Darkseid: To earn a living by making songwriters look like fools! Diabolical!
Cyborg: I don't know, I think it’s all in good fun.
Darkseid: What's fun about undercutting musicians by subverting their words and compromising their artistic integrity?!
Cyborg: I don't know, I think it’s all in good fun.
Darkseid: What's fun about undercutting musicians by subverting their words and compromising their artistic integrity?!
A song parody is a a specific form of parody that involves taking an existing song, keeping the beat and background the same, then rewriting the lyrics (or possibly adding lyrics to a song that originally had none). Sometimes the new lyrics are similar to the original, sometimes they bear little resemblance. The United States Supreme Court case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music established song parodies as Fair Use, even when used for profit. Thus, one does not technically need to get permission from the original artist to make a parody, though some (such as "Weird Al" Yankovic) make it a point to get permission for any parodies.note
In a non-audio medium such as a comic, making a song parody can be a good way to let readers know how a song is supposed to actually sound, by giving them a beat and tune to keep in mind as they read the lyrics.
Often times, song parodies are sung To the Tune of… the piece they're spoofing, but this isn't a requirement; oftentimes a Suspiciously Similar Song substitute is used instead.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Raid Insecticide Campaign: A series of Argentine ads feature bugs gloating about what they're doing in the house to the tune of popular songs in the country at that time. However, the songs had "Raid" as their very last word, causing the singer's fellow bugs to scream it in terror before dying in an explosion as expected of such ads.
- This ad
for Raid Moscas y Zancudos has a feather-boa-wearing female fly singing a parody of the opening song for Yo soy Betty, la fea, "Se Dice de Mí", by Yolanda Rayo.
- This ad for Raid Exterminador has a female cockroach singing a parody of "La Morocha" by Libertad Lamarque.
- This ad for Mata Moscas y Mosquitos Acción Instantánea features a hat-wearing male mosquito singing a parody of "Cambalache" by Julio Sosa.
- This ad for Mata Polillas y Larvas features a male bowtie-wearing, drunk clothes moth sings a parody of "Esta noche me emborracho" by Carlos Gardel.
- This ad
- This old Salvadorean ad for Zentel features a creepy singing-worm family singing a parody of an old song named "Pican Pican los Mosquitos".
Comic Strips
- One Calvin and Hobbes strip has Calvin sing a tiger themed parody of "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?", interrupting Hobbes' nap.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Wedding Reception", first Mittens and later Bolt and Rhino add humorous lyrics when singing the melody to Richard Wagner's bridal chorus from Lohengrin.
- Steven Universe: Alternate Future:
- Chapter 16, "Enemy of my Enemy", has a Villain Song sung by Black Rutile and the Rutile Rebels that's a parody of "Snuff Out the Light", a cut song for Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove.
- Chapter 22, "Pumpkin Patch", has Peridot sing a eulogy song to Pumpkin that's a parody of Frank Sinatra's "My Funny Valentine" and Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World".
- Total Drama: Battle of the Generations: As noted by the author, all of the songs in the story are parodies of existing ones.
- The song in Antarctica references "Let It Go", from Frozen.
- Both the lyrics and the visuals described in the Kyoto song are a parody of the opening to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Total Drama Stranded: Of sorts, to romance Desdemona, Elijah sings Rihanna's "Diamonds", changing the line "Shine bright like a diamond" to "She's bright like a diamond."
- Total Highschool Drama: There are several songs in the series that are based off of existing songs. For example, in chapter 23, Noah is required to name the most populated cities in each state in the United States in both question and song form. What he sings is a nod to A Codette World Tour, which helped inspire this fanfiction; in that story, Cody sang this song for the same challenge that the challenge in this chapter is based off of.
Films — Animated
- In the late 90s and early 2000s Crown Theaters had a policy trailer which parodied The Spinners' "Working My Way Back to You" with the lyrics "I keep working my way back to you, Crown!"
Literature
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland parodies numerous poems, as well as a few songs:
- The Hatter's "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" is, very transparently, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".
- "The Lobster Quadrille" is a spoof of Mary Howitt's poem "The Spider and the Fly", which Lewis Carroll knew in song form. Carroll liked the melody of the song a lot, and specifically asked the composer of a stage version of Alice to use the old melody rather than trying to write a new one.
- Victorian readers would have caught immediately that the Mock Turtle's Torch Song "Beautiful Soup" can be sung to the tune of a pop mega-hit of the day, "Beautiful Star".
- Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs and its sequels parody public domain children's songs with humorous lyrics often relating to an average child's life. The title song of the first book is a parody of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game".
Live-Action TV
- Stargate SG-1's creators made a version of the opening theme with lyrics.
- Die on Your Feet: Sophie, J.J. and Brian end up doing this with the lyrics to Volton the Electric Boy.
'Volton, takes it up the jacksie! Volton, waiting for the taxi!'
- That Mitchell and Webb Look mentioned the existence of a secret Snooker-based parody of "Lady in Red" in one sketch about two Snooker tournament radio commentators. In a follow-up sketch later in the episode, the two commentators actually sing a portion of the song, "Table of Reds", in dedication to a manic-depressive Snooker player whom the commentators had both saved from committing suicide at one time or another. See the full sketch here.
- The first season Christmas Episode of Scrubs gives us this cheerfully morbid parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which plays over a montage of Turk's spirit breaking over the course of a terrible Christmas Eve spent on-call:
On the first day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
A drunk who drove into a tree
On the second day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Two shattered skulls
And a drunk who drove into a tree....
Twelve beaten children
Eleven drive-by shootings
Ten frozen homeless
Nine amputations
Eight burn victims
Seven strangled shoppers
Six random knifings
Five suicides
Four beaten wives
Three O.D.'s
Two shattered skulls
And a drunk who drove into a tree! - Bill Nye the Science Guy ended most episodes with parodies of popular music videos; although some were style parodies or completely original tunes.
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has the host get Right Said Fred to do a parody of their song "I'm So Sexy" reworked to insult Bashar al-Assad because Assad downloaded their music.
- Saturday Night Live
- SNL often uses Suspiciously Similar Songs or In the Style of to parody music, but there are times when they use this trope, such as "Walking In Staten", an affectionate jab about Staten Island to the tune of "Walking In Memphis".
- When Lucy Lawless hosted SNL, she played Stevie Nicks in the "Stevie Nicks' Fajita Roundup" sketch, singing some of Nicks' most iconic songs with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist with Tex-Mex-themed lyrics.
Stevie: (sings to the tune of "Rhiannon") Chicken fajitas taste real fine / Wouldn't you love to eat them? / My chips and salsa are mighty fine / No one round here can beat 'em.
- A common feature in Spitting Image. Perhaps the most (in)famous example would be "Every Bomb You Make", a parody of "Every Breath You Take" from The Police, sung by the actual Sting in exchange of getting copies of every episode of the first series.
- Kidsongs had "The Circus is Coming to Town" in the video "A Day at the Circus", sung to the tune of "The Army Song".
- That Was the Week That Was: Although many of the satirical songs on the programme were original, others were set to existing tunes. For example, a song about an outbreak of typhoid at the Swiss ski resort of Zermatt and the resulting local coverup in 1963 was set to the tune of the children's song "Oh dear, what can the matter be?"
Kenneth Cope, Lance Percival: (singing) Oh dear, what can the matter be / We've got typhoid down in our lavatory / We won't tell the tourists 'til Saturday / Have it denied by the Mayor!
Mayor (Willie Rushton): (singing) As Mayor of Zermatt don't accuse me of lying / Though hundreds have caught it and dozens are dying / As long as a few are still ski-ing and buying / I promise it's only a scare!
All three: (singing) Oh dear, look at the Matterhorn / Practically nobody's there!
Magazines
- MAD sometimes does this, with a Note from Ed. mentioning the tune to which the lyrics are set.
- Periodically, Private Eye would publish a "free gift" 45rpm record, containing sound parody of current events and topical news stories, voiced by Britain's foremost impressionist comedians. These always included a topical parody song based on a current chart hit. note
Music
- In music theory, the proper term for this phenomenon is "contrafactum", literally meaning "to counterfeit". Its usage dates back to the middle ages where lazy church composers would set hymns and masses to popular secular melodies, often fudging some bits to make it seem distinct enough. This is a case of Tropes Are Tools: before the 11th century, music notation was quite bad, and sight-reading vocal music without having heard it before was virtually impossible. By using popular tunes, a choirmaster wouldn't have to waste time teaching melodies to their choirs, and melodies could be standardized across regions where the songs they were based on were popular.
- The song "Dixie", which venerated the southern United States was first popularized around 1860. After the Civil War broke out about a year later, it didn't take very long for parodies of the song from either the north or south taking potshots at the other side to start becoming popular.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic has based his career on this trope, making him the Trope Codifier.
- Bob Rivers is particularly well known for his parodies of Christmas Songs.
- For nearly four decades, the Barron Knights were Britain's answer to Weird Al, regularly releasing parodies of current chart hits and coming out with spookily accurate note-for-note musical pastiche - albeit with different lyrics. note
- Many filk songs are parodies of other songs.
- Liam Lynch's album Fake Songs: There's the "Fake Björk Song", the "Fake David Bowie Song", etc.
- Cledus T. Judd is also a career parodist, focusing mainly on Country Music.
- Before him, the country music parody field was dominated by Pinkard and Bowden, who also wrote several (serious) country songs for other artists. Their biggest hit was "Mama She's Lazy", a parody of The Judds' "Mama He's Crazy".
- Sheb Wooley (of "Purple People Eater" and Wilhelm Scream fame) recorded several albums of parodies of then-current country hits in the 1960s and '70s as Ben Colder.
- Going back even earlier, Homer and Jethro made a name for themselves doing these in the '50s and '60s.
- Christian band ApologetiX performs Christian parodies of popular songs.
- Comedy-themed barbershop quartets often have entire repertoires that consist of parodies of popular barbershop songs.
- Allan Sherman is an older example of building a career on parodies.
- Sherman's role model was Mickey Katz (father of Joel Grey, grandfather of Jennifer Grey), who built up a following in the 1940s and '50s doing Jewish-themed parodies of hit songs.
- Stan Freberg did a number of these in the '50s, spoofing such hits of the day as "C'est Si Bon", "Sh-Boom", "The Yellow Rose of Texas", "Rock Island Line", "Heartbreak Hotel", and "The Banana Boat Song".
- Notably, Freberg's unusual angle was that his spoofs usually keep the music and lyrics of the original; the parody is in the way the songs are performed. By the end of a Freberg parody, the spoofed performer's vocal tics, stylistic oddities, and/or general egotism lead to all hell breaking loose in the recording studio.
- Spike Jones is often cited as one of the earliest and most famous musical parodists, with "Der Fuehrer's Face" being his most renown work. Technically, however, his comedic works weren't actually parodies as much as they were atrocities — Spike and his band would keep the original song's lyrics intact, while obliterating the melody with a barrage of gunshots, cow bells, tin cans, slide whistles, and other unconventional instruments. His version of "Cocktails for Two" is a popular example.
- Anthony and Those Other Guys Thormas Time is a Jingle Bells Parody.
- Self primarily do non-comedic originals, but the outtake compilation Feels Like Breakin' Shit included a pair of parody songs: "Titanic" is a Titanic-themed parody of The Pixies' "Gigantic" (which also includes a bit of Weezer's "The World Has Turned And left Me Here"), while "Moronic" is a parody of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" that's a Take That! to the original artist.
- "Puppet Dude" by Foetus is an odd case of a stealth song parody: If you read the lyrics, they're clearly meant to fit the meter and rhyme scheme of "Rocket Man", but the song itself sounds absolutely nothing like it. It's possible JG Thirlwell wanted to do a straight "Rocket Man" parody but couldn't for legal reasons, so rather than making it a Suspiciously Similar Song he just set the lyrics to entirely different-sounding music.
- Garfunkel and Oates parodied their own "I Would Never (Have Sex With You)" as "I Would Never (Dissect An Ewe)", while pretending to be an amateur tribute act called Simon And Hall.
- Early in his career, Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl did parody songs ("Do Ya Think I'm Disco", "Ayatollah", "Another Kid In the Crawl") with his band Teenage Radiation.
- Cee Lo Green parodied his own song, turning "Fuck You" (an song insulting an apparent Gold Digger) into "Thank You" (a song praising firefighters).
- Da Yoopers' catalog includes a few, such as their Signature Song "Rusty Chevrolet" (a parody of "Jingle Bells") and "Grandpa Got Run Over by a Beer Truck (based on "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer").
- Brazilian musician Falcão reworked Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2", putting lyrics based on a children's song about throwing sticks at cats. He only sings it live, as the band denied its publishing - something Falcão comments with "I won't allow them to record my songs either!"
- Right Said Fred did a Smurf-related parody of their own song "I'm Too Sexy" called "I'm Too Smurfy" for The Smurfs 2 soundtrack album.
- French comedic rapper Fatal Bazooka (Michaël Youn) and singer Pascal Obispo parodied the French hit song Confessions nocturnes ("nocturnal confessions") by Diam's and Vitaa. The original song was about a woman suspecting her boyfriend to cheat on her and seeking the help of her best friend ; the parody, Mauvaise foi nocturne ("nocturnal dishonesty") is about a man seeking the help of his best friend after her girlfriend caught him cheating on her. The music video is also a Shot-for-Shot Remake of the original.
- P. Project/Padhayangan Project, a music group in Indonesia, specialized in this, parodying many Western and even local songs (and at least ONE Mandarin song based on Drunken Master). This lasted until they had a re-shuffling and decided to make more original (but still lighthearted and fun) songs under the name 'Project Pop'.
- Record Producer Nelson Larkin arranged a parody of Bill Anderson's "Double S" in 1979 called "Double W", and released it under the name "Whispering Will".
- In 1991, a Kentucky band called the Bandit Brothers put together a parody of "Men" by the Forester Sisters, titled "Women". The parody got distribution through Curb Records and made the lower regions of the charts.
- Dusty Drake's 2008 single "The 12th Man" is a parody of Mark Chesnutt's 2004 single "The Lord Loves the Drinkin' Man" with new lyrics themed around the National Football League's Pittsburgh Steelers (Drake is a Pittsburgh native).
- Submarine Man is an American rapper who makes foot fetish parodies of popular rap songs. For example, "Stinko Foot" is a parody of "Sicko Mode" by Travis Scott.
- Unknown P is an upper-class rapper persona created by British comedian Munya Chawawa specifically for this purpose, producing "posh remixes" of various popular rap tunes.
- Shortly after the COVID-19 Pandemic started, Heavy Metal cover artist Minniva took Amaranthe's "My Amaranthine" and rewrote it to "My Quarantine".
- Eminem has done several affectionate parodies of songs he likes, occasionally in brief passages. He also likes to do parodies of songs by people he is trying to insult.
- Eminem's first diss track to Everlast, "I Remember (Dedication To Whitey Ford)", is a parody of the blues rock that Everlast had switched to making, which is intended to insult him for switching genres. Eminem spells this out during the last verse - "I can sing better than you and I don't fuckin' sing! And probably play guitar better, and I ain't never touched a string.".
- Eminem's "The Watcher" freestyle is a spoof of Dr. Dre's the original "The Watcher" (which Eminem wrote and provided backing vocals for). At the end he switches to the beat of Dre's "Let's Get High" (which Eminem also wrote) and raps a few lines in an imitation of Dre's voice.
- In "Marshall Mathers", Eminem sings a minor-key, obscene version of the first lines from "Summer Girls" by LFO — "New Kids on the Block suck a lot of dick / boy/girl groups make me sick / and I can't wait until I catch all you faggots in public! Imma love it!"
- Eminem starts his verse in "Bitch Please II" by spoofing Snoop Dogg's verse in the original "Bitch Please", in an impression of his voice.
- "Just Lose It" is a parody of 80s Pop Rap, particularly MC Hammer, though it breaks into a spoof of his own "Lose Yourself" at one point.
- "Rhyme Or Reason" is a spoof of "Rolling Stone" by Black Hippy. Particularly note the way that, in "Rolling Stone", the rappers hand over to each other in the middle of a line — Eminem mocks this by switching in mid-line to the voice of Yoda. Even his flow is an overwrought, hyperextended version of the "Rolling Stone" flow. The hook is also a parody of The Zombies's "Time Of The Season" — "Let me take you by the hand to promised lands, and threaten everyone... there's no rhyme, or no reason for nothing!"
- "Rap God" contains a passage which is a spoof of the ringtone rap 'classic' "Lookin' Boy" by Hotstylz.
- "Greatest" is a spoof of Kendrick Lamar's "HUMBLE".
- The infamous "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" takes dead aim at the sentimentality of "Just The Two Of Us" by Will Smith.
- In 1998, Blue Öyster Cult recorded a parody of their 1977 song "Godzilla" entitled "No-Zilla" as a response to their song not making it into Godzilla (1998).
- Nobody (in Britain at least) remembers Melanie Kafka's One-Hit Wonder, "I've got a Brand New Pair of Rollerskates". However, everybody can sing along with The Worzels' rustic parody I've Got A Brand New Combine Harvester, a song which does nothing to dispel prejudices about people from rural England. It didn't help that one football club in The West Country adopted it as the team's anthem.
- Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow" has been parodied several times in Italy by Association Football fans rappers who adapted the lyrics by changing the two colours with their team's colours note .
Podcasts
- Talking Taker: Alex Doriot, one host of this podcast talking about the pro wrestling career of The Undertaker, recorded a song called "Taker Easy", a parody of "Take It Easy" by The Eagles, with lyrics summarizing the Phenom's said career.
Professional Wrestling
- WWE has had multiple song parodies.
- "Hey Mascarita" from the first episode of Shotgun Saturday Night is a parody of the "Macarena".
- During his feud with Test, The Rock sang his own version of "The 12 Days of Christmas", listing what Test would experience in their match at the Vengeance pay per view, overlapping with The Twelve Spoofs of Christmas.
- During a feud with Shawn Michaels in the lead up to Wrestlemania 21, Kurt Angle and Sensational Sherri sang a song called "Sexy Kurt" to the tune of Michaels' entrance theme "Sexy Boy". Michaels interrupted them before they could complete it.
- On the January 14, 2013 edition of Raw, the Rock sang a parody of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" called "Horrible Tonight" about Vickie Guerrero.
- Joe Hendry often sings song parodies to insult his opponents.
Puppet Shows
- Sesame Street has done several of these, such as "Never Say Never" becoming "Measure, Yeah, Measure" or "Call Me Maybe" into "Share It Maybe."
- One episode has Oscar the Grouch sing a parody of the song "YMCA" by The Village People called "Stretch, Wiggle, Yay" while instructing an exercise class consisting of Slimy and various other worms.
- Wimzie's House: The song "Monster Mask" from "Wimzie's Scary Dream" is a parody of "The Monster Mash."
Radio
- New York morning show hosts Scott and Todd on 95.5 PLJ are known for these. Many of them are about making fun of New Jersey, such as "Jersey Girl" (a parody of "Barbie Girl").
- All of the songs in Land of the Lost (1943) (with the exception of the often-omitted Title Theme Tune) are parodies, with notable examples being the Bottle Brigade’s marching music (AKA “Pop Goes The Weasel”) as well as the “Spoon Song” (“Who wants coffee, who wants tea, EI-EI-O”) from “Knives Of The Square Table”.
- In the mid-to-late 1990s, a Minnesota DJ named Gino Ruberto made several song parodies that he would play at his station, KEEY-FM. One of said parodies, "Any Gal of Mine" (a parody of "Any Man of Mine" by Shania Twain) got played on After Midnite with Blair Garner a few times, causing it to chart as high as #56 on Hot Country Songs without any sort of label promotion. (It was credited to "Gino the New Guy".)
- Many of Mitch Benn's songs on The Now Show, especially when the news story he's basing them on is about a musician. For instance, when Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman had a falling out, his take on it was an imagining of what Bat Out of Hell III might be like if it couldn't be called that, called "Budgie Out of Hades". (Although the tune is actually a Suspiciously Similar Song to "Rock'n'Roll Dreams".)
- NPR Quiz Show Ask Me Another had a recurring puzzle format where house musician Jonathan Coulton would take snippets of pop songs and rewrite the lyrics to be trivia clues. Contestants got bonus points if they could guess the original song or artist.
Theatre
- Westeros: An American Musical does this for a decent portion of the Hamilton soundtrack.
Video Games
- Kinect Star Wars, a 2012 motion-control game set in a galaxy far, far away, features a dancing minigame Galactic Dance-off, which has your favorite Star Wars characters dancing to parodies of pop songs. One song is "I'm Han Solo", parodying Jason Derulo's "Ridin' Solo". It is widely considered hilarious, albeit mostly for being infectiously awful.
- In-universe example in Skyrim: the pro-Empire song The Age of Aggression is a rewrite of the pro-Stormcloak song The Age of Oppression, or possibly the other way around - no one knows which one was made first.
- Sockman: "Mr. Sockman" is derived from "Mr. Sandman", popularized by The Chordettes. It features in the game's trailer and serves as the ending song.
Web Original
- In their reading of Curse of the Demon Pony, Again A Fanfic Critic and RegretfullyYours did some song parodies of classic Disney and musical songs to portray the things wrong with the story.
- Besides mondegreens, song parodies constitute much of Am I Right's bread and butter.
- Pen Of Chaos made some, in Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk, mostly by taking old traditional songs like Belle qui tiens ma vie or Scarborough Fair.
- Dreamz call their version of "Liquid Dreams" by O-Town a straight-up Cover Version, but there are Song Parody elements to it: The first verse is identical to that of the original, but after that they start replacing all of the gratuitous references to female celebrities into Shout Outs to popular male and female YouTube vloggers.
- The YouTube channel Founders Sing consists of both original songs and song parodies used to poke fun at political issues, one parody in particular being "We are the Worst" (a spoof of We Are the World that has Donald Trump, Rudy Guliani, Roger Stone and other infamous GOP figures sing about their faults and how their policies have caused problems for the United States).
- FoxTale2614's "GET ACRONIXED" music video is a parody of The Pussycat Dolls' "When I Grow Up" about the Time Twins from Ninjago.
- "Greta Gerwig's Little Women! Greta Gerwig's Little Women! Heroes in a hoop skirt! Girdle power!"
- "Quack If You Wanna", Sqaishey's 500,000 subscriber Milestone Celebration song set in their flagship series Feather Adventures, is a Time Travel Episode spoof of "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King, complete with a Shout-Out to the log-walking scene in the original song.
- Every time Honest Trailers has an episode about a movie that prominently includes either one or several songs (such as movies from the Disney Animated Canon), parodies of those songs are featured in the episode.
- Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure One Cartoonists Dream does this with Disney songs as part of its Fusion Fic nature.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: The Abridged Series has one for Nico Saiba, NICO NICO ★ RIDE FEVER, a parody of LUKA LUKA ★ NIGHT FEVER by the producer samfree, that acts as an insert song for Nico.
- This trope is the entire premise of The Key of Awesome.
- LittleKuriboh has done several song parodies using the cast of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
Bakura: I challenge you, Pharaoh!
The Pharaoh: To a children's card game?
Bakura: No! A Lady Gaga parody song! - Singer and songwriter Luke Metzler did pop culture parodies of popular songs, often with Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., and Marvel Cinematic Universe. He's a got a long line of parodies of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X, including one about the COVID-19 Pandemic.
- Once Buffalo Sabres fan Melody Martin saw someone joking about making a song about draft prospect Rasmus Dahlin to the tune of "Jolene", she rewrote the Dolly Parton tune to do just that. It brought her local attention (as well as in Dahlin's native Sweden), and she has since done other songs on the team — usually critical given how the Sabres usually perform, to the point that when added in a mock trade, Melody commented that she wouldn't be a good fit in a better team because "my brand is singing sad songs about loser hockey" — and the NFL's Bills.
- There are several popular Minecraft-themed parodies of songs:
- "Don't Mine At Night" by BebopVox from the Yogscast is a parody of "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry.
- Fallen Kingdom (CaptainSparklez): The first song, "Fallen Kingdom", is a parody of "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay.
- "Revenge" by CaptainSparklez and TryHardNinja is a parody of "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" by Usher.
- "Don't Mine At Night
- Randy Rainbow makes song parodies that mock Donald Trump, among other politicians.
- YouTube user Sim Dane is well known for doing this trope with Formula One as the over-arching central theme. In particular, he did Race recaps of the 2020 Season to the tune of various popular songs.
- Triple S Games and Sheet Music Boss' "I'm Grand (Master)" is a chess-themed parody of "I'm Good (Blue)" by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha.
- There is an Undertale parody of the Steven Universe song "Stronger Than You" that features Sans narrating his fight with the player character.
- Some of the stories in the Whateley Universe have come with their own song parodies, including "The Power of Cute Compels You!" the first Team Wondercute story, which begins with "Eye of the Cabbit" to the tune of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger".
- After a meme popped up based on a Mondegreen of Shadow the Hedgehog's "I Am All Of Me" being heard as "I Am At Aldi", a fan made a parody of the song, with the lyrics being centred around going shopping at the supermarket chain of Aldi and buying Brand X products at affordable peices.
Webcomics
- Elan parodies "O Danny Boy" In this Order of the Stick comic.
- (x, why?) often does portions of popular songs, then went all out for the 700th entry.
Western Animation
- Many of the songs on Animaniacs were parodies of already existing songs. The episode "H.M.S. Yakko" was made chiefly of parodies of Gilbert and Sullivan songs. Another notable one was "Dot the Macadamia Nut", a parody of "Macarena".
- Disney Channel has a series of videos of characters from animated Disney shows singing parodies of famous songs, appropriately titled "Broken Karaoke".
- The first is for Big City Greens, featuring Tilly Green parodying of "Queen of Mean" from Descendants 3 as "Queen of Nice". Cricket finds this strange when she is asked to "go hard", and the end mentions her talking to a llama.
- The second is a parody of the famous Christmas carol "Deck the Halls", which is led by Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, joined by the various other currently-running shows.
- The third is also for Big City Greens, called "Stuck at Home", which is a parody of "Flesh & Bone" from Zombies 2. It is a PSA about the COVID-19 Pandemic, which shows the Greens stuck at home as well and what they will do to survive through it. This particular installment is notable in being the highest viewed video for the series on YouTube.
- The fourth is for Gravity Falls, featuring Mabel singing a parody of "Call Me Maybe", as "Call Me Mabel". It is the first song sung by someone from a show that has already ended.
- The fifth is also for Big City Greens featuring Cricket Green singing a parody of "Calling All the Monsters" from A.N.T. Farm as "Where Are All the Monsters?". The song is also dedicated to COVID-19 during Halloween, where Cricket sings he and his monster friends can still have fun remotely even though they have to stay home.
- The Family Guy episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" intentionally subverted this with its big musical number "This House is Freakin' Sweet", which is not a direct parody, but an obvious soundalike to "I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here" from Annie (1982). Originally it was supposed to be a parody, but writer David Zuckerman insisted on making it an original composition since he believed it could get them nominated for an Emmy. He proved to be correct.
- In the first Xmas episode of Futurama, we learn that Santa Claus is feared in the 31st century rather than loved, since he's a robotic Bad Santa whose standards for who's been "nice" are so high that he judges everyone to be "naughty" (except Zoidberg) and tries to kill them. At the end of the episode, the main characters sing this alternate version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" about him (which may or may not be the real current version of this song in-universe, but counts from a meta-standpoint):
Amy: He knows when you are sleeping,
Farnsworth: He knows when you're on the can,
Leela: He'll hunt you down and blast your ass from here to Pakistan!
Zoidberg: Oh,
Hermes: You better not breathe, you better not move,
Bender: You're better off dead, I'm telling you, dude,
Fry: Santa Claus is gunning you down!
Everyone: Yayyyyyyy! - Pinky and the Brain: "In Where the Deer and the Mousealopes Play", Brain's propaganda ad to get everyone out of Pittsburgh features a parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land".
Brain: [singing] Pittsburgh is my land.
It isn't your land.
Go find your own land,
‘Cause this is my land.
Please find your way to the nearest exit.
Pittsburgh's for mousealopes only! - The Simpsons:
- "Marge vs. the Monorail" begins with Homer singing a parody of The Flintstones theme song, which abruptly ended when Homer's car "hit a chestnut tree". Later, Lyle Lanley leads the people of Springfield into singing the "Monorail" song, a spoof of "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man, as Lanley is an Expy of Professor Harold Hill.
- "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds" has Mr. Burns sing a song called "See My Vest", which is a parody of "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast and in which Burns expresses his desire of turning animals into clothes.
- "My Fair Laddy" has Groundskeeper Willie singing "Wouldn't It Be Adequate?", a parody of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady.