Wendy Jane Henson
The results are not always great. For example, Neil Simon’s THE CHEAP DETECTIVE. It ran today on TCM. A send-up of just about every Bogart movie made. With an enormous cast that includes just about every comedy star Hollywood ever made. Some good laughs, but after awhile cornball stagnation set in.
What’s your idea of a good spoof? What’s the best one you have seen?
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AIRPLANE
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was a movie I’d have been proud to have had a part in creating most especially as the writer.
Yep, that Young Frankenstein movie was a belly laugher.
Galaxy Quest.
I like High Anxiety mainly because I love Hitchcock. Here’s Ebert’s valid criticism:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/high-anxiety-1978
By 1974, audiences had seen so many classic Westerns they had developed expectations for any new Westerns. When their expectations were inverted with BLAZING SADDLES, the audience laughed.
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Nina Tryggvason
yeah and when america melted down over a black president
it wasn’t so funny anymore, eh?
the best spoofs make fun of power/the majority – not the marginalized
I vote for This is Spinal Tap
that mockumentary spun off the actors as a band
then as a joke, they opened as a folk act and half the audience thought they were seeing a real rock band and the other half got it.
that resulted in A Mighty Wind, another excellent send up
a good spoof has to play the extreme totally straight laced
or be so subtle a subversion that you break that 4th wall – something Mel Brooks is excellent at (also being offensive with Charm – springtime for hitler 1968 edition wow)
and is common in Canadian and less so in American film and theatre
also – you want a kind of plausibility where you have to wonder if it a joke or serious
the best literature example is Swift’s Modest Proposal
it remains the epitome of satire, but you have to go a step beyond misanthrope to see it
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Gross Humour
Who’s In on It (those who moans)
Who Gets it (those who laugh)
Who it’s explained to (delayed laughs, splintered, disbelief, why do you think that’s funny)
Who It is About (silenced)
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