The following are deliberate self-parodies or are at least sometimes considered to be so.
Literature • In
One Thousand and One Nights, the fictional storyteller
Sheherezade sometimes tells folk tales with similar themes and story lines that can be seen as parodies of each other. For example, "Wardan the Butcher's Adventure With the Lady and the Bear" parallels "The King's Daughter and the Ape", "
Harun al-Rashid and the Two Slave-Girls" has a similar relationship to "Harun al-Rashid and the Three Slave-Girls" - and "The Angel of Death With the Proud King and the Devout Man" has two possible parodies: "The Angel of Death and the Rich King" and "The Angel of Death and the King of the Children of Israel". This observation needs to be tempered by our knowledge of the nature of folk tales, and the way this collection "grew" rather than being deliberately compiled. •
Chaucer's "
Tale of Sir Topas" in
The Canterbury Tales shows "Geoffrey Chaucer" as a timid writer of
doggerel. It has been argued that the tale parodies, among other romances, Chaucer's own
Troilus and Criseyde. • "Nephelidia", a poem by
A. C. Swinburne. • "Municipal", a poem by
Rudyard Kipling. • "L'Art" and "To Hulme (T. E.) and Fitzgerald (A Certain)", poems by
Ezra Pound. • "Afternoon of a Cow", a short story by
William Faulkner. •
Edgar Allan Poe often discussed his own work, sometimes in the form of parody, as in "
How to Write a Blackwood Article" and the short story that follows it, "
A Predicament". •
Pale Fire is a novel by
Vladimir Nabokov in the form of a long, pedantic, self-centered commentary on a much shorter poem. It may parody his commentary on his translation of
Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin, in which the commentary was highly detailed and much longer than the poem. Both the poet and the commentator have been called self-parodies. • The short story "
First Law" by
Isaac Asimov is described by Asimov himself as a "spoof" in
The Complete Robot.
Film and television •
Gekisou Sentai Carranger is the twentieth production of
Toei's long-running
Super Sentai metaseries and
media franchise, and was written as parody of its own franchise. •
Enchanted is a Disney movie which is both a homage to, and self-parody of, previous
animated Disney films featuring princesses. •
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater in the film
Last Action Hero. Slater uses many of Schwarzenegger's action star characterizations including saying one-liners. Schwarzenegger even cameos as himself at the on-screen Slater film premiere. •
Bruce Campbell portrays himself as a B-movie actor who is called to fight a spirit who turns out to be real in
My Name is Bruce. •
Chris Kattan portrays himself as an actor who reinvents his career in
Bollywood Hero. •
James Van Der Beek portrays himself as the title character's friend in the sitcom ''
Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23''. •
Kevin Hart portrays himself as an aspiring action star in the series
Die Hart. •
Maria Bamford portrays herself in the Netflix sitcom
Lady Dynamite. •
Matt LeBlanc plays a satirical version of himself in
Episodes. •
Mike Tyson voices and spoofs himself as a former boxer who becomes a detective in the adult cartoon
Mike Tyson Mysteries. •
Neil Patrick Harris in the
Harold & Kumar series, where he plays "an extreme version of himself who enjoys drugs, female hookers and alcohol etc." •
Nicolas Cage portrays himself in the film
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. •
Richard Dawson as Damon Killian in the film
The Running Man. Dawson parodies his
Family Feud persona as the film's game show host. •
Rob Schneider portrays himself in the self-produced sitcom
Real Rob, which also stars his real-life wife and child. •
Samuel L. Jackson as Agent Neville Flynn in
Snakes on a Plane. • The 1990 film
The Freshman features
Marlon Brando playing a parody of his famous character from
The Godfather. • The later
James Bond films, specifically those with
Roger Moore and
Pierce Brosnan in
the title role, have been called self-parodies. • The
Scary Movie film franchise parodies the popular horror film genre.
Scary Movie V parodies the
Scary Movie franchise itself. • The 2023 film
Barbie, directed by
Greta Gerwig and starring
Margot Robbie, is an extended self-parody of the
Barbie toy franchise. • The penultimate episode of
Avatar: The Last Airbender, "
The Ember Island Players", involves the main characters watching a play of their own journey. The play itself is a self-parody of the entire story of
Avatar: The Last Airbender up to that point.
Video games • In
Nintendo's ''Luigi's Mansion
games, the character Professor E. Gadd presents Luigi with a communication device designed as a parody of a Nintendo portable console, as such the "Game Boy Horror" in the original title, the "Duel Scream" in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and the "Virtual Boo" in Luigi's Mansion 3''. •
Konami's
Parodius games parody their own
Gradius games, as well as several other games they have created. Similar games from other companies that parody their own games include
Hudson Soft's
Star Parodier and
Taito's ''
Space Invaders '95''. ==See also==