- 1 day ago
Sometimes the parody becomes bigger than the song it’s mocking. In this countdown, we explore the Top 10 Parody Songs That Are More Popular Than The Original, featuring comedy classics and viral hits that completely stole the spotlight.
From laugh-out-loud lyrics to unforgettable performances, these parody songs proved that humor can sometimes beat the real thing.
🎵 Subscribe to watchmojo.world for more Top 10 music videos, pop-culture lists, and viral countdowns.
From laugh-out-loud lyrics to unforgettable performances, these parody songs proved that humor can sometimes beat the real thing.
🎵 Subscribe to watchmojo.world for more Top 10 music videos, pop-culture lists, and viral countdowns.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Hello, mother. Hello, father.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for music parodies so creative, funny, and well-made, many feel they might outshine the songs being parodied.
00:15Why no pie to a thousand places? Ain't got no grill, but I still wear braces.
00:20Number 10. Inner City Pressure.
00:22Flight of the Conchords.
00:24Pet Shop Boys lamented class division by playing up the very glamour they criticized.
00:30West End Town, a dead end world, for the East End boys and West End girls.
00:36Flight of the Conchords were much more blunt about urban decay and more charming.
00:42Hold everything, everything you own, your toothbrush jar and a camera phone.
00:46Inner City Pressure debuted on the duo's HBO show as a tongue-in-cheek spin on the socially conscious synth-pop anthem, West End Girls.
00:53Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie tackle the mostly mundane hustles of working-class life, with a sly jab at the absurdity of addressing them with synthesizers.
01:04Whether you're mourning or grooving to West End girls, the equally catchy Inner City Pressure may be more accessible in its deconstruction of the system and the way artists deconstruct.
01:16It was sharp enough to get an Emmy nomination to go with Pet Shop Boys' accolades.
01:21Inner City Pressure.
01:28Number 9.
01:29Revenge.
01:30Captain Sparkles and Try Hard Ninja.
01:33Within the cottage industry of songs and parodies involving the beloved video game Minecraft, Captain Sparkles stands out.
01:40And for many of his fans, the try-hard ninja collab Revenge stands out from Usher and Pitbull's DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love.
01:48So we back in the club with our bodies rockin' from sight.
01:52The sexy EDM anthem somehow successfully translates into the tongue-in-cheek saga of Miner's Battle with Thieving Creepers.
02:00Heads up, you hear a sound, turn around and look up.
02:06The subject may be more niche, but Minecrafters fell in love so hard that Revenge briefly overtook the original song's music video in YouTube viewers.
02:16Cause baby tonight, the creepers tryna steal our stuff again.
02:22It wasn't long before the multi-platinum classic got its own revenge against the trendy parody.
02:27Still, nostalgia for DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love could very well be rivaled by that for Captain Sparkles.
02:34Cause baby tonight, grab your pink shovel and bolt again.
02:41Number 8.
02:42Glitter Puke, The Key of Awesome.
02:45The comedic YouTube channel The Key of Awesome became a sensation on spoofs of hip-hop songs.
02:50Their take on Kesha's TikTok is arguably their most enduring skit, or at least their most agreeable.
02:57I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes, trying on all our clothes, clothes.
03:02Andrea Fetzko sings and stars as a party girl who wakes up with a hangover, an intervention and apparently no regrets.
03:09I pull myself off the floor, then I'm almost out the door.
03:13Glitter Puke is a scathing counter to TikTok's controversial glamorization of debauchery.
03:18Oh crap, not again, it's an intervention.
03:22As polarizing as it also was in terms of musical quality, Fetzko's exaggerated vocals and surreal lyrics take the edge off.
03:30The Key of Awesome were the clever highlight of a contemporary trend of lip-syncing to Kesha's undeniably infectious breakout.
03:38In fact, Glitter Puke's uproarious satire has withstood the test of time.
03:43All an act, and in fact it's even in the contract.
03:47Number 7. Elementary School Musical, South Park.
03:51Trey Parker really doesn't mess around with original songs that are as impressive as they are irreverent.
03:57Still, South Park's deconstruction of the popularity and songwriting of Disney's high school musical franchise is a favorite moment among his fans.
04:05There's no explanation for this awesome sensation, but I'm ready to let it fly.
04:10The episode, Elementary School Musical, directly riffs on numbers from the original film, including Stick to the Status Quo and We're All in This Together.
04:20And you know, we're together at school again, with all of our friends.
04:26Parker and company effectively adapt the catchiest pop styles with only minimal embellishment of the nonsensical lyrics and adolescent melodrama.
04:34Cause you gotta do what you wanna do, don't let nothing get in your way.
04:40While most will inevitably outgrow high school musical, that just means South Park's parody gets better with age.
04:47Do what you wanna do, as long as what you wanna do is what everybody wants you to do.
04:54Number 6. Dark Horse, Bart Baker.
04:57After years of experimenting with comedy skits, Bart Baker caught his big break on YouTube with music video parodies in the mid-2010s.
05:06It sounds like he knows more about being a dark horse than pop megastar Katy Perry.
05:11Her 2013 Juicy J collab of the same name, while a major commercial hit, received mixed reviews for its simplistic formula and sleazy lyrics.
05:28The music video faced even more backlash for its tasteless ancient Egyptian and Arabic aesthetic.
05:34Baker's cover not only directly called out all of this, but mocked the very nature of Hollywood pop videos.
05:41Put my makeup back.
05:43If Dark Horse wasn't the zenith of his musical parodies, many would at least consider it more endearingly self-aware than Perry.
05:52Every video I do is, have to stand up above all the rest.
05:58Number 5. Diner Lobster, Saturday Night Live.
06:03Saturday Night Live's long history of casual song parodies delivered a sleeper hit in a 2018 sketch set in a cheap Greek diner.
06:10Did you just order lobster in a diner?
06:13Yeah, why?
06:15Because it's a diner.
06:16It's admittedly hard not to judge someone who orders seafood at that kind of establishment, but not for the love of the lobsters.
06:24Parts change when the crustaceans rise up in their own renditions of three numbers from Claude-Michel Schoenberg's Les Miserables.
06:32Certainly, the classic musical is full of iconic anthems.
06:37Who am I?
06:41But the absurdity of the SNL cast's conscious rewrites won so much fanfare that it began a recurring skit involving other musical theater parodies.
06:49Do you hear the lobster screams, spinning the screams of a strolling face?
06:55Diner Lobster simply stands out as a rival to a revolutionary classic of the stage.
07:01Lobsters, do you know what I'm saying?
07:05Here's the lobster!
07:11Number 4. Royal Jelly, John C. Reilly.
07:15Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story, ingeniously spoofs Johnny Cash, though The Man in Black still outshines the film's soundtrack.
07:23Walk bold, hard, that's my dream.
07:31Royal Jelly, though, nails a less commercial shift for another folk legend.
07:36Bob Dylan's work in the mid-1960s was a polarizing mix of Americana and avant-garde.
07:41Look out, the saints are coming through.
07:47For every track that's now widely recognized as a masterpiece, there are some that get a little too wordy and whimsical.
07:55The albums Bring It All Back Home and Blonde on Blonde are particularly open to parody.
08:00And you can hear that more clearly in Royal Jelly than the lyrics.
08:04Inside the three-eyed monkey, within inches of his toaster oven light.
08:11Such hysterical self-awareness ironically made it one of the biggest songs on the soundtrack.
08:16Even among Dylan enthusiasts who know how perfect John C. Reilly's parody was.
08:23You're a liar!
08:24Number 3.
08:26Basketball Jones featuring Tyrone's shoelaces.
08:29Cheech and Chong.
08:30Stoner comedy pioneers Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong were also leaders in novelty music in the 1970s.
08:36The closing track on the album Los Cochinos is notably so popular that many have forgotten it was a direct parody of a serious hit.
08:45Love Jones!
08:47I love Jones!
08:51Well, serious may be a flattering word for Brighter Side of Darkness's over-the-top, mostly spoken-word soul ballad, Love Jones.
08:59Marin goes full falsetto as young Tyrone's shoelaces expresses that kind of feverish passion to basketball.
09:07Ever since I was a little baby, I always been dribbling.
09:11Building behind him is a choral rock crescendo that frankly puts Love Jones to shame.
09:16Help her out!
09:17Basketball Jones!
09:20I got a basketball Jones!
09:22Oh, that sounds so sweet!
09:24So, too, has the legacy of Basketball Jones.
09:26As a slam dunk in 70s novelty pop, it actually kind of rocks.
09:31Basketball Jones!
09:35Basketball Jones!
09:37Number 2.
09:39White and Nerdy.
09:40Weird Al Yankovic.
09:42Not even.
09:43The undisputed king of parody music can reliably overshadow his inspirations.
09:48Weird Al Yankovic's biggest hit for over 20 years was Eat It, which obviously couldn't compete with Michael Jackson's Beat It.
09:55It doesn't matter if it's oil or pride, just eat it, eat it, just eat it.
10:01Then, he unexpectedly hit a major market when he spoofed Chameleon Air's 2005 gem, Raiden.
10:07They see me rolling, they hating, patrolling and trying to catch me riding, nerdy.
10:15White and Nerdy may not have been seriously comparing one form of prejudice to another, but it resonated enough with nerd culture to go platinum.
10:23Chameleon Air himself loved the spoof so much that he personally thanked Weird Al for promoting Raiden after it won a Grammy.
10:37White and Nerdy may still be much lower on the charts, but pop culture is at least just as conscious of it at this point.
10:44I'm just too wide and nerdy.
10:46Look at me, I'm white and nerdy.
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11:041.
11:05Hello Mudda, Hello Fada.
11:07A Letter From Camp.
11:08Alan Sherman
11:09Some music was considered too sacred to parody until Alan Sherman came along.
11:15It was one thing, for when I was a lad to poke fun at the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera HMS Pinafore.
11:21That suit was a part of a great intrigue, for it proved I was a member of the Ivy League.
11:26But Hello Mudda, Hello Fada, actually, had the nerve to score a child's summer camp blues with the climactic ballet sequence Emponchielis' La Jocanda.
11:39And listeners love it.
11:45Sherman's play on the self-seriousness of opera became its biggest hit, and is even preserved in the National Recording Registry.
11:52I went hiking with Joe Spivey, who developed Poison Ivy.
12:00For better or worse, it's now hard to hear Dance of the Hours without thinking of a letter from camp.
12:07You won't hear anyone complaining about yucking it up to a great parody song's longevity.
12:12Fada, Fada, kindly disregard this latter.
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