They say laughter is the best medicine.
This can be applied to comedy, and a parody is no different. To parody any known work would take a lot of thought and effort to mock what audiences have taken at face value, be it commenting on ridiculous tropes or adding levity to what's supposed to be serious.
Necessary Tropes
- Affectionate Parody: Always make sure your parody is well-researched and captures the basic spirit of what you're setting out to parody.
- The Comically Serious: Some of the best spoof movies feel like serious-minded movies but infused with comedic undertones.
Choices, Choices
Pitfalls
- Narrow Parody and Shallow Parody: Both of these can be detrimental to making fun of existing media. Spoofing recently released films would cause its target audience to struggle understanding the references, and its contents would turn off fans of the original film. Shallow parody comes off as mean-spirited, usually involving vulgar humor and mocking the wrong topics.
Potential Subversions
Writers' Lounge
Suggested Themes and Aesops
Potential Motifs
Suggested Plots
Departments
Set Designer / Location Scout
Props Department
Costume Designer
Casting Director
Stunt Department
Extra Credit
The Greats
Here's a few spoof movies that are excellent, engaging and well thought out:- Airplane!
- Blazing Saddles
- Documentary Now! (a TV show, but it still fits)
- Not Another Teen Movie
- Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
- Spaceballs
- Walk Hard
The Epic Fails
- Anything by Seltzer and Friedberg, such as Vampires Suck, is Narrow Parody to the max. They tend to replicate the actual source material down to a tee, but with added toilet humor, topical celebrity jokes, and other weirdness.
