Raiders of the Lost Parody

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Screenwriters tend to have a certain pool of references they call upon certain genres of movies to come up with an Affectionate Parody: science-fiction (Mainly May the Farce Be with You and Where No Parody Has Gone Before for Star Wars and Star Trek, respectively, as well as Jurassic Park), fantasy (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Dungeons & Dragons), and mystery and spy adventure (particularly James Bond). As commonplace as the aforementioned subgenres of parodies is one that seemingly sprang up to immense popularity among screenwriters since movie titans Steven Spielberg and George Lucas teamed up and created a dream project for New Year's Day 1981. Like Lucas's previous mega-hit, Star Wars, the Indiana Jones franchise has been subjected towards numerous parodies and homages over the years, some of them downright nasty, others that pay a rather touching tribute to the quadrilogy, specifically Raiders of the Lost Ark, the most easily recognizable and famous film of the franchise, and where this trope gets its name. The common elements that a majority of these parodies contain include:

A subtrope of Stock Parodies. Can lead to the Weird Al Effect due to the easily recognizable traits shared with both the film and the numerous parodies.

Examples of Raiders of the Lost Parody include:


Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Film

Live Action TV

  • From Svengoolie: A very short scene from "Indiana Bones and the Last Beer Frame" starring Tombstone; he runs away from a giant bowling ball.
  • From Sesame Street "The Golden Triangle of Destiny"; after 'Minnesota Mel' shows up and tells Telly and Chris about said triangle, Mel gets a 'charley horse', so Telly gets his own costume, calls himself 'Texas Telly' and takes his place.
  • One Imagine Spot by JD in Scrubs shows Turk climbing into a patient's intestines and removing a tumor in a parody of the idol-swap scene.

JD: Watch out for colon darts.

Magazines

  • There was a parody in the National Lampoon magazine that had the hero being a gynecologist instead of an archeologist.

New Media

  • OpenBSD 3.8 was released with a fake radio show based on Indiana Jones called Hackers Of The Lost RAID featuring Puffiana Jones.

Video Games

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Family Guy usually throws in an Indiana Jones parody (or two), but season four’s "The Courtship of Stewie’s Father" takes the cake by dedicating the entire final act towards the final minutes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
  • The Garfield Special Garfield's Feline Fantasties had a scene almost exactly like the famous tileWesternAnimation/: An early episode dedicated the first few minutes of its opening act to the famous introduction of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures had a Raiders parody with Buster as Indy and Montana Max as Toht.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The episode "Read It And Weep" dedicates part of the episode to recounting a book Rainbow Dash just read. Said book is essentially Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with ponies.
    • The star of the book, Daring Do, now has her own entry.
  • From Veggie Tales: the episode "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush"; Larry the Cucumber in a story about bullying.
  • One episode of Regular Show ends with Mordecai forced to choose the correct hat out of a collection of other hats in an obvious homage to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, down to an aged knight watching over the proceedings and the fact that he'll be skeletonized if he chooses poorly.