Send-Up Clowns

Introduction

More than one scribe has noted that the pun is the lowest form of wit. To tell the truth, the lowest form of wit is actually any film titled "Scary Movie," "Date Movie," "Epic Movie" or "Meet the Spartans." Parody "auteurs" Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer first arrived on the scene as co-authors of the scripts for "Spy Hard" (1996), a limp James Bond spoof, and "Scary Movie" (2000), which skewered the inexplicably popular "Scream" franchise. Beginning in 2006, Friedberg and Seltzer cranked out annual assembly-line spoofs - "Date Movie," "Epic Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" - all, arguably, tax write-offs at best that make Mel Brooks at his worst ("Dracula: Dead and Loving It") look like a comedy genius.

The need to make fun of things is seemingly as inherent in humans as the ability to reason, walk erect, use opposable thumbs, and feel guilt. Probably as old as writing itself, parody can be traced back to ancient texts from 2nd millennium B.C. Egypt. Elsewhere, according to Aristotle, the writer Hegemon of Thasos invented a form of parody by altering the words of well-known poems and transforming the sublime into the ridiculous.

Wes D. Gehring, a film professor at Indiana’s Ball State University and an associate editor for USA Today, noted in his exhaustingly scholastic (as in, drier-than-papyrus) work Parody as Film Genre, "There is nothing inherently new about the genre, whether one goes back to Aristophanes (456 B.C.-386 B.C.) spoofing the writing styles of Aeschylus and Euripides in ‘The Frogs’ or Cervantes’ undercutting of the medieval romance genre in his early 17th-century novel Don Quixote."


In the Beginning

Gehring stated that "parody has been a mainstream part of American film comedy since the beginning," adding it was pivotal element in the silent movies of director Mack Sennett, a name familiar to cinephiles in connection with the slapstick antics of the Keystone Kops. According to Gehring, Sennett was "at his best spoofing the melodramatic films" of his mentor and former boss, D.W. Griffith.

Gehring also averred, "The genre that easily seems to have inspired the greatest number of American film parodies is also fittingly considered the most inherently American - the western." Certainly a number of early comedy legends took their turn at spoofing the popular genre, including Laurel and Hardy ("Way Out West"), W.C. Fields and Mae West ("My Little Chickadee"), the Marx Brothers ("Go West"), Bob Hope ("The Paleface," "Son of Paleface," "Alias Jesse James"), and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ("Pardners"), but an argument could be made for the horror genre as a favored target of parodies. Name a screen comic or comedy team from the 1930s through the ‘50s, and odds are they spoofed ghost stories or monster flicks, from "The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case" to Bob Hope in "Ghost Breakers," Abbott and Costello in "Hold That Ghost," Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in "Scared Stiff," and the Bowery Boys in "Ghost Chasers," not to mention, of course, the Three Stooges in a number of their comedy shorts.

In the late 1940s, Abbott and Costello’s flagging popularity was revived when they were thrown in the mix with famous Universal Studios monsters, beginning with Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.), in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." The boys went on to "Meet" the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Mummy.

The triumvirate of slasher flicks - sometimes called "body-count films" or more accurately "dead teenager movies" - "Halloween" (1978), "Friday the 13th" (1980) and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), inspired several horror parodies in the 1980s, first among them "Student Bodies" (1981), written and directed by Mickey Rose, a former writing partner of Woody Allen who co-scripted "What’s Up Tiger Lily," "Take the Money and Run," and "Bananas." In "National Lampoon’s Class Reunion" (1982), Lizzie Borden High School’s alumni are terrorized by a deranged classmate on the loose from a mental institution. This was the first screenplay by John Hughes, who, of course, went on to bigger and better things with "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," and "Pretty in Pink."

One of the more interesting, and funnier, slasher spoofs, "Pandemonium" (1982) is set at a co-ed school for cheerleaders. Originally titled "Thursday the 12th," the comedy boasts an eclectic cast, including Tom Smothers as a heroic Canadian Mountie, Carol Kane, Judge Reinhold, Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman), Tab Hunter, Donald O’Connor, Eve Arden, Kaye Ballard, Eileen Brennan, Edie McClurg, David L. Lander, and Phil Hartman. 1987’s "Cheerleader Camp" had a similar, spoofy premise, minus the skewed wit and offbeat casting.

The best thing anyone can say about the 1981 horror parody "Saturday the 14th" is that it was a pleasure to see real-life couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss gleefully performing together again 14 years after their classic sitcom "He & She." Sadly, director Howard R. Cohen (whose resume also includes "Deathstalker IV") made a sequel seven years later, "Saturday the 14th Strikes Back," deemed by critic Leonard Maltin "a schlocky, amateurish" bomb; it did have a cool promotional poster by macabre cartoonist Gahan Wilson, though.

Joe Don Baker (star of the original "Walking Tall") portrayed a cop dedicated to tracking down the "Lawnmower Killer" in "Wacko" (1983), a slasher takeoff co-starring Stella Stevens, George Kennedy, Julia Duffy ("Newhart"), and Andrew Dice Clay. Another serial-killer spoof, "Return to Horror High" (1987), featured "The Brady Bunch’s" Maureen McCormick as an oversexed cop who gets turned on by the bloodshed, Alex Rocco ("The Godfather’s" Moe Green) as a lecherous movie producer, Vince Edwards (‘60s TV doctor "Ben Casey") as a leering biology teacher, and in an early-career role as an early victim, George Clooney.

On the small screen, movie parodies became a staple of television variety programs from early on. "The Carol Burnett Show" is fondly remembered for hilarious spoofs of "Gone with the Wind" and "Sunset Boulevard," while the revered "Your Show of Shows" (1950-1954), whose writers included Neil Simon and Mel Brooks, presented a memorable send-up of "From Here to Eternity." "Your Show of Shows" was followed in 1954 by the equally successful "Caesar’s Hour," another honored sketch comedy series with a roundtable of comic writers that included, along with the aforementioned Simon and Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart (who would gain later fame as one of the creative forces behind the hit TV series "M*A*S*H"), and Howard Morris.


The Golden Age

Before Mel Brooks made the benchmark of movie spoofs, "Blazing Saddles," another TV veteran directed a comedy that uncannily presaged several elements later associated with Brooks. Bud Yorkin, a director of television shows for Jack Benny and George Gobel who teamed with Norman Lear (of "All in the Family" fame) to form Tandem Productions and later produced the hit series "Sanford and Son," "Good Times," and "What’s Happening!", produced and directed "Start the Revolution Without Me" (1970), a broad, often inspired twist on Dumas’ The Corsican Brothers, set at the brink of the French Revolution. Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder (whose name would later become indelibly linked with Mel Brooks) starred as two sets of mixed identical twins - one pair arrogant aristocrats, the other peasant rebels - embroiled in convoluted plots and counter-plots. Orson Welles popped up in an amusing cameo, while Oscar-winning character actor Hugh Griffith delivered an especially hilarious and at the same time poignant performance as a befuddled, sympathetic King Louis XVI.

Following his tenure with "Your Show of Shows," Mel Brooks created (with Buck Henry) the successful spy sitcom "Get Smart" before venturing into motion pictures in 1968 with the audacious comedy "The Producers," starring a breathtakingly blustery Zero Mostel and a nerve-rattling, neurotic Gene Wilder as the unlikeliest of show business partners who conspire to stage a guaranteed box office bomb - highlighted by the dizzyingly distasteful production number "Springtime for Hitler" - in a con to cash in on illegal over-investments.

In the early 1970s, the Hollywood western was in a stage of transition. Recovering from the impact of imported Spaghetti Westerns, a few domestic filmmakers tried to put their unique spin on the genre, including Clint Eastwood’s "High Plains Drifter," John Huston’s "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," and Sam Peckinpah’s "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," while an aging John Wayne trotted out the same old familiar horse operas "Cahill, United States Marshal" and "The Train Robbers." The timing seemed right for an irreverently tasteless, relentlessly hysterical spoof of all things western, a call heeded by Mel Brooks in 1974 with the release of "Blazing Saddles," scripted by, among others, Brooks, Andrew Bergman (writer of the original "The In-Laws" and "The Freshman") and Richard Pryor, who was considered for the role of Sheriff Bart. Pryor wanted to play Mongo, the role that went to NFL Pro Bowl veteran Alex Karras, whose most quoted line - "Mongo just pawn in game of life!" - was Pryor’s favorite contribution to the screenplay.

The part of the boozing, world-weary gunfighter The Waco Kid was originally given to Gig Young, but the veteran Hollywood leading man was an alcoholic himself who suffered delirium tremens on the first day of shooting and had to be hospitalized. Legend has it that in a studio commissary, Mel Brooks offered the role to none other than John Wayne himself. The Duke reportedly told Brooks that he liked the script but determined it would be bad for his image. He did, however, say that he would be first in line to see the movie. At the last minute - or so Hollywood lore avers - Gene Wilder was asked to step in.

Later in that same year of 1974, Wilder and Brooks collaborated on the story and screenplay for what undoubtedly stands out as not only the pinnacle of Mel’s reign as the king of parody ("It’s good to be the king!") but equally as the unequivocal best film spoof ever made, "Young Frankenstein," beloved for both its flawlessly executed gags and its unabashed affection for its sources, primarily the original Universal Studios shockers "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein." Brooks himself has declared that "Young Frankenstein" is his personal favorite, and it should come as no surprise to fans and detractors alike that both this film and "Blazing Saddles" ranked among the top five box office hits of 1974.

Gene Wilder once described Mel Brooks as "a loud kind of Jewish genius, maybe that’s as close as you can get to defining him." Commenting on their approach to comedy, he noted, "We are not interested in polite titters, we want the audience rolling on the floor and falling about. Mel works on his feet - it’s a hit and miss, hit and miss, hit and miss. Then in the editing he will take out the misses."

Brooks was on a roll and could seemingly do no wrong. "Silent Movie" (1976), an homage to classic silent comedy, initially made studio executives nervous based on the unique premise that it was in fact a silent movie, without dialogue, the soundtrack consisting of only sound effects and a music score. The portrayal of director Mel Funn was Brooks’ first starring role (when he referred to himself as an actor-director, he told a reporter, "I’m not going to tell myself how much I like me or I’ll ask for more money"), but he wisely surrounded himself with a talented supporting cast including Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, and "Your Show of Shows" veteran Sid Caesar, as well as guest stars Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Brooks in real life), James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, and world-renowned mime Marcel Marceau, who, in a very funny cameo, utters the film’s sole spoken word.

The following year, Brooks re-teamed with "Blazing Saddles" stars Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman, along with Cloris Leachman ("Young Frankenstein"), Dick Van Patten, and Howard Morris ("Your Show of Shows") for "High Anxiety," a fond parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers, including pokes at more than a dozen of the suspense master’s works. Brooks purportedly showed the movie privately to Hitchcock, who was said to have exited the screening without saying anything. Brooks was afraid he hated the picture, but a few days later, Hitchcock sent him a congratulatory case of wine.

Gene Wilder struck out on his own as the writer, star and first-time director of a pair of genre spoofs. "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother" (1975) featured the infallibly comical Madeline Kahn as a stage actress who describes herself as "simultaneously funny and sad," Marty Feldman as a nutty Scotland Yard detective with "photographic hearing," and Dom DeLuise as a hammy opera singer. In 1977, Wilder made "The World’s Greatest Lover," portraying a schlemiel who arrives in 1920s Hollywood with hopes of becoming the screen’s next Rudolph Valentino. Carol Kane was memorable as Wilder’s childlike wife, and the ubiquitous Dom DeLuise appeared as a studio mogul named Adolph Zitz. Both comedies mixed the raucous slapstick and vulgar humor associated with Brooks with Wilder’s distinctive flair for innocent vulnerability and pathos, capitalizing on what one reviewer called "the elfin, otherworldly qualities of Wilder’s man-child persona" which "can be alternately endearing and disturbing."

Not to be left out, Marty Feldman himself co-wrote, directed and starred in "The Last Remake of Beau Geste" (1977), with Ann-Margret, Michael York, Peter Ustinov, James Earl Jones, Henry Gibson , and Ed McMahon. Feldman had previously directed episodes of Mel Brooks’ short-lived 1975 series that goofed the Robin Hood legend, "When Things Were Rotten."

Neil Simon, one of the previously noted gifted contributors to the popularity of "Your Show of Shows" and its successor, "Caesar’s Hour," scripted a pair of witty send-ups of 1940s-style whodunits in the late ‘70s, beginning with "Murder by Death," which featured a number of Hollywood luminaries lampooning notables from mystery fiction, including Sam Spade (Peter Falk), Charlie Chan (Peter Sellers), Nick and Nora Charles (David Niven and Maggie Smith), Miss Marple (Elsa Lanchester), and Hercule Poirot (James Coco). Simon subsequently wrote a sequel of sorts, 1978’s "The Cheap Detective," starring Peter Falk in a parody of several Humphrey Bogart melodramas. The all-star supporting cast included Ann-Margret, Sid Caesar, Stockard Channing, James Coco, Dom DeLuise, John Houseman, and the indefatigable Madeline Kahn.

Larry Gelbart, from "Caesar’s Hour," co-wrote the screenplay for "Movie Movie" (1978), an affectionate parody of double-features from a bygone era: a black-and-white boxing melodrama and a colorful Busby Berkeley-type musical extravaganza, along with a "preview" for a film about World War I flying aces. The cast boasted George C. Scott, Red Buttons, Eli Wallach, Art Carney, and George Burns.

Carl Reiner, who, as one of the stars of "Your Show of Shows," sat in on the program’s writing sessions, turned his attention to film parody during his brief but successful collaboration with Steve Martin in "Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid" (1982), a spoof of 1940s film noir that cleverly - and at times flawlessly - placed Martin’s hard-boiled detective in scenes with a who’s who of stars from that era in some of their most memorable roles. A decade later, Reiner attempted to send up erotic suspense thrillers like "Body Heat," "Fatal Attraction" and "Basic Instinct" in "Fatal Instinct," a spoof that fizzled mainly because stars Armand Assante, Kate Nelligan, Sherilynn Fenn, and Sean Young have never been known for their comedic skills.

What of the maestro himself? In 1978, Mel Brooks wrote, directed and starred in "History the World: Part I," which, despite the undisputed comic talents of Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Sid Caesar, and Howard Morris, disappointed fans with its disjointed storyline and been-there-done-that gags. There are those who feel that the disenchantment with Brooks is proportionate to his insistence on casting himself as the star of his pictures. They point out that the most beloved of his comedies is the one in which he did not appear - "Young Frankenstein." His penchant for shameless mugging in "Silent Movie" was book-ended by scene-stealing goofballs Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise, but the beginning of the end may have been his starring role as the psychiatrist framed for murder in "High Anxiety." Mel’s countenance is more befitting a public accountant than the lead in a Hitchcockian mystery (think James Stewart, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck).

Aside from that, Brooks’ output in the 1980s and ‘90s suffered from the gap in time between his spoofs and the targeted sources. "Spaceballs" (1987) came out a full decade after "Star Wars," "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" (1993) followed Kevin Costner’s "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" by two years, and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" (1995) was released three years after "Bram Stoker’s Dracula."

In an interview on Alternative Film Guide’s website, James Robert Parish, author of the 2007 biography It’s Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks, noted that Brooks’ 1970s films "benefitted from Mel being at his creative peak, with his zaniness at a high level mark, and his satires of movie genres having solid foundations upon which to play." These comedies "were especially appealing to moviegoers of the decade because they were full of antiestablishment philosophy and irreverent humor," and they "seemed very fresh to moviegoers of that era." By the 1980s, Parish contended, "many felt Mel was beginning to repeat himself and had less solid targets to satirize." After "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," "a less than stellar spoof," Parish said, "Mel seemed at a career low. A few years later, he was back at the top with a tremendous Broadway hit, the 2001 musical ‘The Producers.’"

Brooks attempted to repeat his Broadway success with a musical version of "Young Frankenstein," which premiered in November 2007, but the critical reception was considerably cooler. In a review titled "Monster Mashed" in Time magazine, critic Richard Zoglin concluded, "Mel Brooks is no longer the inspired amateur. Now he’s a Broadway monster repeating himself."

For the record, Brooks has garnered two Academy Awards, one for the 1964 animated short "The Critic," the second honoring Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for "The Producers." He keeps the Oscars "in a drawer somewhere." He said, "Awards are really not the measure of things. . . Time is a much better measure. If something stands the test of time, you got it right."


The British Invasion

What do you get when you cross three Cambridge-educated Brits (one studied law, another was qualified as a medical doctor) with one Oxford graduate, one English scholar versed in ancient and medieval history, and one Minnesota-born cartoonist? Answer: "Monty Python’s Flying Circus," the iconoclastic BBC-TV sketch comedy program noted for its bawdy humor, surreal non sequiturs, and innovative animation. Motion pictures were inevitable for the troupe, and while two of the productions might be viewed as parodies - "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) spoofing movies about King Arthur and knightly chivalry and "Monty Python’s Life of Brian" (1979) sending up Biblical epics - they could be more accurately deemed satires of larger contemporary social and theological precepts.

In 1980, Gary Weis, best known for making short films for "Saturday Night Live" during its early years, directed a poor man’s version of "Life of Brian," "Wholly Moses!" starring Dudley Moore as Herschel, a luckless schnook whose conviction that God ordained him to deliver the Jews from Egypt is repeatedly upstaged by Moses. The otherwise reliable cast, which includes "SNL’s" Laraine Newman, James Coco, Jack Gilford, Dom DeLuise, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, Andrea Martin, with John Ritter as the Devil and Richard Pryor as the Pharaoh, was shortchanged by a painfully humorless script and poverty-row production values.

Rivaling "Wholly Moses!" for the utter waste of collected talent and sheer absences of laughs was "Yellowbeard" (1983), a send-up of pirate movies co-written by Peter Cook (Dudley Moore’s onetime comedy partner) and Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, who plays the buccaneer of the title. Short of creating characters and a plot, the movie, according to critic Roger Ebert, "seems almost to have exhausted itself with its casting. All three big box-office comedy categories are included: the Python moves (Chapman, Eric Idle, John Cleese), the Mel Brooks movies (Madeline Kahn, Peter Boyle, Kenneth Mars, Marty Feldman) and the Cheech and Chong movies (Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong)." There are, as well, cameos by distinguished British thespians James Mason and Susannah York. "The movie itself," Ebert noted, "is a chaotic mess, in which herds of actors rush from one side of the screen to the other, waving their swords, making threats, and looking lost." Sadly, this was the last film for Marty Feldman, who died on the final day of shooting in Mexico City, suffering a massive heart attack caused by shellfish food poisoning. A week before his death, he was quoted as saying, "I am too old to die young and too young to grow up."

Cheech and Chong subsequently set out to make a spoof of their own, as appallingly unfunny as "Yellowbeard," when they wrote and starred in "Cheech & Chong’s The Corsican Brothers" (1984), a parody of the Alexandre Dumas tale that was already satirized to hilarious effect in "Start the Revolution Without Me." Tommy Chong directed this final Cheech & Chong outing, the only one without a mention of marijuana, and it bombed. A clue to the sub-level of humor can be found in the name of the villain - Evil Fuckaire.

Monty Python’s Terry Jones tried vainly to recapture the off-kilter zaniness that made the Pythons famous by writing, directing and co-starring in "Erik the Viking" (1989). Yet one more joyless parody, this one featured Tim Robbins ("Bull Durham") as a sensitive Norseman. Not even the presence of Mickey Rooney, Eartha Kitt, and John Cleese (as a last-minute replacement for Jack Lemmon) could brighten this muddle that was as gloomy as Ragnarok.


The New Breed

Brothers David and Jerry Zucker, along with Jim Abrahams, grew up together in Milwaukee, where their fathers were real estate partners. After attending the University of Wisconsin, the three young men opened Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, staging comedic sketches and humorous films. In 1972 they set up shop in Los Angeles near the Fox studio and eventually gravitated to movies.

The threesome (who would become known collectively as ZAZ) wrote the screenplay for "Kentucky Fried Movie" (1977), directed by John Landis, a onetime mailroom worker at 20th Century Fox who went on to greater fame as the director of "National Lampoon’s Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers." This freshman film for ZAZ had no plot but consisted of several sketches - often hilariously vulgar - that parody, among other targets, TV commercials, drive-in movies, public education films, courtroom dramas, coming attractions, and, most memorably, kung fu movies. A number of familiar faces popped up in cameos, including Bill Bixby, Henry Gibson, "Leave It to Beaver’s" Tony Dow (Jerry Mathers was also invited but declined), and Donald Sutherland, "as the Clumsy Waiter."

"Kentucky Fried Movie" was not the first sketch-oriented comedy to spoof television. "The Groove Tube" (1974) presented a collection of skits satirizing not only TV but 1970s counterculture, as well, with a cast that featured early appearances by Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer. The low-budget production, originally X-rated, was an outgrowth of New York City’s Channel One Video Theater, an off-Broadway experimental multimedia group, one of whose writer-performers was Chase.

Chevy also appeared, along with fellow "Saturday Night Live" performers Laraine Newman and Al Franken (currently a candidate for Mineesota’s U.S. Senate), in "Tunnel Vision" (1976), a "futuristic" peek at a day’s programming on America’s first uncensored network in the year 1985. Crude and tasteless (at least that was the consensus of most reviewers), "Tunnel Vision" was co-written and co-directed by Neal Israel ("Bachelor Party") and offered paychecks to "hungry comedy talent" (quoting one of those reviewers) the likes of Firesign Theatre’s Phil Proctor, "WKRP’s" Howard Hesseman, and "SCTV’s" Joe Flaherty and John Candy.

Bradley Swirnoff, who co-directed "Tunnel Vision," dished up another distasteful serving of TV parody in "American Rhapsody" (1977). Also known as "Prime Time," this little-seen obscurity featured a diverse assortment of performers, among them Joanna Cassidy, Fred Dryer, original "Jeopardy!" host Art Fleming, Kinky Friedman, "Animal House’s" Stephen Furst, Warren Oates, and "The Simpsons’" Harry Shearer.

A comparably disparate cast was assembled for 1980’s "Loose Shoes," also called "Coming Attractions," which is more appropriate to its series of parodies of movie trailers. The film is noted for an early performance by Bill Murray. Also appearing are Lewis Arquette (a former manager of Chicago’s The Second City and father of Rosanna, Patricia, Alexis, and David Arquette), Kinky Friedman, Buddy Hackett, Sid Haig, Howard Hesseman, Ed Lauter, "The Gong Show’s" Jaye P. Morgan, Gary Owens, Harry Shearer, and "Hill St. Blues’" Betty Thomas.

Sharing elements like paltry budgets, nonexistent storylines, dialogue peppered with obscenities and scatalogical and genital references, R-rated nudity, cameos by venerable old-timers, and fledgling appearances by soon-to-be-famous comedians, these "edgy" comedies of the ‘70s that strove to test the boundaries of public tastes were ultimately overshadowed by the irreverent humor - often offensive in its own right - of NBC-TV’s "Saturday Night Live."

It is funny that much of what passes for comedy in contemporary movie parodies, from the "Scary Movie" franchise to "Date Movie," "Epic Movie" and "Meet the Spartans," are just pale chalk-rubbings from fossils three decades old.

David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahmas wrote and collectively directed "Airplane!" (1980), ostensibly a sendup of the 1957 airline disaster melodrama "Zero Hour," which took off on flights of uncharted wackiness and earned ZAZ their rightful claim to the throne as the reigning kings of parody. (It’s good to be the kings!)

"Airplane!" was ultimately ranked 10th in the American Film Institute’s list of 100 funniest American comedies. Many of the comic surprises in the film spring from the unexpected appearances of established TV stone-faces in deadpan caricatures of their familiar personas, namely Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, and Robert Stack, not to mention cameos by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and "Leave It to Beaver" mom Barbara Billingsley, as a jive-talking passenger. Jim Abrahams once recalled that he and his partners wanted people who were "oblivious to the comedy," relating to Rule #3 of David Zucker’s "15 Recipes for a Laugh," as reported in the New York Times in June 1991: "Actors in the foreground must ignore jokes happening behind them." Leslie Nielsen would later recall he was delighted to be cast in the comedy, fearing that he was fated for nothing but "elderly grandfather" parts.

ZAZ wanted nothing to do with a sequel and fought the studio’s decision to make "Airplane II" (1982) but failed. The resulting production reunited a number of the original cast members, along with several recognizable faces from television dramas, including William Shatner, Chuck Connors, Chad Everett, Raymond Burr, Kent McCord, Rip Torn, and Sonny Bono, all in a carbon copy of gags from the first film. "We didn’t see it," Jim Abrahams said, "and it was not a pleasant thing to happen."

The team created and executive-produced the 1982 TV series "Police Squad!", a cult favorite that lasted six episodes before its untimely demise, canceled because its formula of nonstop sight gags and non sequiturs required attention-deficient viewers to actually watch the screen. Leslie Nielsen starred as the blissfully ignorant Detective Frank Drebin. Nielsen’s early career consisted of journeyman-like support in made-for-TV backlot fodder. Mention should be made, however, of his brief but important performance as the captain of the doomed ocean liner in "The Poseidon Adventure."

By the time ZAZ got around to their big-screen follow-up to "Airplane!", "Top Secret!" (1984), they had successfully challenged a Directors Guild dictum that films had to be credited to a single director, and they were granted dispensation to direct together whenever they wanted. "Top Secret!" managed to make fun of an unlikely pair of Hollywood genres - Elvis Presley musicals and World War II spy thrillers. Val Kilmer made his feature film debut as a pop star embroiled in espionage in communist East Germany. The time frame remained ambiguous, if not deliriously irrelevant, with the presence of Nazi soldiers and French Resistance fighters amid gags about Presidents Carter and Reagan.

The silly, often featherweight comedy fell short of the popularity of "Airplane!" but was praised by some critics for its preference of consistency in humor over a scattershot barrage of jokes. The filmmakers themselves felt the poor reception was due partly to the film’s slow pace and an over-dependence on obscure source material. The movie’s dialogue itself is a treasure-trove of buried gags in German, French, Yiddish, Latin, and a backwards-played conversation that passes as Swedish.

"Kentucky Fried Theater" director John Landis attempted to re-create that film’s spirit of wacky anarchism as one of the contributing directors of "Amazon Women on the Moon," a 1987 collection of sketches that parodied late-night television, but a decade after "Kentucky Fried Movie," the brash humor had been hamstrung by studio suits and comfortable budgets.

In 1988, ZAZ took "Police Squad!" to the big screen in "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" with Leslie Nielsen reprising his TV role as the incorrigible dim-bulb, Det. Drebin, and the face of motion picture parody would never be the same again. With this film and its sequels "The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear" and "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," Nielsen deservedly earned the mantle as the "Olivier of spoofs" from critic Roger Ebert.

It was on "The Naked Gun" that Columbia Heights, Minnesota native Pat Proft got his big break as a credited screenwriter, alongside ZAZ. He had received a "special thanks" in the end titles of "Airplane!" and put in time as an executive story editor on the series "Police Squad!" before co-scripting 1984’s "Police Academy" (however, he had no involvement in any of the six sequels). Commenting on what it was like to script dialogue for Nielsen in the "Naked Gun" films, he recalled, "I was writing for Humphrey Bogart… and (Leslie) does it perfect."

As a kid in Columbia Heights, Proft nurtured a love of slapstick and physical comedy. He was a fan of Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and the "Road" pictures of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. He wanted to make a Laurel and Hardy movie, he wanted to be in a Laurel and Hardy movie. He also dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player but drifted toward theater and wrote high school pep rally sketches. After graduating from high school in 1965, he spent three years at Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop, the renowned Minneapolis comedy theater that also helped launched the careers of Louie Anderson, U.S. Senate hopeful Al Franken, "MADtv’s" Mo Collins, and Rochester, Minnesota native Scott Novotny. It was at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles that Proft met Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker.

In 1991, Proft collaborated with director Jim Abrahams on the script for "Hot Shots!", initially a "Top Gun" take-off, which managed to spoof at least 20 other movies, from John Wayne’s "Flying Leathernecks" to Kevin Costner’s "Dances with Wolves," starring an appropriately cocky and very funny Charlie Sheen. By the time Proft and Abrahams made "Hot Shots! Part Deux" (1993), Pat had firmly established his five-tiered film formula for laughs: 1.) Lots of slapstick; 2.) Lots of celebrity lookalikes; 3.) Lots of jokes about other movies; 4.) Serious actors cast against type (Proft seemed especially fond of casting Lloyd Bridges, who, without a second thought, gleefully indulged in self-parody); and 5.) A well-intentioned but inept elderly guy (see #4).

Few things rub the good-natured Proft the wrong way, but he does resent blatant rip-offs of his work and unhesitatingly pointed an accusing finger at "National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1," a 1993 spoof of the "Lethal Weapon" films, starring Emilio Estevez ("Hot Shots" star Charlie Sheen’s brother) and Samuel L. Jackson. That movie pissed him off, "not because I wish I had made it," he said, "but because there were actual lifts of jokes we had done in ‘Police Squad!’"

"Loaded Weapon 1" was not the first movie spoof to come from the National Lampoon folks. Besides the previously mentioned "National Lampoon’s Class Reunion," "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" (1982), their first film after "Animal House," attempted to send up a variety of screen genres, with a cast that included Peter Riegert ("Animal House"), Diane Lane ("Hollywoodland"), Candy Clark ("American Graffiti"), Robert Culp, Fred Willard, Robby Benson, Christopher Lloyd, Henny Youngman, Harry Reems ("Deep Throat"), and the late, great Richard Widmark. (This is without a doubt the only instance when the names Richard Widmark and Harry Reems will ever be mentioned in the same breath.)

In 1998, Pat Proft wrote and made his directing debut with "Wrongfully Accused," a zany send-up of the Harrison Ford-starring "The Fugitive," featuring Leslie Nielsen. Meanwhile, a pair of Proft’s Columbia Heights classmates and buddies, Michael McManus and Greg Norberg (interestingly, the namesake of the flunky on TV’s "Police Squad!" and in the "Naked Gun" movies played by, respectively, Peter Lupus, of "Mission: Impossible" fame, and O.J. Simpson), wrote the screenplay for "Mafia!" (aka "Jane Austen’s Mafia!"), directed by Jim Abrahams and featuring one of the final screen roles for Lloyd Bridges. Norberg and McManus had worked with Proft on the "Hot Shots" pictures, and while they feigned anger at the latter’s attempt to steal their thunder with that summer’s release of "Wrongfully Accused," McManus insisted there was no bad blood between them, saying, "Sometimes it’s just the right time to do something on your own."

According to McManus (a Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop alumnus who also appeared in "Kentucky Fried Movie"), "To make a good spoof you have to have a genre that takes itself very seriously. The ‘Godfather’ movies were almost Shakespearean in their seriousness, so they certainly qualify. But a couple of years ago there was a movie called ‘Spy Hard’ (starring Leslie Nielsen) that tried to make fun of James Bond movies. One of the reasons that didn’t work is because that genre doesn’t take itself seriously to begin with."

For McManus, "The plot has to be straight. If you took out the jokes, it would work as a straight movie." As for those jokes, he explained, "There’s a fairly strict formula, and the formatting is very tight. It’s not unusual to come up with a joke that is reincarnated four or five times before you get it just right."


The New Blood

In 1986, comedian Robert Townsend co-scripted and directed "Hollywood Shuffle" (Keenen Ivory Wayans and standup comic Dom Irrera contributed to the screenplay), financing much of the film by using his own money and credit cards. (Because the movie was shot without permits, the crew wore UCLA t-shirts, passing themselves off as film students.) The modest production, which satirized stereotypical portrayals of blacks in films and on TV, became a surprise hit at the box office. It may have inspired Mr. Wayans to write, direct, and star in his send-up of action-packed blaxloitation flicks, "I’m Gonna Git You Sucka" (1988), alongside self-parodying genre veterans Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Isaac Hayes, and Antonio ("Huggy Bear") Fargas.

Keenen went on to become an integral factor in the success for the TV sketch comedy series "In Living Color" (1990-1994), which not only made a breakout star of Jim Carrey but also provided employment for a number of Wayans’ siblings, including Damon Wayans, Kim Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Marlon Wayans.

In 1996, Shawn and Marlon Wayans co-wrote and starred in a spoof of such popular urban melodramas as "Menace II Society," "South Central," "Juice," and "Boyz n the Hood," appropriately titled "Don’t be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood."

Then, in 2000, a new franchise was launched when Keenen, working from a script co-authored by Shawn and Marlon, directed "Scary Movie," inevitably followed by "Scary Movie 2" (2001). Both films, on the surface, parodied the popular "Scream" series of films but were noted more for their fondness for frat-boy sex gags, profanity and R-rated pot jokes.

Likewise, in 2000, Tiffani-Amber Thiesen ("Beverly Hills 90210") starred in "Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th," with faded rap star Coolio, Shirley Jones, and Tom Arnold. A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin deemed it "a brain-dead parody of a smart, subversive satire (‘Scream’)," covering the same ground as "Scary Movie," by "chronicling the exploits of sex-crazed teens in slasher-plagued Bulimia Falls." Directed by John Blanchard ("Second City TV," "The Kids in the Hall," "MADtv"), the film was, in Rabin’s words, "just another Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker-style gagfest aimed at 12-year-old boys."


Back to Basics

Keenen, along with any other family member named Wayans, abruptly abandoned the franchise after "Scary Movie 2," following which the films broadened their spoof-scope to encompass a variety of non-horror flicks and pop-culture targets. It was only appropriate that members of the ZAZ factory were brought in to retool the sequels. "The Naked Gun" director David Zucker took over the directing reins for "Scary Movie 3" (2003), working from a script co-written by Pat Proft. According to Roger Ebert, " ‘Scary Movie 3’ understands the concept of a spoof but not the concept of a satire. It clicks off several popular movies and recycles scenes from them trough a spoofalator, but it’s feeding off these movies, not skewering them. The average issue of Mad magazine contains significantly smarter movie satire, because Mad goes for the vulnerable elements, and ‘Scary Movie 3’ just wants to quote and kid." Proft, along with Jim Abrahams, contributed to the screenplay for "Scary Movie 4" (2006), which was directed by David Zucker.

Not surprisingly, ZAZ veteran Leslie Nielsen appeared in "Scary Movie 3" and "Scary Movie 4," as President Harris. By 1990, Nielsen had pretty much become the shameless star-for-hire in a number of spoofs, from "Repossessed," a cheap parody of "The Exorcist," featuring original star Linda Blair (in a disparate cast that included Ned Beatty, comedian Bob Zany, and Jesse Ventura), the previously mentioned "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" for director Mel Brooks, the embarrassingly humorless "2001: A Space Travesty" (also misleadingly called "Son of the Naked Gun"), and a singular example of cinema obscura called "S.P.Q.R.: 2000 and a Half Years Ago" (known as "The Roman Gun" in Germany).

In 1996, Nielsen starred in "Spy Hard," a little-seen effort with a supporting cast that included Charles Durning, Andy Griffith, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Ray Charles, Hulk Hogan, Robert Culp, Fabio, Pat Morita, Mr. T., and Alex Trebek. Since the popularity of Sean Connery’s James Bond films of the 1960s, spy parodies remained a staple in farcical fare, from TV’s "Get Smart" to James Coburn’s "Flint" flicks and Dean Martin’s tongue-in-cheek portrayals of Matt Helm, to the all-star 1967 debacle that was "Casino Royale" and Mike Myers’ "Austin Powers" comedies. (Even Bedrock’s own got into the act in 1966’s "The Man Called Flintstone.")


The Dark Ages

"Spy Hard" was directed by Rick Friedberg, who co-wrote the script with Dick Chudnow, Jason Friedberg, and Aaron Seltzer. Jason and Aaron went off on their own in 2006 with "Date Movie," directed by Seltzer. According to New York Times critic Anita Gates, Friedberg and Seltzer "crammed dozens of movie parodies into their deliberately juvenile spoof of romantic comedies. Mr. Seltzer…has made very few of them funny." Scott Tobias, writing for the A.V. Club, noted, "'The Scary Movie’ franchise makes some sense, because horror films are easily deflated by laughter. But how do you go about parodying a comedy? The answer is, ‘You don’t,’ but Seltzer and Friedberg forge ahead anyway by stealing jokes from other movies and taking them to the outer limits of anti-hilarity." Tobias concluded, "It’s kind of amazing that a joke-a-second comedy like ‘Date Movie’ doesn’t contain a single laugh, but what’s there has been so thoroughly focus-grouped and market-tested that no joy escapes the vacuum."

Oddly, neither Friedberg nor Seltzer were involved in the earlier "Not Another Teen Movie" (although one of their co-writers of the original "Scary Movie" was), a hodgepodge parody of "American Pie," "Cruel Intentions," "American Beauty," and, among many other teen films, "Bring It On," all, according to one reviewer, "shot through with the same scatology and pop-culture-obsessed tastelessness that’s been the default mode for lowbrow comedies since ‘There’s Something About Mary.’" Roger Ebert noted, "It was good to see familiar faces from old movies, like Molly Ringwald (‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘The Breakfast Club’) and John Vernon (‘Animal House’)…But it was not good to see yet still more wretched excess in the joke about characters being sprayed with vast quantities of excrement."

In 2007, Friedberg and Seltzer shared writing and directing chores on "Epic Movie." Los Angeles Times critic Alex Chun wrote, "According to Webster’s, a spoof is ‘a light, humorous parody.’ By that definition, writers-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s latest stab at the genre, ‘Epic Movie,’ is anything but." Chun summarized the film as "really nothing more than a disjointed series of scenes and references cobbled together as a backdrop for sophomoric humor." Not surprisingly then, "Epic Movie" was the #1 film at the box office over its opening weekend.

In a January 2007 interview with MTV News, Friedberg and Seltzer maintained that their scattershot spoofs are couched in a strong central story. Seltzer said, "It still has to fit the parameters of a traditional movie. When you leave the theater, you actually give a shit about the characters involved." Friedberg insisted that a "through-line is way important because otherwise, it’s a collection of skits…Maybe some of the jokes were funny, but you don’t care about going on the whole ride without the characters."

A.V. Club reviewer Nathan Rabin noted that "Epic Movie" "barrels artlessly through one dispiriting spoof after another." Rabin asked, "Can contemporary comedy be reduced to the simple equation ‘pop-culture reference + slapstick violence or scatology = hilarity’? ‘Epic Movie’ gives audiences ample time to contemplate such weighty matters, minus such distractions as funny gags…" "The real problem with ‘Epic Movie,’" Los Angeles Times’ Alex Chun concluded, "is that while it does a decent job job imitating films, it never bothers to make fun of or have fun with them," while Mr. Rabin noted, "It’s an ersatz comedy filled with unconvincing celebrity look-alikes and tone-deaf parodies. Only the desperation and cynicism feel authentic."

Undeterred, Friedberg and Seltzer continued to "forge ahead" with "Meet the Spartans" (2008), at first glance a spoof of "300." Shot under the misleading title "Hunting and Fishing," the film was also known as "Epic Movie 2," with the tagline, "If You Hated ‘Epic Movie,’ Well, We Made ‘Part 2,’ Bitches!" New York Times reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis noted, "So much has been written about the homoeroticism in the film ‘300’ that any spoof is bound to feel like overkill. Fortunately, overkill is what Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer do best," continuing "to prove that ridiculing other movies is much easier than making your own." Another insightful writer went so far as to assert that Friedberg and Seltzer are not so much filmmakers as "parasites working in the regurgitation business."

In the movie, King Leonidas and 13 barely-dressed, faithful soldiers face off against the invading Persians, including characters from "Ghost Rider," "Rocky Balboa," and "Transformers," not to mention a hunchbacked Paris Hilton look-alike, while the filmmakers target blockbusters such as "Shrek," "Casino Royale," "Spider-Man," "Happy Feet," TV shows "American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," "America’s Next Top Model," and "Deal or No Deal," the video game "Grand Theft Auto," as well as pop icons Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Donald Trump, Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie. As pointed out in the New York Times review of the earlier "Epic Movie," "Pop culture moves so quickly" that this kind of parody "already feels dated and irrelevant."

If the ZAZ spoofs seem grounded in the late-blooming comedic skills of Leslie Nielsen, then the rock of comic genius in Friedberg and Seltzer’s stock company of players has to be Prince discovery-Playboy magazine model-"Baywatch" star-and ex-wife of pro basketballer Dennis Rodman, Carmen Electra, enjoying featured roles in "Scary Movie," "Date Movie," "Epic Movie," and "Meet the Spartans."

"The Comebacks" (2007) was, in the words of A.V. Club critic Scott Tobias, "a desperate spoof of inspirational sports movies," starrring comedian David Koechner ("Anchorman") as Coach (wait for it, Green Bay fans) Lambeau Fields. Directed by Tom Brady (not the three-time Super Bowl champon quarterback, but the guy who directed Rob Schneider in 2002’s "The Hot Chick"), the film required nine producers, some of whom were responsible for the previously mentioned "Mafia!" as well as the "Van Wilder" comedies, "Employee of the Month" and "The Wedding Crashers," not to mention - no kidding - several of the Olsen Twins’ "mystery" and "party" videos from the 1990s. Matt Seitz of the New York Times dismissed the movie as "one of those parody movies that presume that merely making references to another film constitutes a joke."


A New Hope

Recently, Craig Mazin wrote and directed "Superhero Movie" (2008), a send-up of "Spider-Man," "Batman Begins," and "X-Men," starring Nickelodeon’s Drake Bell, with Leslie Nielsen, Marion Ross ("Happy Days"), Tracey Morgan ("30 Rock"), Jeffrey Tambor ("Arrested Development"), Brent Spiner ("Star Trek: The Next Generation"), and Pamela Anderson (Carmen Electra must have been busy). But just who is Craig Mazin? In 2000, he directed a modest comedy about almost-superhoes called "The Specials," starring Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways"), Rob Lowe, and Jamie Kennedy.

In a March 2008 interview with Joe Crosby of Mania.com, Mazin said, "When the Wayans opted not to continue with the ‘Scary Movie’ series, Bob Weinistein (who runs Dimension Films) sort of put together his dream team to make the next film. In the course of no more than a day or so, I found myself in a room with David Zucker, Bob Weiss (a producer of ‘Kentucky Fried Movie,’ ‘Police Squad!’ and the ‘Naked Gun’ films), and Pat Proft." The fledgling comedy writer recalled the experience as "a terrific apprenticeship."

Asked about his own approach to film parody, Mazin admitted that the jumbled hodgepodge style "isn’t really my favorite form of the genre. I’m more of a traditionalist, I like ‘Airplane!’ the best." ("Superhero Movie" features a cameo by ‘Airplane!’ star Robert Hays.) He said he enjoyed working on "Superhero Movie" (co-produced by David Zucker) because he was "allowed to stick, for the most part, to one coherent storyline."

Mazin maintained, "People want to see spoofs of films they enjoyed. If you spoof a film no one liked, then you’re just piling on, and it’s mean-spirited. More importantly, you can only deflate that which is serious, earnest and perhaps a bit pompous. There’s no comic counterpoint if you’re spoofing a silly film."

Despite his humble if not noble intentions, "Superhero Movie" was, for worse more than better, dismissed by reviewers as a "slapdash construction," according to the Los Angeles Times’ Mark Olsen, with an "overall sense of lazy self-congratulation." "To call ‘Superhero Movie’ a satire, or even a parody," A.O.. Scott noted in the New York Times, "would be misleading, since those terms imply at least an attempt at wit," calling the production a "harmless, mindless grab bag of slightly used gags, which lampoons some of the conventions of recent comic-book epics and adds the expected staples of juvenile humor: urine, vomit and intestinal gas." Scott added that even the presence of Leslie Nielsen does not itself bring laughter, except in so far as you may be reminded of other, funnier movies."

On a friendlier note, Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club, wrote, "Thanks to the Wayans brothers and comedy antichrists Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, standards for genre parodies plummeted to such unspeakable lows that ‘Superhero Movie’ can now be warmly embraced as second-rate Zucker-brothers silliness."