporting the most infamous takeoff of Curtain Clothing ever). The costume was designed by Bob Mackie, and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Carry on Laughing!: Every episode parodies a book, another TV series, or a period of British history.
  • El Chapulín Colorado is this in general of the superhero and tokusatsu genres, but also have some special episodes that are affectionate parodies of other genres, most notably western and gangster movies, the three-part especial Blancanieves y los siete churín churín chunfláis is a parody of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and also the four-parts especial La function debe continuar, is basically sketch after sketch of famous Hollywood movies and performers including Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Carol Burnett.
  • The Charmed episode "Chick Flick" was an affectionate parody of slasher films, giving us Piper's immortal line "I'm being stalked by psycho killers and I hide in the shower?" "Charmed Noir" from the seventh season is the same for Noir Gangster films.
  • The Chaser's War On Everything skit "I'm a Fan of Doctor Who" presumably just scans as mocking stereotypical loser nerds if you're not into the show... but the lyrics reference things like Robert Holmes, "Attack of the Cybermen" and the Peter Cushing Doctor and are far too well researched to have not been written by anyone who wasn't a hardcore Doctor Who fan.
  • Childrens Hospital is an Affectionate Parody of medical dramas, mostly Grey's Anatomy.
    • One can't help but think that it was the exact building used in Scrubs.
  • Danger 5 lovingly parodies sixties cinema and TV, pulp fiction, and old Japanese sci-fi. It features a Multinational Team tasked with killing Stupid Jetpack Hitler and thwarting his various mad schemes in a 60s Alternate History. Also has Pulp Magazine parodies on its website.
  • The DareDoll Dilemmas is a loving (sexy) parody of sixties shows like Batman (1966) and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, with cheesy and bizarre villains, Male Gaze and slow deathtraps.
  • Dick & Dom in da Bungalow parodied lots of Game Shows for the finale at the end of each week's show, which would end with "creamy muck-muck" [custard] being flung everywhere. They used current shows—Muck or No Muck, Who Wants to Be a Muckionaire?—and older ones, which the children competing had probably never seen, like Muckphrase (Catchphrase). They occasionally parodied another genre, such as doing political talk show Question Muck (Question Time), the week after a politician had suggested that Da Bungalow was too lavatorial.
  • The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "It May Look Like a Walnut" is a parody of both The Twilight Zone (1959) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Bad Wolf" does this by taking the Reality Show genre (and The Weakest Link) to its logical extreme. Ironically, many critics and fans assumed the point was to mock how terrible those shows were and not a tribute.
    • "Love & Monsters" straddles the line between this and Take That! of the show's own fan-base. It affectionately parodies the "good" fans, showing them to be, if socially awkward and a bit geeky, ultimately decent, likable people who come together and form connections with each other based on their shared affection and love for the Doctor and what he represents. Furthermore, these connections allow them to express and develop their creativity and even fall in love with one another. The "bad" type of fan, who treats fandom as it were some kind of joyless, ritualistic vocation, with themselves, naturally, the bullying egotists at the top of the hierarchy? Well, they're presented as a Doctor Who monster. Read into that what you will.
    • "The Unicorn and the Wasp" is an Affectionate Parody of murder mysteries, especially those written by Agatha Christie.
    • The Comic Relief spoof "The Curse of Fatal Death" was written by Steven Moffat, who ended up becoming a showrunner of the uncancelled show. That says it all.
    • Iris Wildthyme (a character in the spin-offs who may or may not be a Time Lady) has her own series of Big Finish audios; for one season, each audio parodied a different decade of Doctor Who (the 1990s one, in particular, is pure Eighth Doctor TV Movie).
    • "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" is one towards the Silver Age Superman, showing the Twelfth Doctor meeting an actual Superman Substitute and being baffled by the many superhero tropes he encounters.
  • Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible is a loving parody of the British horror film of the 1960s and 1970s made by the likes of Hammer, Amicus, and Tigon, with cameos, nods and references all over the place. And it was written by and stars Steve Coogan.
  • F Troop is often seen as an Affectionate Parody of westerns.
    • With a Stealth Parody of claims that Native Americans are the lost 13th Tribe of Israel by having the members of the Hekawi tribe played by Yiddish comedians.
  • Go Princess Go is an Affectionate Parody of time-travel dramas and historical dramas in general. Instead of a female protagonist like most time-travel dramas, its protagonist is a man who ends up in a woman's body. And instead of being a semi-serious portrayal of life in the imperial palace like most historical dramas, the series plays the entire situation for laughs.
  • In a sense, the Hannah Montana character (and certain aspects of the music and lyrics) seems to be an Affectionate Parody of the kind of blond, energetic, high-fashion female Idol Singer that gained fame in the early 2000s, at least while they still had a teen-pop image and style. The younger Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Disney's own Hilary Duff are obvious references.
  • Hunter: In case the title doesn't make it apparent, "Murder, He Wrote" is an homage to "Murder, She Wrote". In this episode, Hunter and McCall are investigating the murder of a billionaire and not only have to deal with the dead man's family, but also with a mystery writer friend of his named Jennifer Brasher (played by Marge Redmond), who offers unsolicited help to the two detectives, much like Jessica Fletcher. Redmond—who had actually replaced Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—does a spectacular job of mimicking Lansbury.
  • I Was a Sixth Grade Alien: The "Tarbox Moon Warriors" show is a goofy homage to Star Trek, but it's clear that despite sounding extremely silly and having laughably bad acting, writing and props, no actual hostility to Trek is intended, and Tim's love for the series is usually portrayed affectionately.
  • JAG: Admiral Chegwidden, while on leave in "War Stories", gets persuaded by a Hollywood producer to act as a technical advisor on the movie Fields of Gold, which is a Navy-themed action adventure with a court-martial. Chegwidden is a Fish out of Water as the real Navy differs quite a lot from the Reel Navy.
  • Jimmy Fallon put a twist on jokes about American football player Tim Tebow with "Tebowie", who doubles as a loving spoof of Glam Rock-era David Bowie and sings Tebow-specific versions of "Space Oddity" and "Ziggy Stardust" that are funnier for deliberately patterning the lyrics after the structure of the original songs (the former becomes a dialogue between Tebow and Jesus Christ rather than Ground Control and Major Tom, for instance).
  • Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire: The series is one of the heroic fantasy genre, with a bumbling hero who's cuckolded by his ostensible girlfriend (who often outfights him) with an otherwise fairly incompetent band following him to stop an evil overlord, who's far less intimidating and more camp than most.
  • Lessons for a Perfect Detective Story is an affectionate parody of most detective tropes and the genre as a whole. Note that the creator, Higashino Keigo, is a popular mystery and crime writer so ultimately he parodies himself at the same time.
  • The Millennium (1996) episode "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" shows a censor going berserk on the set of a TV show which is obviously a parody of The X-Files.
  • Modern Family's season 3 finale features a beautiful parody of telenovelas in general.
  • Guess what Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn episode "The Wonderful Wizard of Quads" is based upon?
  • Odd Squad is an affectionate parody of shows like Warehouse 13 and Get Smart.
  • Only Fools and Horses: Rodney's dream at the beginning of "Heroes and Villains" is in part a send-up of Cold Lazarus, which had aired earlier that year.
  • The Orville is what happens when you have Seth MacFarlane create a Star Trek show. While the show does have a lot of the wacky humor he's known for, it still wears its affection for the original series openly and proudly.
  • Portlandia is an Affectionate Parody of both hipsters and Portland, Oregon.
    • Documentary Now is this to films like Grey Gardens and The Thin Blue Line.
  • The Red Green Show was a parody of "The Red Fisher Show" a fishing show popular in Canada in the '70s and '80s.
  • Rutland Weekend Television had a few of these, such as The Old Gay Whistle Test ("Old Grey Whistle Test"), Rutland Five-O, and 24 Hours In Tunbridge Wells (one in a series of 'Classically bad American movies', including sailors singing and dancing).
  • Saturday Night Live:
    • Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood, which the target, Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, really liked.
    • Fred Armisen, who plays Prince in a recurring SNL sketch, is a lifelong fan and did the sketch because he hoped it would lead to him meeting Prince.
      • Armisen seems to like getting in affectionate parodies of music - another sketch of his was about a father's Hardcore Punk band reuniting at his daughter's wedding, with hilarity and broken glass ensuing... Two-thirds of the actors playing the band actually were in hardcore bands in the eighties (Armisen himself and Dave Grohl). While the characters never showed up again, Armisen apparently liked doing it enough that he also released the song performed in the skit as a 7'' single credited to the Fake Band.
  • Schmigadoon! is one of the Golden Age musical, particularly those about small towns (Oklahoma!, Carousel, The Music Man and Brigadoon) but also taking inspiration from works like The Wizard of Oz, Guys and Dolls, The Sound of Music and and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Schmigadoon parodies and plays straight many common Golden Age tropes, while Josh and Melissa are the modern Audience Surrogates whose reactions to the goings-on provide commentary on the works' outdated politics, hokey song topics, and earnest emotion.
  • SCTV did all kinds of film and TV parodies:
    • Rome, Italian Style — Italian cinema, both neo-realist and whimsical, down to the dubbed dialogue the films were once saddled with in the U.S.
    • The flicks featured on Monster Chiller Horror Theatre. Once, Count Floyd realized during his show that Whispers of the Wolf was actually an Ingmar Bergman film, making for an entirely different stylistic parody within the skit (it's largely a spoof of Persona).
    • Neil Simon's Nutcracker Suite (his late 1970s output).
    • The extended Godfather parody.
    • CBC content was often spoofed and was the basis for Bob & Doug McKenzie most famously.
    • Mel's Rock Pile (American Bandstand and the like).
    • Polynesiantown (Chinatown).
    • Gangway for Miracles (The Miracle Worker).
    • Maudlin's Eleven (Ocean's Eleven).
    • I Was a Teenage Communist (1950s teen horror and the Red Scare).
    • The Merv Griffin Show - The Special Edition (the talk show cross-bred with the re-edit of Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
    • Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice (Goin' Down the Road).
    • And many, many more.
  • Stargate SG-1 episodes "Wormhole X-Treme" and "200" are affectionate parodies of sci-fi tropes in general. For God's sake, they have Willie Garson playing an alien soldier! To be fair, he's a nebbishy television executive in these two episodes.
    • Somewhat of sci-fi tropes in general, but most of Stargate SG-1 itself in particular. The Show Within a Show was too much like the SGC itself to be regarded as a generic sci-fi show, and many of the jokes were at the expense of events in SG-1 itself that aren't all that common in the sci-fi genre.
  • Star Trek:
  • The Suite Life on Deck: The Starship Tipton basically rips off Star Trek. they even got George Takei (Sulu) to play London's great-great-great-great-great grandson.
  • The Sunny Side Up Show:
    • "Sproutnado" (Sharknado) with Ian Ziering, Kari Wuhrer, and Judah Friedlander
    • "Top Craft" (Top Chef) with Richard Blais
    • "Squeak Box" (Squawk Box) with Becky Quick
    • "Safari World" (Jurassic World) with Bryce Dallas Howard
  • Supernatural:
  • Super Sentai/Power Rangers
    • Gekisou Sentai Carranger, an over-the-top parody of every Super Sentai trope in existence. And even some non-Super Sentai: Signalman the armored space traffic cop was instead one big pastiche of the Space Sheriff crew.
    • Power Rangers Ninja Storm has tons of fun with this trope, throwing in a ton of self-referential humor towards the standard PR tropes. Lothor, the Big Bad of the series, was practically a walking Lampshade Hanger.
    • Interestingly, Power Rangers RPM did much the same thing as Turbo and Ninja Storm and made it work pretty well, despite having the darkest subject matter since Time Force. One moment things will be deadly serious, with particular emphasis on dead, and the next, you'll have characters asking questions like "why do our Zords have eyes?" and "Why do explosions appear every time we morph?" and of course "Is that really spandex?" (Answer: NO.)
    • Now there's Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger, side entry to the main franchise that seems to be gearing up to be an [adult swim]-style take on not only Sentai, but the kind of Otaku that still watch it as adults.
    • For their 45th Anniversary, Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger which basically indulges in all the Super Sentai tropes and then crank them up to Eleven. Special mention to their running gag of never doing a Roll Call the same way twice which includes one occasion in which they destroy a couple of elite mooks by using the Roll Call Explosion
  • The Twilight Zone (1985):
    • "Cold Reading" is an affectionate parody of Old-time Radio, which was popular in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s.
    • "A Day in Beaumont" is an affectionate parody of Alien Invasion films of The '50s.
  • The X-Files:
    • "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" is an Affectionate Parody of the show and people who believe in aliens. Later Millennium (1996) would do the same with "Jose Chung's 'The Doomsday Defense'".
    • "Bad Blood" is also an affectionate parody of the show within the show itself, more specifically it focused on Mulder and Scully's dynamics and their investigating techniques, and it also parodied vampire myths and vampire tropes.
  • WandaVision: The sitcom segments mock many of the tropes, contrivances, limitations, and Values Dissonance of classic shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, etc. However, it's clear that the showrunners have a great deal of respect for those shows and their unique attributes, going through major efforts to recreate the programs' look and feel, down to actually staging Episode 1 for a live audience.

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