Tips for Using Parody in Humor
The nice thing about parody is that it gives you a frame of reference, structure, and a prompt that can get your creative juices flowing.
One dictionary definition of parody says it, “imitates the characteristic style of an author or work for comic effect or ridicule.”
Well, I think you can parody with no intent to ridicule. In fact it can be a form of homage to the original. (See example below.)
Gene Parret, author of Damn that’s Funny, Writing Humor You Can Sell! says “A major feature of parody is that the readers recognize the connections and references.” If they don’t you’ll earn an “I don’t get it” response. And yet, some familiar works have been parodied so often new attempts come over as hack material.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Hey, if you have a brilliant idea for another parody of Dickens’s Christmas Carol, Clem Moore’s, The Night before Christmas, or Joyce Kilmer’s, Trees, go for it– but it had better be damn good.
If topical humor is your forte, there are plenty of great sources for material you can parody: ads, TV shows, news stories, movies, and songs. But why limit yourself? You can draw on great and not so great works of literature–as long as they’re familiar to your audience. Don’t try to parody Shakespeare with the wrong crowd.
Another fertile source is fairy tales. Again, most of them have been parodied countless times, but if your approach is truly unique and funny they will work.
The following piece is an example of a parody with gentle humor and satire that imitates the original with no intent to ridicule it in any way.
Is There an Easter Bunny?
By Jack Rawlins
We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the email below, expressing at the same time our gratification that its faithful author is numbered among our readers:
Dear Mr. Rawlins:
I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Easter Bunny.
Papa says, “If you see it in Mr. Rawlins’ column, it is so.”
Please tell me the truth: Is there an Easter Bunny?
Virginia O’Hare
Virginia, your little friends are full of bunny poop. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. Yet, they are surrounded by un-reality they blindly accept as real.
Yes, Virginia, there is an Easter Bunny. He exists as certainly as greed, competition and economic opportunity. You know that they abound and give to life all the material stuff you “just gotta have,” that give to your life its highest beauty and joy and because all the other kids have it.
Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Easter Bunny. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias, or Sponge Bob Square Pants . There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, and no romance to make tolerable this existence.
Your little friends could park their tiny heinies in the cold damp grass all night to catch the Easter Bunny, but even if they don’t see him, what would that prove? Nobody sees the Easter Bunny. Can you see the music on your iPod? Of course not. But whenever you want it, it’s there to vibrate your little ear drums on their journey to adolescent deafness.
Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and un-seeable in the world: The Internet, cell phones, microwaves, remote controls, Google. Ask your little friends if they are real or if they’ve ever seen any of those mystical things that make them work. And ask them what they know about algorithms, too.
Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, greed and economic incentives can see the big picture. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in this entire world there is nothing else more real and abiding.
No Easter Bunny! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, even long beyond Y4K, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children, shop keepers, fuzzy- toy manufacturers, laying hens, candy makers and Hallmark.
Editor’s Note : Parody is fun and easy. Genius is not. Please Google and enjoy the genesis [sic] of the above: “Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus,” by Francis Pharcellus Church.
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Filed under: Finding Humor, Insights & Opinions, Writing Technique