R. I. P STAN FREBERG

Wow! I did not know this existed. I'm going to have to look into the origin of this stop-motion animation version of  Stan Freberg's "St. George." At any rate, the audio is the original Capitol record. I hope to dedicate a whole post to Freberg in the future.

DESDINOVA'S FAVORITE SONG PARODIES

The big talk in the music industry recently was Weird Al Yankovic hitting the number one position on the album chart. Weird Al has been creating parodies of popular songs since the early 80s. Song parodies were not new when Weird Al starting recording. There are four styles of song parodies and Weird Al has recorded all but one of these styles.

Crazy version or "Tearing it up": This was the style preferred by Spike Jones and his City Slicker. The Hoosier Hotshots and early Homer and Jethro records took pop song and turned them into country swing/bluegrass numbers. Since his In 3-D LP, Weird Al has recorded a medley of popular songs performed as polkas. While we're mentioning the polka medleys, we should also point out that while Weird Al was parodying the then popular medley craze of the early 80s, he probably continued these as a tribute to both Spike Jones (gunshots and gargling turn up in these frequently) and Alan Sherman, who included medleys of shorter parodies on his LPs. Classical parody artist P.D.Q Bach would fall into this category.

Sound alike: For the most part this was the forte of Stan Freberg, I can only think of one other recording like this.  Freberg didn't change the words (the exception is his "Cry" parody) and barely changed the arrangement. However, he made the joke out of the singer's delivery or the musician's flair or the record's production. While Weird Al has credited Stan Freberg as an influence, he has never recorded a parody of this style.

Stylistic or homages: The masters of this kind of parody were performers of The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The architects of these parodies were usually Christopher Guest and Paul Shaffer. They even recorded one whole LP of parodies entitled Goodbye Pop. Before The National Lampoon, Benny Hill was creating these for his TV show, later releasing them on record. Sometimes these are best with the visual image of Hill pretending to be Mick Jagger or Kenny Rogers. Weird Al has parodied or paid homage to performers such as Bob Dylan, Devo and They Might Be Giants, as well as 70s soft rock, 90s hair bands and 50s rock and roll.

Same tune/different lyrics: This is the style of parody used most by Weird Al. It was also the style used most by Allan Sherman and Homer and Jethro. Sheb Wooley recorded several LPs of this style of parody under the name Ben Colder. Basically these artist took a popular song and rewrote the lyrics, but left the tune the same.

Here is a list of some of my favorite song parodies. Some are well-known and some are obscure, but can probably be found by Googling the title.

1) "Eat It" - Weird Al Yankovic (Parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It")   This not only made Weird Al a household name but it legitimized song parodies as an art form. Weird Al benefited from the music video revolution because he could parody both the song "Beat It" as well as the video.

2) "Try" - Stan Freberg (Parody of Johnny Ray's "Cry")  Before he was name dropped in British pop songs of the 80s, Johnny Ray was the singer who shook up the music world before Elvis. He wore a back brace and two hearing aids. His singing would go from an overly drawn-out enunciated (which Bob Dylan admits to imitating) soft voice to a screaming mournful wail with in a few seconds. On stage, Ray grabbed and jerked his clothes like he had a bad itch beneath them. This is one of the few Freburg parodies where he changed the lyrics to Ray's hit "Cry" and even mentions Ray's other big hit "The Little White Cloud the Cried" before he begins sounding like an emergency vehicle siren.

3) "The Art Rock Suite" & "Goodbye Pop" - National Lampoon (Parody of art/prog rock genre and Elton John respectfully) The National Lampoon LP Goodbye Pop 1952 -1975 is comprised of several great parodies of different artist and styles, as well as parodies of FM radio and documentaries. I listed these two together because of the songs on the LP, these are great as rock songs on their own. According to the liner notes, "there are 28 groups wrong with this song." Even if you don't want to guess who is being parodied, this song is a fun rocker. According to the intellectual narrator, Roger DeSwans (voiced by Christopher Guest), this is a song by a British rock band called The Dog's Breakfast. We hear an interview from a member of the group, who sounds suspiciously like Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap (Guest does this voice too). The song changes tempo, vocals and styles with pokes at Queen, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Focus, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Yes.

"Goodbye Pop" is a dead-on homage to early 70s Elton John, written and sung by David Letterman's bandleader, Paul Shaffer. The song is not a much of a comedy piece as it is a great tribute to rock and roll history. Someone should remake this song, because this is just a great song.

4)  "The Chicken Song" - Spitting Image (Parody of Black Lace "Agadoo") The one thing hard lesson of song parodies: malicious and animosity towards the artist can be unfunny and, often, deadly to a career. For instance, Don Bowman's "Other Ringo" is just plain horrible and Allan Sheman's "Pop Hates the Beatles" helped kill his career. Of course, Spitting Image picked on a group that was a flash in the pan, mainly a sensation in Great Britain and sort of irritating to begin with. The British duo called Black Lace's hits really don't show up on compilations with Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Style Council or Culture Club as "great hits of the 80s," but on CDs with the Countdown Kids, Sharon, Lois and Bram, Raffi and Barney the Dinosaur. In the early to mid 80s, they had major hits in Britain and Europe with their silly, off-kilter dance hits. The biggest was "Agadoo" which featured the often repeated chorus of "Ag-a-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree. Aga-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, grind coffee.To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees, Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody."

BLACK LACE aka THOSE TWO WET GITS

The satirical British TV show Spitting Image frequently parodied popular songs and performers. They decided a parody of Black Lace's goofy dance hits would be a hit with the audience. "The Chicken Song" had not only strange dance direction but some rather prophetic lines: "Hold a chicken in the air, Stick a deckchair up your nose, Buy a jumbo jet, And then bury all your clothes. Skin yourself alive, Learn to speak Arapaho, Climb inside a dog, And behead an Eskimo, Now you've heard it once, Your brain will spring a leak and though you hate this song, You'll be humming it for weeks."  The joke backfired because "The Chicken Song" turned out to be more successful than any of the Black Lace songs and, in the end, became more annoying as well. The writers of the TV show at one point apologized for "inflicting that song on the innocent public." Unlike any of Black Lace's songs, "The Chicken Song" received airplay in the United States thanks to Dr. Demento and its use in three Spitting Image TV specials
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5) "Great Men Repeat Themselves" - Homer & Jethro (Parody of Buddy Starcher "History Repeats Itself")  I'm not sure at what point after the assassination of  President John F. Kennedy people began compiling list of coincidences in the lives of President Abraham Lincoln and President Kennedy. This list is still circulated today and even has a listing on Snopes that analyzes these facts. In 1966, a country singer named Buddy Starcher recorded a spoken word record entitled "History Repeats Itself." Never missing a chance to parody a country hit, Homer and Jethro came up with "Great Men Repeat Themselves," which compares then then current President Lyndon Johnson with then popular TV character Batman (above). Sheb Wooley also recorded a version under his Ben Colder persona that also parodied Senator Everette Dirksen's "Gallant Men" spoken word record. The Homer & Jethro recording is best because it pokes fun at the excessive numerology and mathematics in Starcher's record and the original list, leading Jethro Burns to conclude that "There is only one Batman."

6) "Suspicion" - Vivian Stanshall & his Gargantuan Chums (Parody of "Suspicion" by Terry Stafford)  This falls into the sound alike category like many of Stan Freburg's parodies. Former Bonzo Dog Band lead singer Vivian Stanshall (above) recorded this in after the break up of the Bonzo Dog Band (Some are confused because it appeared on a Bonzo Dog Band greatest hits CD in the 80s). While Stanshall actually sounded like the songs original performer, Elvis Presley, the record parodies the 1964 number one hit version by Terry Stafford, which featured an early synthesizer imitating a horn section and a backing chorus of girls cooing "Ooooohhh." Stanshall had a synthesizer imitating horns, but substituted the girls with his friends, Keith Moon of The Who and Screaming Lord Sutch.

7)  "I Lost On Jeopardy" - Weird Al Yankovic (Parody of the Greg Kihn Band "Jeopardy") You have to list a parody that is responsible for reviving a game show. Before becoming a horror/mystery novelist and classic rock DJ, Greg Kihn put out some great moody power pop songs in the 80s. The biggest was "Jeopardy" with its infectious guitar riff, pulsating bass line and great video about a wedding that turns into a cross between Carnival of Souls and It Came From Beneath the Sea. Weird Al figured the song had to be turned into a song about the game show Jeopardy. At the time this video was released, Jeopardy had been off the air for three years (the second run of the show was cancelled in 1979). Besides the satiric jokes about the show, it ends with Jeopardy's announcer,  the late Don Pardo, reading a list of stuff Weird Al "didn't win" such as Turtle Wax and Rice A-Roni. Merv Griffin was trying to bring back the game show at the time this song and video came out. It's popularity helped spur renewed interest in the TV show and the revived syndicated version is still on the air today.

8) "You Went the Wrong Way, Ole King Louie" - Allan Sherman (Parody of "You Came Along Way From St. Louis" performed here by Rosemary Clooney)  For the most part, Allan Sherman (above) used American folk songs and pop standards for parodies that satirized Jewish suburban life. He made two that poked fun at history. "Won't You Come Home, Disraeli" (Based on "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey") and this ditty about the French Revolution. Part of what makes the one fun is an arrangement that the piano playing the riff from the theme to Peter Gunn.

9) "Just Wanna Be In Your Band" - Benny Hill (Parody of "Lucille," "The Gambler" and "Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers)  My regret is that I couldn't find video of Benny Hill doing this stylistic parody of Kenny Rogers country story songs on his show in the 80s. The version TV was longer and featured different lyrics (Including a line about a midget). Hill has Rogers voice down to a tee and the song is filled with Hill trademark bad puns.

HOMER & JETHRO

10) "Gone" - Homer & Jethro (Parody of "Gone" by Ferlin Husky) I have two things in common with Homer & Jethro. Homer & Jethro and myself have both worked at KWTO radio in Springfield, Missouri. The other is we think the backing vocals on Ferlin Husky's 1957 hit "Gone" are some of the worst backing vocals ever (Dickie Goodman did too - listen to the end of "Flying Saucer The 2nd"). I have always pictured a group of people culled from the streets of Nashville and told "Ya'll wanna sing on a country record. Stand in front of the mic and when I point to ya sing 'Now you've gone." That's all ya gotta do." Besides the obvious pokes at the vocals, this song contains lyrics like, "You can take your heart back now, I ordered liver anyhow" and "You wore a newspaper dress to the ball, it caught on fire and you started to squawl, burnt yer front page, sports section and all." You have to wonder what these guys would have done to Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan and Taylor Swift. Then again...

HOMER & JETHRO IN BEATLE WIGS

11) "She Loves You" - Homer & Jethro (Parody of "She Loves You" by the Beatles)   After recording a bad anti-Beatle novelty song called "Gonna Send Them Home," Homer & Jethro made up for it ten-fold with two great parodies of Beatles songs that are perfect copies of the instrumentation on the original Beatle hits. The truth is Homer & Jethro (and producer Chet Atkins) were closet jazz fans and talented musicians.  Of the two songs, "I Want to Hold You Hand" and "She Loves You," I prefer the B-side "She Loves You."  After the 'yeah-yeah-yeah' open, Homer & Jethro sings "You think you lost yer love, well I think that is mighty fine, and now that she is gone, you can have this gal of mine, cause she loves you and I just don't know what fer. She loves you and now you're stuck with her."

12) "Waste of Money" - Allan Sherman (Parody of "Taste of Honey" by Herb Alpert) After "Pop Hates The Beatles" and "Crazy Downtown" drove away the kids who fell in love with him with "Hello Mutha, Hello Fatha," he got back to poking fun at one of his favorite subjects, consumer culture. A guy tries to attract women by going into debt buying cars, pearl necklaces and tight pants. He winds up dating a girl from Household Finance Loans.

13) "Mother Goose's Sweet Potato Sparkling Wine" - National Lampoon (Parody of James Taylor) This is not just a great parody of early James Taylor (imitation by Christopher Guest again) but a great poke at that teenage rite of passage known as Boone's Farm Wines. "I'm a wino at fourteen" and "It taste like Cheracol" are truer than anything ever written in a straight pop song. If you drank Boone's Farm in high school, this song will bring back memories. It also beats the heck out of hearing "You've Got a Friend" for the millionth time.

14) "Chow Mein and Bowling" & "Rodan" - Mike Nesmith (Parody of Jimmy Webb and "Joanne" by Mike Nesmith, respectively) It takes a big man to parody another artist, but it takes a bigger man to parody himself. The first song was written by a member of Mike Nesmith's band. Nesmith said on his Television Parts show that it was what it sounded like when "Richard Harris sings a Jimmy Webb song." The images of things that really don't go together, while spinning a tale of memories of young love, flowers, rare wine, food in the rain and playgrounds. It ends with a dramatic end like "MacArthur Park." Nesmith also made a short parody of "Joanne" for Elephant Parts about Rodan. "Her name was Rodan and she lived in the ocean off Japan."

15) "Detroit City #2" - Ben Colder (Sheb Wooley) (Parody of "Detroit City" by Bobby Bare) Singer/actor Sheb Wooley released parodies of popular country music songs under the name Ben Colder. I was close to listing the monster kid friendly parody of Jerry Wallace's "Shutters and Boards," but the more I think about it this parody works on two levels: Musically and lyrically. Bobby Bare, Tom Jones and Dean Martin all recorded the original song with the same twangy guitar part that almost sound like the guitar is coming untuned. Ben Colder berates the guitar player about not having the guitar properly tuned. In the original song, the singer regrets leaving his family farm in Tennessee to work at an automobile factory in Detroit. The singer also laments his drinking with the line "During the day I make the cars, at night I make the bars." The chorus is "I want to go home." Ben Colder on the other hand sings "I don't want to go home." He enjoys his job in the shock absorber division, going to bars after work and telling the girls that he is "the number one washer crammer in the whole shock absorber division."

16) "I've Got You Under My Skin" - Stan Freberg and "On Top of Spaghetti" by Tom Glazer & the Do-Re-Mi Children's Chorus (Parody of "On Top of Old Smokey" by the Weavers)
The Weavers released a version of the folk song "On Top of Old Smokey" in the early 50s which featured Pete Seeger speaking the lyrics of the song before the other members of the group sang them. It sounded like he was telling them what to sing next. Stan Freberg wondered what it would sound like if a pop standard was sung this way. Freberg also wondered what would happen if the person speaking the lyrics messed up. Would the singers stop or would they sing whatever the song leader said? The later was what happened and the group suddenly burst into "On Top of Old Smokey."

Folk singer Tom Glazer made a children's LP with a group of children singing a parody of "On Top of Old Smokey." Like Seeger, he speaks the lyric with the children singing it afterward. Legend has it that children at an elementary school in Lodi, California came up with the parody lyrics.

17) "You Always Hurt the One You Love" - Spike Jones and his City Slickers (Parody of the Ink Spots)  This parody has lead to a misconception that the Ink Spots had a hit with "You Always Hurt the One You Love." The Mills Brothers had the hit, but Spike Jones decided to show the world what would happen if The Ink Spots, another pioneer R&B group, recorded the song. Both groups had a distinct style. The Mills Brothers songs started slow, then picked up to become jazzy and uptempo. The Ink Sports were slow with the same four-bar acoustic guitar accompaniment and the tenor voice of Bill Kenny. Mid-way through the song, bass sing Hoppy Jones would give a little talk to the lady Kenny was singing too. Jones would usually call this woman "Honey chile' or Honey lamb." Of course, after the Ink Spots imitation, Spike Jones and the boys let it rip with their typical musical mayhem.

BONZO DOG BAND AND A GROUPIE

18) "Kama Sutra" - Bonzo Dog Band (Parody of "Handy Man" by Jimmy Jones and "Calendar Girl" by Neil Sedaka) This song is the missing link between Jimmy Jones 1960 hit song "Handy Man" and Culture Club's 1984 hit "Karma Chameleon." It also has to be one of the shortest songs ever recorded (49 seconds). Bonzo Dog Band mashed up the tune of "Handy Man" with the tune of Neil Sedaka's "Calender Girl" for a quick risque rhyme.

 
19) "My Old Flame" - Spike Jones and his City Slickers  (Parody of "My Old Flame" by Mae West and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Billie Holliday, Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman Orchestra) A monster kid favorite that still gets airplay at Halloween on some hipper radio stations. The more ironic thing about this is that this parody version is the most successful recording of this song and the one that made this song popular. Mae West introduced this song in a movie called Belle of the Nineties. Carl Grayson sings it straight at the beginning, but is soon interrupted by Spike and fire engines. The song slows back down and the song is then turned over to famous voice artist Paul Frees, who recites the lyrics as Peter Lorre, "My old flame, I can't even remember her name...I'll have to look through my collection of human heads." In the end, the Lorre-character douses his lover in gasoline and sets fire to his "old flame." Creepy fun.

20) "Cantata: Iphigenia in Brooklyn" & "Classical Rap" P.D.Q Bach - Peter Schickele (Parody of Cantatas, classical music, rap, respectively)  Of the artist I'm featuring in this list, P.D.Q Bach is probably the artist that you either love or hate. Some people don't get the joke or feel it is above their head. Truth is the works of fictional P.D.Q Bach (above) that Professor Peter Schickele, of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, "discovers" often sound as if they could have been an influence on Spike Jones. They are filled with bike horns, doorbells, kazoos and sour notes, while the compositions veer into bits of "Beautiful Dreamer," "Shenandoah," "Peggy Sue" or "Batman." The two pieces I list here were recorded twenty-five years apart (1965 & 1990, respectfully), but are probably the most accessible to the casual listener. "Iphigenia in Brooklyn" is a parody of Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, but you need not have ever heard Gluck's opera to find this funny. Tenor John Ferrante sings about exorbitantly worded lyrics about a fish market and running noses.

"Classical Rap" is what happens if Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" was created with the audience that listens to classical music on the radio in mind, complete with samples of other famous classical pieces. Besides parodying the popular music trend of the day, it is a vicious but hilarious satire of the upper income set that listens to classical music.  They must not be as touchy listeners to talk radio listeners, who believe you shouldn't make fun of them. NOTE: I linked to a recording of this track on YouTube. For some reason the video is a manga cartoon of some sort.

This has been an epic post and I could have listed several other great parodies. This also isn't a ranking (Which is why I put two on some of these), just a mix of some of my favorites that I wanted to feature in hopes that readers would discover these songs. My hope is you hunt these down and have a good laugh.

THE MOST UNDERRATTED PARODY FILM OF THE 70s - THE LAST REMAKE OF BEAU GESTE

Last year, during the Countdown To Halloween, I wrote a post about how I believed Messiah of Evil was one of the most underrated horror films of the 70s. I have been thinking for quite sometime about a post about what i believe to be the most underrated parody film of the 70s: The Last Remake of Beau Geste.

The 70s was the Golden Age of Parody films. The start of this was probably the 1969 film, Take The Money and Run, which was Woody Allen's poke at TV "true crime documentaries," gangster and prison films.  The peak of this was around 1974 when Mel Brooks gave us both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein and the Monty Python's gave us Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At that point, major studios were wanting parody films. Shortly after Mel Brooks Silent Movie came out, Universal Studios hired Young Frankenstein/Silent Movie star (and Monty Python friend) Marty Feldman to write, direct and star in a film parody version of the story of Beau Geste, which had been filmed numerous times since the beginning of the movie industry.

The plot of the novel (and later movies) revolves around a British military man, Sir Hector, adopting sons (The novel has three although this movies only has two boys: Beau and Digby) after the disappointment of his wife dying while giving birth to a daughter. When Sir Hector marries a young golddigger, Beau takes the family's valuable diamond and flees to Morocco to join the French Foreign Legion. His brothers follow him. 

The stories of Universal being run in the 70s by clueless old white, conservative guys who didn't know what audiences would like and not could fill a book. They didn't understand the popularity of The Six Million Dollar Man among children and they just about pulled the plug on both American Graffiti and Animal House. They also turned down another George Lucas project called Star Wars. So it is not surprising that they didn't like Marty Feldman's finished version of the film and had it re-edited before it was released. Even after test audiences preferred the Feldman version, Universal released their version.

While there is apparently no surviving version of the "Director's Cut," the Universal version is nothing to sneeze at. There are numerous great gags in the film from Feldman trying to stop the 30's Universal logo from spinning, an abundance of funny signs on walls, pokes at movie cliches, camel humps being deflated after being shot, a commercial for a used camel salesman and cameos by Ed McMahon and Garry Cooper. Contrary to what IMDB and other resources say McMahon is not a "Arab horseman," he is really playing Ed McMahon in Arab clothing. Cooper appears in footage from the 1939 version in which he played the main character. He offers Feldman a cigarette.

Michael York plays a dashing version of Beau opposite Feldman as Beau's less-perfect brother Digby. Ann Margaret plays the sexy step-mother after the family jewel, Sinead Cusack as the daughter of the boy's adoptive father, Henry Gibson is the French general, Ted Cassidy as a blind cook, James Earl Jones is a Sheik, who talks like comedian Terry Thomas (who is also in the movie) and Peter Ustinov as Sgt. Markov, who not only has a prosthetic leg, but so to does his horse and teddy bear.

However, of all the great performers in the movie, my favorite is Michael McConkey (above), who plays young Digby. Where did they find a child that looked exactly like Marty Feldman???

Sadly, Universal still doesn't understand that there is a market for a great DVD release of this fun movie. You can buy it from Universal on-demand, however fans have said they only got a transfer of the movie on DVD. No menu, no chapters, no extras. If they could release both the released version and the director's cut, I'm sure there would be quite a few people who would buy it. Also it should have a good version of the trailer. I kept finding the same one on various websites and it has glitches.

If you can find a copy on VHS or watch it on You Tube, do so. It deserves more of an audience than it has gotten in the past few years.

FUN WITH AMERICAN GOTHIC

It has been rare in the world of art for a painting to become some famous that it spawns parodies. DaVinci's Mona Lisa and Munch's The Scream have been parodied, but the one that seems to lend itself to parodies is Grant Wood's American Gothic. Maybe it is the subject matter of the farmer and his spinster daughter (Not his wife as many believe) that people find funny, which was what Wood wanted in the first place. This brings to mind the old question of "Can You Parody a Parody?" I wonder if possibly American Gothic is the most parodied and referenced painting in history.

I began thinking about this thanks to Pam at Go Retro. She posted this ad for Nabisco, on her Facebook sight, that featured an American Gothic couple. So, I decided to do a little research into this. If found some more than I needed, but two of my favorites are available for use. The Music Man number "Iowa Stubborn" and The Rocky Horror Picture Show number "Dammit Janet" feature chorus members dressed as the American Gothic duo. Unfortunately, these are unavailable on You Tube. However, You Tube does have the 60s commercials for General Mills Country Corn Flakes, both in black and white and color, as well as the opening to Green Acres. Also check out his great skit from Saturday Night Live about the painting of American Gothic.

Not long after American Gothic was first presented to the public, photographer Gordon Parks created this photo version. Here are a few others:

An 80s slasher movie staring two Hollywood legends.

This a ad for Viagra. Click to enlarge (Pardon the pun) for the full effect.

The Simple Life ad reminded me of something. On the original Desdinova blog, I made jokes about how I was going to marry Paris Hilton. Apparently this would upset a former radio personality, here in Springfield, that was one of my favorite targets.  According to a person, who worked in the same building, he especially got upset when I said that he should go to jail instead of Paris Hilton. Rumor has it he cried. Really? A grown man cried over THAT! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Like I said, I only touch the surface of this subject. If you Google "American Gothic parodies," you find whole blog dedicated to the subject.  

DESDINOVA'S TOP FIVE WESTERN PARODY FILMS

According to a reference book on Western movies, that I read many years ago, the Western has been parodied more than any other film genre. That fact may have changed. The movie listing that accompanied this factoid was a photo from the film of two native American characters eating a submarine sandwich. I wish I knew what the name of that film was, because I would love to see if it was any good.

I have decided to list five of my favorite Western parody films. There are many Western comedies, however, I wanted to look at Western parodies only.

A parody, of course, pokes fun at the cliches that come with the genre. Western parodies have some characteristics all of there own.

1. Anachronism - Since Westerns take place in the 1800, Western parodies tend to stick current words, phrases, references and props into the Western setting.  In Son of Paleface, Bob Hope talks about television, the sound of a toilet flushing comes from a tee pee in Carry On Cowboy, characters in Blazing Saddles mention movie director Cecil B. DeMill, jazz musician Mongo Santamaria, Wide World of Sports, as well as Western actors Richard Dix and Randolph Scott. There is also Nazi's and Hell's Angels mixed in. Zachariah has Joe Walsh and the James Gang playing in the desert and, three years later, Blazing Saddles featured Count Basie and his orchestra performing in the desert. The sidekick in Rustler's Rhapsody's life is saved by a bullet proof vest.
2. The bad guy or unconventional hero wins - The Villain's Cactus Jack and Carry On Cowboy's Rumpo Kid do not get punished at the end. Miss Charming picks Cactus Jack over Handsome Stranger at the end of The Villain. In Rustler's Rhapsody, Colonel Ticonderoga gives up and throws a party for everyone.
3. Gay stereotypes abound - Maybe it has to do with Westerns being considered "manly" and "macho," but Western parodies feature enough gay stereotypes and gay jokes to fill a moving van. Carry On Cowboy and The Villain feature "gay" Indian chiefs, gay dancers fights the outlaws at the end of Blazing Saddles, Rustler's Rhapsody gives us the paradox of people questioning the hero Rex's masculinity due to his flashy attire, while it is obvious that Colonel Ticonderoga is gay (Yes folks, Andy Griffith played a gay guy in a movie). Zachariah and his pal, Matthew, were forerunners of the main characters of Brokeback Mountain. In Son of Paleface, Junior says that he didn't know he was a boy until his was twelve.

1. Blazing Saddles (1974) - "Never Give a Saga an Even Break" was used in the advertising and Mel Brooks created a movie that manages to satirize Western cliches and racism in the same movie. Clevon Little is a railroad worker named Bart, who is to be hanged for hitting a supervisor (Slim Pickens) over the head with a shovel. The evil railroad company boss, Heddly Lamar (Harvey Korman), talk the governor (Mel Brooks) into replace the sheriff of Rockridge, that his henchmen murdered, with Bart in order to drive the resilient residents out of town, so the railroad can go through. After a not to warm reception, Bart teams up with an alcoholic gunfighter, Jim the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), to save Rockridge from the railroad company. At the end of the film, the fight between the citizens of Rockridge and Larmar's outlaws spills off of the Western town set onto the set of a Bubsy Berkly-type musical, where the outlaws clash with the dancers. Bart has a gun fight with Lamar outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. The film ends with Bart and Jim riding off into the sunset in a limo.
The film is filled with great gags from Bart and his fellow railroad workers singing a Doo-Wop version of Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" to Yiddish speaking Indian Chief (also Mel Brooks) to cowboys passing gas while eating beans around a campfire to a Gabby Hayes clone (Charles Starret) that nobody can understand. The film is also notorious for its use of the "N word," which shocked people in 1974 and is even more disturbing in these more politically correct times, yet its use, along with much of the humor, is a sharp poke in the eye at racism.

2. Son of Paleface (1952) - This is one of the first of two Republic Studios Western inspired parodies on this list. It is a sequel to the highly successful Bob Hope Western comedy film The Paleface. Unlike its predecessor, Son of Paleface pokes fun at Republic Studios Westerns that were still popular in theaters in 1952 and quickly becoming a mainstay of the new medium television. A gang of outlaws, lead by a masked villain called the Torch, is stealing gold shipments around the town of Sawbuck Pass. A federal agent named Roy (Roy Rogers) is sent to investigate the robberies, disguised as a singing cowboy. At the same time, Junior Potter (Hope) arrives in Sawbuck Pass to collect his inheritance. Both Potter and Rogers meet a sexy saloon owner named Mike (Jane Russell), not realizing that she is really the Torch. To complicate matters, the Indians want to kill Junior because his father, Paleface Potter (Hope's character in the previous film), was an Indian fighter that killed a great number of their tribe.
Many people say Son of Paleface is one of the few sequels that is better than the original. The film pokes fun at many of the traits that were exclusive to Republic Studios Westerns such as death deifying stunts, outlandish plots, masked villains, musical numbers (the big hit, Buttons and Bows, from the first film returns) and Republic's two biggest stars, Roy Rogers and Trigger. Not only is Rogers great at playing a parody of himself, but Trigger has a flare for comedy as well. Hope was at the top of his game at this point in his career, playing Junior as a nerdy wanna-be hero.

3. Rustler's Rhapsody (1985) - If Son of Paleface pokes fun at Roy Rogers, then Rustler's Rhapsody nails Republic's first major star, Gene Autry. It especially takes aim at his Cowboy Code that was followed by the other Republic cowboys (The Lone Ranger had a similar code too) and how movies changed (and society) from the heyday of Republic Studios in the 30s and 40s. Tom Berenger plays Rex O'Herlihan, a fancy dressed cowboy in a white hat arrives in the town of Oakwood Estates. He meets Peter the town drunk (G.W. Bailey), who is surprised when Rex tells him that "all Western towns are the same" and he knows how the story will end because he "can see the future." Rex has a brief gun battle with the henchmen of a rancher name Colonel Ticonderoga (Andy Griffith). The leader of the gang is shot in the back by his own men, who then tell Ticonderoga that Rex did it. Colonel Ticonderoga teams up with the owner of the railroad (Fernando Rey) and his "Spaghetti Western" henchmen to try and stop Rex. When that fails, Ticonderoga hires "Wrangler" Bob Barber (Patrick Wayne), a cowboy/lawyer, who dresses just like Rex. He begins questions Rex's adherence to the Cowboy Code and his sexuality in an attempt to discredit him as a Western Hero.
The basic theme of Rustler's Rhapsody could be "We can't go back to the good old days." It almost seems like it could be a clever retort to the Statler Brothers song "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" In the real world and real Old West, the cookie cutter, happy ending world of the B-Western wouldn't exist, where as the dirty and violent Spaghetti Western world was probably closer to the truth. I should also mention two other great characters, the saloon owner/prostitute "with a heart of gold," who only talks dirty to men (Marilu Henner) and Colonel Ticonderoga's "sweet and innocent" daughter (Sela Ward), who can strip to her bloomers at the drop of a Stetson hat.

4. The Villain (1979) - The beautiful Charming Jones (Ann Margaret) collects her inheritance with help from a bodyguard named Handsome Stranger (Arnold Schwarzenneger), but the lawyer (Jack Elam) hires a black-leather clad outlaw known as Cactus Jack (Kirk Douglas) to steal the money back. The thing is Cactus Jack isn't very good at robbing stage coaches. The stagecoach has to pass through the territory of Chief Nervous Elk (Paul Lynde) and his klutzy Indian warriors.
Let's not beat around the tumbleweed here, The Villain (known overseas as Cactus Jack) is a cross between Tom & Jerry and the Road Runner cartoons using real people disguised as a Western parody. Kirk Douglas is a human equivalent of Wile E. Coyote slamming into rock bluffs and pulling boulders on top of himself. However, one of my favorite moments in the film is when Handsome Stranger (Schwarzenneger) has a conversation with a telegraph agent (Mel Tillis).

5. Carry On Cowboy (1965) - Prudish, teetotaler Judge Burke (Kenneth Williams - sort of the British equivalent to Paul Lynde) is the mayor of family friendly Stodge City. Outlaw Johnny Finger, known as the Rumpo Kid (Sid James) comes into town and turns Stodge City into a base of operations for his gang of cattle rustlers. After Finger kills the elderly Sheriff Earp (Jon Pertwee - the 3rd Dr. Who), Judge Burke sends a telegram to Washington, D.C. for marshal. Washington sends Stodge City an klutzy, young, Englishman Marshall P. Nutt (Jim Dale), a sanitation expert. who walked into the wrong room. Finger tries everything to kill Marshall including bringing in Chief Big Heap (Charles Hawtrey) on his Indians.
The Carry On films switched from comedies based on occupations to movie parodies in the mid 60s. This is one of the best of the parodies. Besides taking pot shots at the familiar Western cliches, this film is filled with double entendres and bad puns that were a mainstay of the Carry On films. Favorite gag in the movie is when Rumpo Kid arrives in Stodge City, a group of men walk up behind him. He quickly turns around and guns them down. He then says, "I wonder what they wanted?"

Honorable mention: Zachariah (1971) - I'm giving Zachariah an honorable mention because it is overlooked and could have been something great. It started off as a Western parody version of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha written by Firesign Theater, complete with a used buggy salesman (Dick Van Patten), an outlaw rock band (Country Joe and the Fish) and a madam who has slept with both Marshal Dillon and Marshall McLuhan. In the middle of the film, it turns into a serious story about two men who were lovers turning against one another. Firesign Theater disowned the movie, claiming they wrote a Western parody film "that never got made." Rumor has it MGM took the movie away from them and rewrote it. The movie became popular on VHS in the 80s when the film's stars John Rubenstein and Don Johnson were staring in popular TV detective shows (Rubenstein was on Crazy Like a Fox and Johnson was on Miami Vice). The opening sequence with the James Gang playing "Laguna Salada" in the desert is great, as is the prog rock band New York Rock and Roll Ensemble playing their song "Grave Digger."  For a great in-depth review of the film, check out this post on a site called Jim's Reviews.