Thread: Cultural references and parodies pt 1

The thing I love most about the Simpsons, Family Guy and movies like Shrek and Airplane! is spotting the little cultural references, allusions and parodies they slip in for the audience to spot and feel special because they know where they came from. Anything that has parodies to The Matix or Kill Bill are winners with me.

So what are your favourite cultural references or parodies?

My top 3 (at the moment, they change regularly) are:

1. Antonio Banderas taking the mick out of himself in the Mask of Zorro films as Puss in Boots in Shrek 2 and 3

2. The Cape Feare episode of the Simpsons where Sideshow Bob parodies both versions of Cape Fear, references to Psycho (the Bates motel), Friday the 13th (his new hockey mask) and has LUV and HAT (sheer genius) knuckle tattoos ala one of my top 10 movies ever - Night of the Hunter

3. French and Saunder's Silence of the Lambs

oooooh and the Simpsons' Treehouses of Horror...especially the one that has the Shinning in it... and Sherry Bobbins in the Simpsons ....and the slow motion fighting in the Ok Go! A Million Ways video

(I'll shut up now and let you lot speak)

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Perhaps the greatest sitcom ever Spaced holds all my favourite cultural references and parodies, but trying to find a few is very difficult as there are so bloody many!

To narrow out a few:

1. The Ending of Episode 6 Series Two, completely referencing the ending of Empire Strikes Back.

2. Episode Two, Series one the Evil Dead nod: "Join Us!"

3. Series Two Episode Four, Mike's vision of the Matrix Lobby scene.

DG

I absolutely love spaced. I must watch some when I get home from work.

Ah, Spaced is brilliant. There's a feature on the DVD that brings up subtitles of all the references used. There's so many! It's funny because as well as there being loads of references I didn't spot, it turns out loads of things I thought must be references weren't!

Originally Posted by decadentgent

Perhaps the greatest sitcom ever Spaced holds all my favourite cultural references and parodies, but trying to find a few is very difficult as there are so bloody many!

oh yes, I totally forgot about Spaced - my fav is the Pulp Fiction reference - Daisy putting the pop tart in the toaster, finding the gun and Mike coming out of the toilet (superbly carrying Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit)

Any references I spot in any Discworld book are inevitably brilliant. There are so many that I'm sure I miss loads, and I often find new ones when I re-read. And some are quite specialised and not pop-culture based - but how I laughed at the cosmological pun in the first book! But my favourite has to be the Marx Brothers reference in Wyrd Sisters (superior only to the Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy references because they're my favourite of the original bunch), particularly the way the dwarf who 'comes up with the idea' finds it hilarious, but no one else finds it even slightly amusing.

The Muppet Show was always good for parodies. Most of it went over my head as a kid, but watching it now, some of it's really pretty clever.

Originally Posted by Trina Topaz

The Muppet Show was always good for parodies. Most of it went over my head as a kid, but watching it now, some of it's really pretty clever.

I love the Muppet Show! My favourite parody was when they spoofed Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal with Sam the American Eagle.

Oh and did anyone see Miss Piggy's rendition of She Certainly Can Can-Can? I suspect it might be one of the reasons I do this.
xx

Family guy without dought.

Noone is safe, every aspect of culture and society is ripped.
gender, ethnicity, sexuall preferance, illness, nothing is sacred.

But the best parodie ever has to come from mell brooks.

YouTube - Springtime For Hitler

Originally Posted by Cat Aclysmic

I love the Muppet Show! My favourite parody was when they spoofed Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal with Sam the American Eagle.

I'd forgotten the Muppets - but of course!

I do like French and Saunders Seventh Seal too.

And whilst I was out, for some reason all the Carry On films came to mind - which I think the best parody of a genre is probably Carry On Screaming.....or possibly Carry On Spying