MovieChat Forums > Documentary Now! (2015) Discussion > Spoof Ideas for Next Season

Spoof Ideas for Next Season

posted 8 years ago by milesu330
26 replies | jump to latest

Loved the first season, the only one I didn't love was the Capone episode, but I guess it just fell a little flat for me because it was less ridiculous. If it didn't have recognizable actors and the bit with the condoms I think I probably wouldn't have even noticed if someone told me it was true.

The one thing I'm hoping for next season is that they continue their theme of spoofing real documentaries. Making a Murderer was big recently obviously but that would probably seem really similar to the Thin Blue Line/Eye doesn't lie episode.

Other Docs I think could work:
-Finders Keepers just came out this past year, that's already a crazy story. Could work well for them.
-Dear Zachary is a real nail-biter though I have no idea how they could make that subject matter not depressing without changing the story a lot.
-Something along the lines of An Inconvenient Truth or a Michael Moore piece. Armisen is rather adept on Portlandia at making traditionally liberal things funny.
-Super Size Me? I know people have their problems with Spurlock and a lot of it is suspect. But I think it'd be great to see them do something like this.
-I'd Also like to see them continue with a new fake band to end every season. The 90's Grunge scene would be an era I'd love to see them poke fun at.

[–] Lapis_Lazuli_Blue 8 years ago

I would like to see them spoof Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A Leucter, Jr. I think Fred Armisen would be perfect as Leucter.

Maybe Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Granted, it would be hard to top this short film's absurdity, but I really want to see Bill Hader as Zebra Man.

[–] vogelkl 8 years ago

I think an exit through the giftshop parody would be great, and maybe zboys lords of dogtown kind of thing, and I also thought of dear zachary off the bat since it's soooo stylized but yeah I don't know how you would make that without being tasteless.

[–] framptonhollis 8 years ago

"Salesman would be pretty cool, as well as "Gates of Heaven" or "Vernon, Florida".

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

-Dear Zachary is a real nail-biter though I have no idea how they could make that subject matter not depressing without changing the story a lot.

Ooooooohhhh....as much as I think that in comedy almost anything is up for grabs, this one might be a little sacrilegious to attempt.

But I agree that Fred Armisen is well prepared to take on documentaries as a liberal spoof. Michael Moore has so many docs, but it seems like "Roger and Me" would be the best / easiest to derive an alternate take on.

Some other favorites ripe for spoofing:

"Hoop Dreams"
"Grizzly Man" - I mean, come on, Werner Herzog should have been an obvious target in S1.
The "Up" series - every seven years, a new installment? Potential for comic gold there.
"Gimme Shelter"
"Olympiad / Triumph of the Will" -- the pomp, grandeur and gorgeous cinematography of Leni Riefenstahl
"Capturing the Friedmans"
Anything Ken Burns
"Stop Making Sense"
"Don't Look Back"
"Spellbound"
"Exit Through the Gift Shop"
"Catfish"
"Anvil: The Story of Anvil"
"Man on Wire"
"The War Room"

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] framptonhollis 8 years ago

"Triumph of the Will" would be pretty hard to pull off, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" is already pretty comedic, but "Hoop Dreams", the films of Ken Burns and Werner Herzog, "Anvil", and "Catfish" are all really good ideas.

[–] BrundleFly (44) 5 years ago

American movie spoofed with Mark Borchardt played with a psychopathic serial killer vibe.
And First cousin once removed could probably be hilarious with the right twists in the plotline.

[–] catjoescreed 8 years ago

The Onion Field
Fast, Loose, and Out of Control
In Cold Blood

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

"The Onion Field" and "In Cold Blood" aren't documentaries.

"Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" would be good, though, if they revisit documentaries by the same filmmaker. (Errol Morris.)

[–] catjoescreed 8 years ago

Sorry. Ring of Truth: the Onion Field.
In Cold Blood is considered a documentary hybrid.

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

In Cold Blood is considered a documentary hybrid.

Can't be. As vague as the "documentary hybrid" category is, the films are, at their most basic, documentaries with fiction elements added to them, i.e. recreated scenes, etc.

"In Cold Blood" isn't that at all. It's a straight up narrative, scripted film based on a book that isn't nearly as accurate as it portends to be.

[–] catjoescreed 8 years ago

Can't be.

Ha ha. Well, but it is though. And it's imminently spoofable.

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

Ha ha. Well, but it is though. And it's imminently spoofable.

It may very well be spoofable, but just out of curiosity--where are you getting the "documentary" aspect of "In Cold Blood" from? It has zero documentary elements at all. In the same respect "Everest" isn't a documentary-hybrid, either.

[–] cookiela2001 8 years ago

In Cold Blood

SOME kind of Capote takeoff...though neither star's quite pudgy enough to play him : )

Capote's life was filled with such pathetic comedy, already. I think it was Lee Radziwill who said, "His voice was so high only dogs could hear it" (!!)

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Beyond that, what about the excruciatingly precocious My Kid Could Paint That (2007) ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Kid_Could_Paint_That

Or the insultingly, almost ineptly, fraudulent Catfish (2010) ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)

[–] catjoescreed 8 years ago

In Search of Ancient Astronauts

Anything by Michael Wood, a British historian sometimes called "the thinking woman's crumpet." He's a bit of a Gilderoy Lockhart,and would make for a lovely sendup.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] catjoescreed 8 years ago

Meanwhile, my two absolute favorite documentaries, Trekkies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120370/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 and Tribute http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297439/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5 are so wild they're practically spoofs already.

I also think that new Netflix abomination Making a Murderer is ripe for a sendup. It's so obviously slanted to a particular point of view -- there's no objective journalism there.

[–] cookiela2001 8 years ago

I'd love it if they could expand the series to include something like the goddess-awful Forensic Files.
.

[–] Lott444 8 years ago

I'm up for everything but I would LOVE to see more from Dronez.

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Message approved by Dr. Leo Spaceman and the Ho Chi Minh School of Medicine.

[–] Scott-101 8 years ago

I'm not a documentary person, the only stuff I know is Exit through the Gift Shop, Inconvenient Truth, General Tso's Chicken, Wordplay, Supersize Me, Spike Lee's stuff, Werner Herzog, and Michael Moore. I was vaguely aware of the origin for the Kanuck documentary.
So I'd like to say the more popular the documentary, the cooler it would be.

I disagree about the fake band, I think that Fred Armisen is too hyper-tuned into the social norms of the concert world, so what's funny in his head isn't that funny to the rest of the world. His humor is very esoteric and I already felt like the Test Pattern episode was derivative of the Blue Jeans Committee.

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