Definition Of Parody

Style Invitational Week 929: Just sit right back and write a TV theme song

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug . Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders get a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail entries to losers @ washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Aug. 1; results published Aug. 21 (Aug. 19 online). Include “Week 929” in your e-mail subject line, or it may be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational . The revised title for next week’s results is by Chris Doyle; this week’s honorable-mentions subhead was submitted by both Kevin Dopart and Judy Blanchard.

Report from Week 925: A remeaning task,

in which we asked you to come up with a new definition for an actual word beginning with I through O. We had at least 300 good entries from among the more than 2,500 submitted; believe us, you don’t want to read 300 entries, but the Empress did let the list of honorable mentions run on longer than usual online. (We’ll also run a few more next week.) Some of the entries below require you to pronounce the word differently from the original.

The winner of the Inker:

Knothole: Someone who isn’t a jerk. (Jamie Pazur, St. Simons Island, Ga., a First Offender)

2. Winner of the cowboy boot mugs and the glass boot filled with drink mixer: Linguine : A person who insists on correcting someone’s grammar or pronunciation when others are present. (Theresa Kowal, Silver Spring, Md.)

3. Ignorant (n.): A typical blog post. (Kevin Dopart, Washington; Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

4. Megawatt: A state of total bewilderment or disbelief. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.)

Meaning-less: Honorable mentions

Lassitude: “Timmy can get himself out of the #*@!@ well. I have better things to do.” (Steve Langer, Chevy Chase; Laurie Brink, Cleveland, Mo.)

Incantation: Singing on the toilet.

Objects of the class “Foghorn Leghorn” « Statistical Modeling ...

The other day I saw some kids trying to tell knock-knock jokes, The only one they really knew was the one that goes: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana? Banana who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana? Banana who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

Now that’s a fine knock-knock joke, among the best of its kind, but what interests me here is that it’s clearly not a basic k-k; rather, it’s an inspired parody of the form. For this to be the most famous knock-knock joke–in some circles, the only knock-knock joke–seems somehow wrong to me. It would be as if everybody were familiar with Duchamp’s Mona-Lisa-with-a-moustache while never having heard of Leonardo’s original.

Here’s another example: Spinal Tap, which lots of people have heard of without being familiar with the hair-metal acts that inspired it.

The poems in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are far far more famous now than the objects of their parody.

I call this the Foghorn Leghorn category, after the Warner Brothers cartoon rooster (“I say, son . . . that’s a joke, son”) who apparently was based on a famous radio character named Senator Claghorn. Claghorn has long been forgotten, but, thanks to reruns, we all know about that silly rooster.

And I think “Back in the USSR” is much better known than the original “Back in the USA.”

Here’s my definition: a parody that is more famous than the original.

Some previous cultural concepts

Objects of the class “Whoopi Goldberg”

Objects of the class “Weekend at Bernie’s”

A classic member of the class would be Cervantes' Don Quixote.

I wonder if the entire younger generation isn't fast becoming the Foghorn Leghorn generation. I hate to be all snobbish and curmudgeonly about it, but in an era where satire is idolized while cultural literacy is denigrated, the natural result would be that the newcomers can appreciate the current while remaining unaware of its antecedents, just like your kids with the knock-knock joke.

I'm sure the young folk who laugh at the Onion and the Daily Show are aware that something is being ridiculed, but do they really perceive it as parody in the same way that we do? I'm not so sure. I don't think it would have remained popular as long as it does only as parody. It is a phenomenon unto itself now.

A theory of parody, the teachings of twentieth-century art forms

Parody, ancient, modern, and post-modern

Kinds of parody from the medieval to the postmodern

Metamorphosis of language in Apuleius, a study of allusion in the novel

Nietzschean parody, an introduction to reading Nietzsche