"With MSPA I am always on the lookout for raw material to manipulate in esoteric ways, and it's usually garnered through satire. But then I ride that material pretty hard, and before you even know what's going on, it's not satirical anymore! Ask yourself this: at what point did John's love of Con Air cease to be a mockery of the film, and became more of a SHRINE to it? Hard to say."
Many parodies take things apart to laugh with the work and the fans. Malice is almost never intended to the source, just good fun.
Affectionate Parodies are generally done by fans (and sometimes creators) of the source material. Don't presume, however, that because of this, the Affectionate Parody can't be harsh; ultimately, it can be even more cutting than usual. As devotees of the thing parodied, the creators know exactly where its faults, flaws, and weak points are and can use that in full effect. Knowing enough about the source material, good and bad, can help the creators avoid making a Redundant Parody or a situation where they Spoofed the Ironic Film Seriously. Unfortunately, if the jokes are mean-spirited enough about their subjects in general, fans might mistake the creators for hating the subjects and, well, it can lead to Misaimed Fandom.
They often function as both a send-up of a genre and an honest member of it. Generally, there's some kind of underlying plot, a twisted version of a stock tale, and actual characters, even if they're swathed in cliches like a mummy in wrappings. Some of them can lean more toward the "Affectionate" than the "Parody" and just seem like more light-hearted versions of the usual with maybe some Lampshade Hanging. Very often, affectionate parodies are based on humoring as many tropes typical of the genre as possible, and can easily be classified as Troperiffic.
Often times, being parodied is a sign of doing something right. Being parodied by well known artists like Weird Al or South Park means that you've made something big, and is the price of making a hit. However, it can mean that the parodied work becomes too popular and overrated due to the influx of new fans from the likes of Weird Al and South Park, the latter having a very large Misaimed Fandom. When the parody is well received by the creator of the original, then this is Approval of God.
Many a comedy Fanfic has used this.
See also Satire/Parody/Pastiche and Adam Westing, where the original actor joins in the fun. If an Affectionate Parody is so loving that the parody aspect falls out, it is an Indecisive Parody, and may be a sign that the creators are about to make a Decon-Recon Switch.
Compare Take That!, where the parody/reference is a lot less affectionate.
Contrast Deconstructive Parody, though the two can overlap.
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Advertising
- This commercial
spoofs kaiju. Ultraman in particular. Also '80s (neo-classical) power metal.
- This Irn-Bru advert spoofs the flying sequence from Christmas classic The Snowman. Showing a variety of Scottish landmarks instead of ones from the South East of England and the music is a parody version of Walking in the Air.
- The 2015 San Francisco Giants' parody of the Full House opening, aptly named Full Clubhouse. Brandon Crawford rocking his long hair and strumming a guitar like Uncle Jesse, Hunter Pence polishing his scooter, and Jeremy Affeldt's shit-eating grin must be seen to be believed.
- UFO Kamen Yakisoban ads are a parody of tokusatsu series such as Kamen Rider, starring Yakisoban, a noodle-themed superhero who fought the evil kettle thief Kettler. The ads themselves also got a parody in "Kakesoban," a superhero who suffered amusing injuries and failed to beat Kettler, who was a heavy smoker.
- Taco Bell's semi-annual advertisements for its Nacho Fries are Real Trailer Fake Movies that parody several different movie genres. So far, they've done a conspiracy thriller, a dystopian film, a musical biopic, a buddy picture, a Science Fiction film, a horror film, and a mecha anime. note
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin's alter egos are often used to spoof their various genres. Tracer Bullet covers Film Noir, Spaceman Spiff is a parody of Sci-fi adventure stuff like Flash Gordon, and Stupendous Man... well, guess. Occasionally, the comics Calvin was actually reading would be used to give a not-so-affectionate critique of the ultraviolent Dark Age of Comic Books.
- Knights of the Dinner Table is essentially a good-natured sendup of tabletop gamer culture. The creators even produced their own licensed verion of the 1st Edition AD&D rules, Hackmaster.
Films — Animation
- Phil Lord & Chris Miller have made a career of making very manic and creative parody films and many of them have been animated.
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs takes the concept of the book and turns it into a parody of disaster films.
- The LEGO Movie frequently (though not completely) parodies summer blockbuster movies. The fact that everything's Built with LEGO helps, as even the most spectacular explosions and overloaded action sequences end up sillier as a result.
- America: The Motion Picture is a comedic riff that parodies everything that is considered American (including its folklore, politics, and history).
- Boogie is a massive spoof towards the suave, cool, Private Detective badass, as well as Film Noir and Heroic Bloodshed cinema. The titular "hero" is anything but heroic (beating up senior citizens and not giving a single shits on civilian casualties and collateral damage) and definitely NOT cool (he burps, farts, and beats up women). Onscreen deaths of children and old people alike are Played for Laughs, and somehow the movie makes it work.
- Chicken Run is a stop motion animated version of The Great Escape and other prisoner-of-war escape movies. Albeit with a happier ending.
- In Frozen II, Kristoff's solo song, "Lost In The Woods", is one big love letter to 80's power ballads and the common cliches in their music videos, including dramatic angles and lighting, loud guitar twangs, soulful close-ups of his face superimposed onto the shot, and using a hanging pinecone like a studio microphone. To top it all off, it's a sort of fantasy sequence in which Sven and the other reindeer of the forest are singing with him part of the time as backing vocalists.
- Mr. Puzzles Wants You to Be Less Alive is an ostensibly AI-generated script that was animated, skewering horror tropes and specific properties.
- Shark Tale is an affectionate parody of gangster films, which probably helps in that they feature Robert de Niro as the Don, and he played Vito in the second Godfather movie.
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a parody of musicals and Disney films. Odd combination but it surprisingly works.
- Kung Fu Panda is an affectionate parody of Wuxia films, while being a sincere example at the same time.
- Rango is an affectionate parody of the Spaghetti Western.
- Hotel Transylvania is an affectionate parody of Universal Horror and vampire movies.
- Igor is an affectionate parody of Universal Horror and the Frankenstein movies in particular.
- The "I'll Make a Man Out of You" sequence in Mulan can be seen as an affectionate parody of a Boot Camp Episode.
- Surf's Up parodies the mockumentary.
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water is one of Pirate movies, the Belic conflicts, the post-apocalyptic genre, and the Superhero blockbuster.
- It would probably be easier to list the things The LEGO Batman Movie doesn't parody about the Dark Knight. His over-the-top edginess, his relationship with The Joker literally being played like a romance, his Informed Loner tendencies, you name it. They even take some affectionate shots at the nature of the live action Batman films themselves, and imply every incarnation of Batman was just a different phase he went through.
- Ronal the Barbarian parodies the Conan the Barbarian franchise.
- Megamind is one for superheroes, with a few small touches of Deconstructive Parody mixed in.
Pinball
- America's Most Haunted parodies Paranormal Investigation television shows such as Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Destination Truth. The Video Mode, "Flippy Ghost," is a parody of Flappy Bird.
Professional Wrestling
- Sakura Hirota has done parody gimmicks of Command Bolshoi, Aja Kong, The World Famous Kana, Stan Hansen, Kinnikuman, Bull Nakano, Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru, Lady Gaga, Mayumi Ozaki, Ayako Hamada, The Undertaker, Toshi Uematsu, GAMI and Akira Maeda, among others.
- Ebessan has also done Hansen as well as The Great Kabuki, Miracle Man, Gamma, Abdullah the Butcher (eventually endorsed by the real thing at All Japan's excite series), Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Thunder Liger, Cactus Jack (another real thing endorsement at ROH's third anniversary), Goldberg, Y2P 160kg (who approved at Zero 1 land II), Jumbo Tsuruta, Rey Misterio, Kurt Angle, Killer Khan, El Blazer (endorsed in VKF), Akebono, Tarzan Goto, Bret Hart, Dump Matsumoto, Tiger Jeet Singh, Ultimate Warrior, Kodo Fuyuki and probably a few more we've overlooked.
- WWE wrestler Gregory Helms's former character, The Hurricane, was an Affectionate Parody of Superheroes, especially Superman and the Adam West Batman. His character previous to that was an Affectionate Parody of comic-book fanboys, as he trotted out his encyclopedic knowledge of the Green Lantern and compared situations from the comic to everything he came across in his wrestling career (in fact, his costume as Hurricane was heavily influenced by the costume worn by Kyle Rayner as the Green Lantern).
- In 2005, Shocker, Máscara Mágica, and El Terrible held a competition in mockery of competition based reality shows that had the same format as WWE's Million Dollar Tough Enough called "Guapos University," in which they searched for a new member of their CMLL group, Los Guapos.
- The LayCool characters were affectionate parodies of the Alpha Bitch with them being fashion obsessed, finishing each other's sentences, their own Buffy Speak catchphrases and a whole lotta Les Yay. And they were still some of the best written heels on Smackdown.
- Dragon Gate turned CZW wrestler Rich Swann into Swann Hanson, a parody of Stan Hansen. For the record, Stan is a "smash mouth" striker while Swann is a high flying garbage wrestler.
- Southpaw Regional Wrestling is a series of short clips made by WWE talent depicting a fake wrestling territory from the mid-late '80s, complete with low production values, bad costumes, Leave the Camera Running moments, and adverts for their upcoming show at a tiny venue.
- Solo Darling's Night of the Living Sugar Creature T-shirt.
- From the 2003 WWE Divas Desert Heat DVD: There is an Easter Egg attached to the "Ivory Whips It Good" extra of her, in a black bikini, doing a parodic Baywatch-style slow motion run.
- At WWA The Inception, Disco Inferno introduced...The Village People's Elbow.
- The Proletariat Boar Of Moldova's "BOAR IS WAR" T-shirt is one of the logo of WWF RAW IS WAR.
Puppet Shows
- Fur TV is a parody of The Muppets but with drugs, alcohol, and sex with Lapeño as a Kermit Expy and Mervin as a perverted version of Elmo.
- Following its Channel Hop to HBO, Sesame Street created two PSAs about respect, one an affectionate parody of Game of Thrones, the other of Westworld, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Evan Rachel Wood, and Jeffrey Wright all reprised their roles from their respective series for the ads.
Radio
- The Stan Freberg Show: Stan Freberg recorded several Affectionate Parodies of Dragnet, including "St. George and the Dragonet" and "Little Blue Riding Hood" ("only the color of the hood has been changed to prevent an investigation"). The supposed Dragnet Catchphrase "just the facts, ma'am" originated in these parodies.
- I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again always had an extended sketch at the end of each episode, presented as the Prune Play Of The Week. These were often affectionate parodies of plays, books, genres, or whatever was on TV at the time. Their parody of Star Trek: The Original Series is quite memorable, mostly for being a parody of something still well-known.
Spock: Illogical, captain. Allow me to raise my eyebrow to signify how ridiculous that is.
Announcer: See him! See him raise the incredible eyebrow!
Spock: And now...the other eyebrow. [fanfare]
Announcer: The other eyebrow! Oh, the talent! Oh, the joy!
Spock: And now... [drumroll]... both eyebrows at once! [fanfare]
Announcer: Fantastic! Magnificent! - In and Out of the Kitchen is a parody of lifestyle cookery shows.
Sports
- [1] [2][3] Frank Caliendo's sports impersonations are between this and Indecisive Parody.
Tabletop Games
- The Pokéthulhu roleplaying game is an arguably affectionate but very tongue in cheek cross-parody of, guess what, Pokémon and the Cthulhu Mythos.
- Depending on who you ask, the Munchkin roleplaying game series is either an affectionate parody or a Take That! at the selfish, loot-grubbing behavior of some gamers. Though it very likely is both.
- The game Illuminati is one of conspiracy theories.
- Rocketmen is an affectionate parody of Buck Rogers, and the Raygun Gothic genre.
Theme Parks
- At Universal Studios:
- Disaster! was a tongue-in-cheek parody of typical disaster/action movie cliches.
- Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls contains numerous parodies of classic Disneyland attractions.
- The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera has a "Coney Skyland" park in the Jetsons scene, a clear parody of "Coney Island".
- "The Universe & You" posters at Men in Black: Alien Attack are purposely designed to mimic the retro Disneyland posters.
- Elements of the Shrek 4D queue very blatantly parody Disney.
- Krustyland in The Simpsons Ride, which parodies not only the Disney Theme Parks but SeaWorld, Six Flags and Universal themselves.
- Weeki Wachee Springs: The Sirens of the Deep Mermaid Camp video ends with the participants and the instructors singing "I wish I was a Weeki Wachee Mermaid" to the tune of the old "I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner" jingle.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner features many affectionate parodies in its various cartoons, mostly of things from the creators' childhoods. A prime example would be Cheat Commandos, a parody of merchandise-driven kids' TV shows such as G.I. Joe.
- Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse serves as an Affectionate Parody of the entire Barbie franchise, poking fun at everything from her her ridiculous job history to the fact that she's remained vaguely twenty-ish for over fifty years.
- Wronchi Animation has uploaded a series of The Dota 2 Reporter videos that parodies the entire gameplay of Dota 2 and even lampshades any Reality Is Unrealistic moments with "You'll just have to accept this and move on".
- Resident Evil Musicals has every character from the Resident Evil franchise dumbed down and singing to musicals. It features a side-series called Resident Evil: Survivor which is both an affectionate parody of the Survivor reality show and Resident Evil itself.
- The 30 Second Bunnies Theatre pokes fun at movies by reenacting them in thirty seconds with cartoon bunnies. Most of the time these are slasher movies.
- PONY.MOV. The series' over-the-top art style and Crosses the Line Twice sense of humor may suggest the opposite kind of parody, but its creator has stated on his Tumblr blog that he's a legitimate fan of the show it makes fun of.
- The Ducktalez Animations make fun of Resident Evil (episode 2), Dragon Ball Z (episode 3), The Matrix, The Iron Giant (episode 5), The Dark Knight (episode 6), the Terminator series, and more.
- Mystery Skulls Animated is an affectionate send-up to Scooby-Doo with the supernatural investigator adults, their dog and their van obviously inspired by the Scooby gang. The story of Mystery Skulls gang is quickly proven to be darker and more tragic, though the series maintains affectionate references to the longstanding franchise.
- Space Stallions is an affectionate parody of cartoons from the '80s and late '70s such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), She-Ra: Princess of Power, ThunderCats, SilverHawks and Battle of the Planets.
- COPS: Skyrim is one of COPS.
- If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device is a satiric take on Warhammer 40,000 which pokes plenty of fun at the more ridiculous aspects, but is nonetheless respectful and as accurate as possible to the source material. As the author himself says on the latter, In TTS, "everything is canon (except Malal)"
- StarCrafts isn't afraid to parody everything about StarCraft II from its tone to gameplay. Not only does the series reimagine characters in a more humorous light (like depicting Zerglings as lovable rambunctious little puppies instead of voracious alien locusts), but it also ridicules the non-sensible mechanics like how a Void Ray's laser can't fry giant mechs but can't so much as scratch a lowly marine. Nonetheless, Carbotanimations genuinely enjoy the games with Blizzard themselves enjoying the series.
- FreedomToons parodies some people whom its creator Seamus Coughlin is explicitly a supporter of.
Dear Ben Shapiro, I'm sorry for making another video about you. Please don't melt me with your laser vision. I'm actually a huge fan.
- The Father Tucker episode "Like Unto Sheep" is an unabashed parody of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, with the titular Pedophile Priest playing the role of Ralph Wolf and Mother Superior serving as the stand-in for Sam Sheepdog.
- CAPTAIN YAJIMA is a parody of not only campy Japanese TV series of the 1960s, but also Tad Mochinaga's "Animagic" stop-motion style pioneered by Rankin/Bass TV specials. This is best seen in how only characters' bottom lips move when they talk.
- SPARKLE ON RAVEN parodies fanime from the late-2000s in everything from its Magical Girl plot to its Stylistic Suck MS Paint artstyle. The creators' unbridled love for the genre is apparent, as they're very careful to keep the authentic sense of sincerity seen in most actual fanime.
