Parodied Trope

Sometimes it's just fun to make fun of a trope. It's fun to screw around with it or find the humor in those tropes. Thus we have the Parodied Trope.

Writers can even spoof their own tropes as a form of Self-Deprecation.

Sometimes this comes in the form of an Exaggerated Trope, or even a Downplayed Trope. Sometimes it overlaps with Zig-Zagging Trope, Inverted Trope, Averted Trope, or Subverted Trope (if the context makes it clear the aversion or subversion is a joke). If the trope is called on by the author, but still used, it's a Lampshade Hanging.

Compare other kinds of Playing with a Trope, Satire/Parody/Pastiche, Parody, Played for Laughs, Spoof Aesop.

Not to be confused with Parody Tropes (a list of tropes that are parodies themselves).

---

Tropes that are direct parodies of other tropes.

Parodies go on the left, original tropes on the right.

• Anti-Love Song— Silly Love Songs
• Chop Sockey — Martial Arts Movie
• Fractured Fairy Tale — Fairy Tale
• Gag Penis — Bigger Is Better in Bed
• Parody Sue or Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue" — Mary Sue
• Screwball Comedy — Romantic Comedy
• Soap Within a Show — Soap Opera
• Spoof Aesop — An Aesop
• Stylistic Suck — So Bad, It's Good

---

Examples:

Comic Books

• About anything and everything that's referenced in and is not part of Deadpool's main, or more serious story arcs. A notable thing is that Deadpool not only spoofs and parodies every single comic book trope and cliche known to mankind, but anything that's pop-culture relevant, including pop culture itself is jabbed at.
• In Nightwing (Infinite Frontier), one issue has Barbara Gordon tossed into a refrigerated van in order to get at Dick Grayson. When she contacts Dick, she grumbles that they "fridged her".

Comic Strips

• Phoebe and Her Unicorn parodies the Mind-Control Eyes trope in this strip. When Phoebe tries to hypnotize Marigold, it seems to work until the unicorn reveals that she's "just showing off [her] new Spell of Eye-Swirling."

Fanfic

• The Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Let's just say the author parodied Hammerspace several times. From clothes to books to Death Notes to flowers, the characters' backs can store them all.
  "It's alright Italia-kun. I always bring spare cosplays with me." He reached into some sort of secret compartment behind his back, pulling out an identical outfit to the one the brunet was currently wearing. Seriously, how do anime characters have such an ability?
  Japan disappeared into a bathroom for a short amount of time before reappearing, now clad in a sharp black suit and tie with a white dress shirt and black pants, taking hexagonal glasses from his pocket—or wherever anime characters store all their stuff—before putting them on.
  "Humph." The larger scoffed back. He then reached into the magical space all anime characters have, whipping out a book conveniently titled 'How to Catch a Runaway Italian'.
  Both reached into the magical space all anime characters have, extracting black notebooks—Japan's having unidentifiable symbols on its cover as Italy's had 'Death Note' clearly printed on it in gothic letters—before taking out pens and colored pencils as well, opening the pages before scrawling in them.
  Giggling, the auburn reached into the magical space all anime characters have, an exquisite bouquet of utmost grandeur popping out from behind his back. "Tada!"
• Those Lacking Spines loves to parody tropes as much as it loves deconstructing them.

Films — Animation

• About half the tropes in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists are spoofed.

Films — Live-Action

• Tropic Thunder spoofed loads of moviemaking tropes and some war movie tropes.
• Everything Mel Brooks does.
• Since Soapdish is a parody of Soap Operas, many of their tropes also get spoofed: Back from the Dead (a decapitated character is brought back courtesy of Magic Plastic Surgery), Soap Opera Disease (the mysterious illness making a character mute is revealed as Brain Fever), Luke, I Am Your Father/Absurdly Youthful Mother (one character is revealed to be the mother of a character only a few years younger than her)... and those are just the ones parodied in the Soap Within a Show. The performers' personal lives include an unwittingly incestuous Love Triangle (an actress, her ex, and the daughter she bore him without telling him), Luke, I Am Your Father/Family Relationship Switcheroo (said actress told her daughter she was her niece until she unwittingly started dating her own father)... and more.
• Bad Boys II spoofed Flashed-Badge Hijack when Marcus waves down a car (driven by Michael Bay in a Creator Cameo), and Mike says that car would suck for a Chase Scene, so they should get a better one.
• Starship Troopers parodies War Is Glorious. The film is an in-universe propaganda movie about a futuristic society locked in a brutal war against a faceless, implacable enemy. It's a fascist utopia as a fascist would envision it, so to modern audiences, the result is vacuous and horrifying.

Literature

• Every Discworld novel ever written parodies a common fantasy trope or six.

Live-Action TV

• Lady Gaga spoofed Impractically Fancy Outfits on a Saturday Night Live appearance.

Theatre

• Wicked spoofs Kicking Ass in All Her Finery by having Glinda wear a Cool Crown and Pimped-Out Dress (that even has a white feather skirt in some productions) and try to use her wand like a kung fu staff. It turns into What the Fu Are You Doing? instead.

Video Games

• The announcer banter in Ratchet: Deadlocked spoofs Think of the Children!, twice.
• Total Overdose parodies the Hyperspace Arsenal in the opening scene, as Ram carries every single gun in the game in his arms, and a stick of dynamite in his mouth.
• The online roleplaying game Champions Online includes a parody of the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster which reads "Trope".

Webcomics

• "Muffin the Vampire Baker", the most shameless parody to have appeared in Sluggy Freelance up until that date, went so overboard for much of one strip that the trope it was actually parodying has to be identified as parody itself (especially of characters).

Web Original

• Eddsworld: Punch'd parodies Candid Camera Prank shows like Punk'd.
• Atop the Fourth Wall spoofs Totally Radical with the '90s Kid character.
• Kickassia is absolutely loaded with trope spoofs.
• The Nostalgia Chick spoofed Token Black Friend, with Nella, who's white but adopted.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged uses Space "X" far more than anyone has any right to. Some examples being: Space Duck, Space Skype, Space Austrailia (or more specifically, Space Brisbane. Go Space Broncos!), Space Frenchmen, Space Christ, Ole' Space Yeller, and many many more.

Western Animation

• Glitch Techs spoofs I Know Mortal Kombat in the episodse "Karate Trainer". When Miko tries to help her little sister become better at karate, she uses an over-the-top fighting game that naturally has nothing to do with real martial arts. While Lexi does improve a bit, she is ultimately unable to use what the game showed her in an actual match.
  The Master: Your Karate is weak!
  Lexi: I assure you, chicken man, this is not karate!
• Kappa Mikey spoofs the Impractically Fancy Outfit trope in one of the last episodes, "Fashion Frenzy". Mikey and Lilly go overboard with all kinds of crazy clothing designs when trying to get their ideas bought by a well-known clothing designer. This included a cement dress and clothing made of garbage and food.
• South Park of course makes fun of loads of tropes and plots from All Just a Dream to Zombie Apocalypse.
• The Simpsons, too, makes fun of plenty of tropes, and in fact one of its sendups of Retirony is where the trope name comes from.
• The Tick:
  • The show spoofed many Superhero Tropes, as well as a number of other tropes.
  • Spoofed the Lensman Arms Race where the CIA made a sentient mustache, because "The Russians were working on a beard!"
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil spoofs Magical Girl Queenliness Test. Star is sent to Earth precisely because she's proven she can't handle the inherited wand very well. This is more for her education than anything. Once she loses Glossaryck, her mom had to resort to calling in Baby as an alternative means of evaluating her. After defeating Toffee, Star has proved herself worthy to return to Mewni, and can finally move on to the next chapter as future Queen of Mewni.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy spoofs "Join Us" Drone. Nazz invites Ed and Edd to a barbecue; Edd accepts the invite first, and he and Nazz try to persuade Ed, who thinks Edd is experimenting on the kids, to join them by saying "Join us, Ed" over and over again.

---