Episode 732 - Meet the Parodians
Mar 24, 2025
Parody and satire are a certain kind of humour. They're VERY easy to do because you just base them off real, already existing things, then you twist it a bit to add humour and make it ridiculous. But that's where it gets tricky! Satire is a parody of a real situation rather than fictional, it tends to have a harder edge. Where it usually goes wrong is that people mistake it for something straight, i.e. NOT satire, not comedy, not exaggeration or ridicule. The two main approaches to parody are a broad satire of a genre, like Princess Bride on fairytale fantasy, or a more targeted approach like Spaceballs which satirised Star Wars, and things in between like Airplane, which made fun of the film Zero Hour but also used it as a chance to parody the disaster movie genre and include a shotgun approach to pop-cultural jokes, making fun of everything happening in the 1970s.
Topics and Show Notes
When I was growing up Mad Magazine movie parody comics were always a fave of mine, I'd prefer them to the actual movies they made fun off. The art was amazing with great caricatures and the humour was always very cheeky. Asterix was another comic series I enjoyed, which involved a lot of historical satirical humour. One big issue with that kind of targeted humour though is that it's often very dependent on its references for the jokes to fully work, so if you lack familiarity with them it won't bite as hard or sometimes not at all. The trick is to include enough of the context for context dependant jokes so that they can work regardless. If you do your job well enough people will not even remember the original and your satire or parody will completely stand on its own!
In our Quackcast we even covered things that become self parodies like the Deadpool Marvel Movies, some of the Roger More James Bond films, the late horror franchise films like Nightmare on Elm street, Friday the 13th and so on. What are some of your fave parodies or satires?
I think Princess Bride, the Life of Brian, Blazing Saddles, and Spaceballs are real standouts. But things like Lego Batman, Not Another Teen Movie, and even The Toxic Avenger have their own place. On that last one: Lloyd Kaufman is like a B-movie parody version of Mel Brooks, Mel does the A-list parodies and satires and Lloyd handles the crazier, gross and kinky low budget ones Mel wouldn't touch LOL!
Of course Meet The Spartans is the best parody ever, so much better than The 300.
This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Occult by lux - A heavy, heavy, distorted, fuzzy, rocking, and yet magical take on the Arabian Nights, with the brutally metal revere of chaos, and beautiful oriental groove!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Excavator - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/18/featured-comic-excavator/
Featured music:
Occult by lux - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Occult_by_lux/ - by Lux_occult, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 695 - Pop Culture
Jul 7, 2024
Pop Culture, and the way it's always changing… We fall in love with pop culture but it's constantly changing and new pop culture is always being created, which means that as time goes on less and less people will care about the same pop culture as you. And what you were into will become niche and obscure, even though at the time you fell in love with it, it was massively mainstream and all over the place! There are exceptions to this with things that are SUPER popular like Star Wars, DC and Marvel comic characters, Star Trek, and Doctor Who, who's new versions facilitate a life support for the old stuff or sometimes even a revival of it, but they also have an issue where they try and replace their classic stuff with the newer versions.
Episode 687 - ...a very special episode
May 13, 2024
This isn't really a special episode! It's a Quackcast about them. Not PSA episodes though. Our topic was inspired by those weird special non-sequitur episodes in anime and manga like the famous bikini episode where all the characters head off to the beach, water park, hot springs or something and get into their bathing suits. It doesn't usually forward the story too much, if at all, but it's a chance to have fun with the characters, outline and explore any underlying love themes, and show off skin.
Episode 686 - May the fourth be with you
May 5, 2024
We recorded the Quackcast on the 4th of May, which of course means that it was “May the fourth”, the Star Wars celebration date! So we decided to talk about Star Wars, but instead of our usual rants about what we think could be done better we kept it to mainly positive stuff, focussing on what we loved about the films, mainly original series, which are the best ones.
Episode 685 - mantle
Apr 29, 2024
“Passing the mantle” is an interesting phrase. Many claim it comes from a biblical origin; the prophet Elijah was said to have passed his mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven, thereby symbolically transferring his authority… but honestly that seems a little silly and elaborate of an origin story, the sort of thing bad bible scholars in America loved to come up with in the 19th century. Mantles of office were commonly worn by kings, statesmen and even lord mayors today and the passing of those symbolises them gaining office and authority. It's a very ordinary, commonplace secular tradition.
Episode 673 - By their deeds you shall know them
Feb 5, 2024
Here we're fulfilling the promise of Quackcast 671 and examining what the art can tell us about the artist! Can certain themes, an art style, choice of imagery, jokes, humour, character opinions, colour choices or anything else tell us anything about the artist?
Episode 667 - Interview with John Celestri and Merry Christmas!
Dec 24, 2023
Merry Christmas! Today we interviewed John Celestri, a new member of DD and a very cool person. John has worked as an animator on some of the coolest shows in the 70s and 80s. He was the guy behind Boba Fet on the Star Wars Christmas special, he animated She-Ra, He-Man, Rock and Rule, the video game Dragon's Lair and more! He's a true legend.
Episode 656 - Character Growth 2, Indiana Jones
Oct 8, 2023
This Quackcast is a sequel to our Quackcast last week on alternative character growth, but instead of Star Wars this time we decided on Indiana Jones. It's a really interesting creative writing exercise, we think up a better, more interesting way of of growing and continuing an established character and their adventures.
