The parody movie genre has been given a bad name over the past few years, with controversial efforts by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer doing the concept few favors. As such, it can be easy to forget that spoofs were once among the funniest movies being made. When Mel Brooks and the Zucker brothers were at the height of their powers, they gave us some of the most inspired pop culture satires of all time.
It’s no secret, but the key to a good spoof – a memo that some film-makers seem to have missed – is to provide some kind of commentary or deconstruction, and not just fart jokes. To see how it's really done (and really shouldn't be), here are our picks for some of the best and worst spoof movies ever.
Best: This is Spinal Tap
Although The Office is often credited with birthing the mockumentary, it was actually This is Spinal Tap that introduced the genre to the world. Throughout the 1970s, so-called rockumentaries had become very popular, with movies like Gimme Shelter and The Last Waltz. Director Rob Reiner took the tropes of those movies and notched up the absurdity with this tale of “one of England’s loudest bands” embarking on an American tour.
Most of the movie’s hilarity can be attributed to the incredible improvisational skills of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, who play members of the band, as well as Reiner himself, who appears on-screen as the director of the film-within-a-film.
Worst: Fifty Shades of Black
Rather than take elements of the Fifty Shades franchise that could actually stand to take a satirical beating – e.g. some of Christian Grey’s behavior– this parody took trivial moments, like Ana exiting the elevator, and gave them a slapstick twist, like the elevator doors closing on her.
Fifty Shades of Black is just a huge, tasteless missed opportunity.
Best: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
The police procedural spoof series Police Squad! was under-appreciated in its time and canceled after just six episodes. The Zuckers weren’t done with the adventures of Leslie Nielsen’s bumbling detective Frank Drebin just yet, however, so they adapted him for the big screen.
The Naked Gun is a hysterical parody of neo-noir police thrillers of the 80s and a prime example of how to do slapstick comedy right. It was followed by two sequels, which weren’t as great, but can still be considered head and shoulders about the Friedberg/Seltzer oeuvre.
Worst: Disaster Movie
At this point in the _____ Movie series of parodies, the film-makers had stopped bothering to adhere to their chosen genre. If you’re going to name a movie after a genre, then the least you can do is stick to that genre.
Disaster Movie is a disaster movie in name only. Instead of parodying movies like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, Disaster Movie parodies Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, High School Musical, Kim Kardashian – pretty much everything that’s not a disaster movie. There isn’t a joke in sight.
Best: Team America: World Police
In response to Michael Bay’s bombastic, militarized, patriotic action blockbusters, South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone made Team America: World Police. It’s about an actor named Gary who is recruited by a secret international police force to go undercover in a dangerous group, which isn’t much more absurd than the plot of Bad Boys II or Armageddon.
The twist here is that all of the characters are played by Thunderbirds-esque puppets. Team America: World Police is one of the funniest and most incisive movies in recent memory.
Worst: Meet the Spartans
This parody of Zack Snyder’s 300 is so completely devoid of what can technically be considered a joke that one has to wonder if the film-makers were even going for laughs. Instead, they appear to be trying to incite a groan of familiarity at lazy pop culture references like the AllSpark from the Transformers films.
South Park brought us a much better parody of 300 with the episode “D-Yikes,” which mocked Snyder’s overuse of super slow-motion in hysterical ways that Meet the Spartans completely failed to. Another missed opportunity.
Best: Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks’ parody of the western genre is a quintessential example of a spoof that works, because it deconstructs its genre and the cinematic form as a whole. It starts off with the premise of a town in the Old West hiring a controversial sheriff, in an attempt to get the town so up in arms that they’ll allow an industrialist to build a railroad through it.
Blazing Saddles uses its 1870s setting to convey a 1970s attitude. Then it breaks the fourth wall by having the final battle move into other movies’ sets across the studio lot, culminating in the characters watching the end of their own movie in a theater.
Worst: Vampires Suck
On paper, a parody of The Twilight Saga might sound like a good idea. Twilight has a love triangle, a controversial lead character, and a convoluted plot involving vampires and werewolves. There are plenty of targets for mockery. Vampires Suck, however, just doesn't quite get there.
All of the jokes can be seen coming from a mile away. Simply casting a guy who kind of resembles Taylor Lautner to play a werewolf and then hitting him in the crotch seems like a bit of a loose interpretation of what satire means. It’s a real shame that Ken Jeong and Dave Foley got roped into this one.
Best: Airplane!
This 1980 classic from Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers isn’t just the greatest spoof; it might be one of the funniest comedies of all time.
The directing team stumbled upon the old black-and-white disaster movie Zero Hour! while in search of material for sketches. They realized that the movie’s plot and dialogue were so ridiculous that they could pretty much remake it, with some lines even taken word-for-word, play it totally straight, and create a hilarious movie. Airplane! has the fastest gag rate (and most successful hit rate) of perhaps any comedy ever made.
Worst: Date Movie
When they were writing Date Movie, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should’ve focused more on fitting in more jokes and less on fitting in more parodies. It spoofs over 30 movies without doing anything particularly inspired with any of them. Primarily, it’s a spoof of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Meet the Parents, which are both well-made romantic comedies as it is.
All the directors did was copy the jokes from that movie and give them a more scatological bent. If you’re going to spoof the romantic comedy genre, which is ripe for parody, then spoof a couple of romcoms that actually deserve it and fall into the pitfalls of Hollywood convention. As it stands, this is tantamount to Scary Movie spoofing Scream, which was already a self-aware satire of the slasher genre.