Burning Answers #8: Why No Prestige TV Parodies?

Is prestige TV getting a pass, parody-wise?

Last week, Viral Load contributor and resident Biblical scholar Michael Pershan wrote with a question:

“Where are the shows making fun of prestige TV? Prestige TV doesn't seem that hard to make fun of at all. At this point, doesn't it constitute a reasonably well defined type of show—anti-heroes, famous actors in quirkier roles, unnecessary nudity, etc.? Is it just that there's no one around to pull it off, there's no appetite for it, or is the form harder to mock than I think it is?”

Though there are certain tropes (as you mention) the diversity built into the notion of prestige TV makes me think that general mockery would have to be enclosed in a format somehow. Like something backstage, a show-within-the-show, where the larger drama could carry the program, and the nightmarish prestige TV they were all making would be delicious snippets. Something like Garry Shandling.

That structure could encompass a category so large—Deadwood and John in Cincinnati on the one end, The White Lotus and Succession on the other. Why hasn’t there been a show like that? Maybe it’s the profusion of specific spoofs, draining away the oomph?

There certainly are a lot of specific spoofs. For example, there’s this page of Breaking Bad parodies. And this one of Mad Men parodies. And there are Sopranos parodies, of course, Game of Thrones…So individual prestige TV shows are getting mocked, and even getting full parody treatment, because of course they are. The need for content has led to an explosion in every kind of subsidiary work, and the moment something achieves a certain level of saturation, the “parody” button is pushed. And again, and again.

But the only real opinion these spoofs express is: the original is popular. It’s like how they do porn films, like E.T.: The Extra Testicle—just gags, really, simple tonal collision to get your attention. Breaking Bad as a ‘90s ABC sitcom, or an 8-bit video game. Stuff like this can be funny, in a pop-culture-eating-itself kind of way. It is as if you made all the Presidents into Pokemon characters. Any level of detail feels like satire, when it’s simply code-switching.

I call this kind of humor without POV “a joke-like object.” A JLO can make you smile, even laugh, but any discernible point-of-view has been replaced with technique. JLO’s make you feel smart, because you get the references, and comfort you, because they will not change your relationship to the original.

But they’re hollow at their core, which is why I betcha AI can already pump out JLO’s. Even political satire can be a JLO—every Monica Lewinsky joke ever was a JLO, because “she’s slutty” is such a broad, impersonal POV on that complicated reality, it’s practically Patriarchy ventriloquizing you. (At least that’s how I felt when I wrote Monica jokes.)

JLO’s are our era’s mother-in-law jokes, purely vaudeville. They aren’t evil—unless they’re pretending to be better, smarter, more important than they are. The quickest way to spot a JLO is to ask yourself, “Who wrote it, and what are they trying to say to me?” If the answer is something like, “I don’t know, and all lawyers are shysters,” you’ve got a JLO.

If you come up as a comedy writer today, you are trained primarily in JLOs. A joke that sounds like you, that only you could write, or that (God forbid) forces some conclusion or action—this is not the goal of corporate comedy. A celebrity cameo in a sketch is the essence of the JLO.

JLO’s don’t last; they are not supposed to. JLO’s masquerading as parody are also not designed to change how you perceive anything, certainly not the original, which is why they are never sued. They are corporations logrolling each other.

[Ironically, the best people to parody Breaking Bad would’ve been the writers of Breaking Bad, tremendously funny people who were constantly coming up with great parodic material. Keep reading to find out how I know.]

Juxtaposition isn’t the problem here; nor is simplicity. If you want to see how simple juxtaposition can add up to more than a JLO, check out Lord Buckley doing “The Nazz,” Jesus’ life told in hep jazz argot. Buckley’s performance—his voice, his eccentric personality—elevates the piece, adding something unique and durable, a personal POV, something more. But that level of honesty, eccentricity, is rare and getting rarer. I watched a show recently where Jon Stewart, John Mulaney, Chelsea Handler, and Dave Chappelle inducted George Carlin, Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, and Richard Pryor into some hall of fame. Compare the honorees with the inductees, and you’ll see what has happened.

The movement away from (personal, hot) satire and towards (corporate, cool) content is the great untold story of comedy since the ‘70s—with vast, vast cultural effects. I will try to tell it someday.

Speaking of John Mulaney: perhaps you’re really asking, “Why isn’t there a show that parodies prestige TV shows like Documentary NOW! parodies famous documentaries?”

I think one could do that, and I betcha such a program is already in the works somewhere. You could do it as DN! does it, with each week being one complete parody of a different show, or type of show.

Finally, I asked my wife your question. Kate was in the writer’s room of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and Rectify, too. She said, “Those shows were all successful, but on the scale of television, comparatively small numbers of people watched them. I don’t know if there’d be a big enough audience for full-scale parody.”

That sounds right. Maybe that’s all I needed to write in the first place! Thanks for the question, Mike.

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Every so often, The American Bystander’s Editor & Publisher Michael Gerber answers questions from readers just like you. To add your question to the pile, email publisher@americanbystander.org and put “Question” in the subject line.