Discussion Forum

An open letter to the writers at the spoof:

I am a fairly avid Ron Paul supporter. Whenever I search for Ron Paul on Google News, a story from The Spoof shows up. The problem is these stories are never funny. They are not provocative. They don't have a message. It is simply bad writing. It is as if the stories are written only so people like me will happen upon them.

Today's article was called "Ron Paul Dead?". The article was about how Ron Paul might have died at a bakery. There was some nonsensical writing followed by a proclamation that he is not dead. Does anyone find any of this funny ever?

I implore the writers at the Spoof to stop. Please stop writing Ron Paul stories. They get in the way of anything useful I might be able to read about Dr. Paul. Furthermore, it seems like you should simply stop writing the spoof. I have never found a funny article here. Not once. You are wasting your time and embarrassing yourselves.

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Quote: Ethan
Furthermore, it seems like you should simply stop writing the spoof.

I have never found a funny article here.

Not once.

You are wasting your time and embarrassing yourselves.

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If you've never found anything funny on the Spoof then why do you bother to keep reading?

If you really know so much about parody/humor/satire perhaps you should post something of your own that sets the bar in the hilarity stakes.

Otherwise buzz off.

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Quote: Ethan

Today's article was called "Ron Paul Dead?". The article was about how Ron Paul might have died at a bakery. There was some nonsensical writing followed by a proclamation that he is not dead. Does anyone find any of this funny ever?

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I have to admit, that story was quite poor - sorry CB. However, the fact that the top three best rated stories are about Ron Paul leads me to believe there is no need to stop writing stories about him. As I'm sure all the writers can attest, getting a high rated story is pretty tough. These stories must be hitting a right note with someone.

We've seen a lot that hot topics generate a lot of stories. Just look at Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It's inevitable that with any popular topic there will be a handful that are absolutely top notch, a few that fall far short of the mark, and the rest being somewhere in the middle.

The Spoof is a place for amateur writers with an interest in comedy writing to exhibit their talents. There are a few professional writers, but the majority are like-minded souls who enjoy writing as a hobby and we facilitate a mechanism for their work to be showcased on a very busy and dynamic website. Comedy is very subjective and it is impossible to pander to everyone's taste.

I simply disagree, as I'm sure would many other contributors to The Spoof, that there is nothing of merit here. All the writers on The Spoof are hard working and dedicated and our popularity is testament to the efforts they pour in to their writing.

Since I have never written anything pro or con about Ron Paul (I don't think), I feel qualified to suggest to ETHAN that since he is a 'registered writer' he write his OWN version of a Ron Paul story for The Spoof. He's 'zero/zero' so far.

As Mark says, it is a 'fun' site, identified as 'spoof' and pretty much anything goes, on any person or subject.

If ETHAN doesn't approve, he can offer his own rebuttal stories or KEEP THE HELL OFF THE SITE! (Unless his sister or mama is forcing him to read it of course.)

Gnarly

Think mine had tangs of humor, am I wrong?

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i20532

BEF
vagina
PS I didn't find anything funny about your post at the top, might want to work on that.

I tell you what Ethan, if you can get Ron Paul elected King (to some just that statement alone would be humorous) you can have him appoint a committee to re-write the constitution and repeal the parts about freedom of speech, religion, etc. But since I'm pretty certain Ron Paul believes in those 'tings, then you might want to rethink asking people to not voice their own warped views of humor. Its a free country!!

Ethan? DEAD in a bakery!?! How tragic.

Read the posts again while thinking of us as a pool of pirahna and Ethan as a lone tadpole whose wandered in by mistake, it's a lot funnier that way.

I implore the writers at the Spoof to stop. Please stop writing Ron Paul stories. They get in the way of anything useful I might be able to read about Dr. Paul.

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Ethan is right!

There is no reason to spoof Ron Paul.

Ron is just your typical John Birch card-carrying, Lesbian-Nigger-hating, Adult-Depends wearing, Wolf-in-sheeps-clothing Washington D.C.-Politician, out for your vote at all cost.

His words are written by Ghost-writers which are published in his X-treme right-wing newsletter & too old to survive his term as President if he did win!

Otherwise...he's a nice guy.

M&S:)

P.S. Besides, he has such a sweet smile...or is that the formaldehyde ?!

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Quote: Mark Lowton
... These stories must be hitting a right note with someone. ... The Spoof is a place for amateur writers with an interest in comedy writing to exhibit their talents. ... the majority are like-minded souls who enjoy writing as a hobby ...
...All the writers on The Spoof are hard working and dedicated and our popularity is testament to the efforts they pour in to their writing.

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I agree with much of what Mark says here and appreciate his kind words. I am absolutely an amateur comedy writer and am probably not all that good at it. I do have aspirations to write badly for broader audiences, and this is good training.

However, I disagree that we're all hard working and dedicated. I don't work all that hard, or at least don't consider it hard work because I enjoy it. I'm not dedicated - I get so busy with other things sometimes that I miss a few days. It's not dedication. It's addiction. I'm also very happy that I discovered thespoof.com.

Sorry, but I have yet to spoof Ron Paul. This is mostly because I don't know a damn thing about him (except that Cal likes him and M&S don't and Ethan wants to bend over the coffee table for the guy).

Now that people are starting to consider him a sacred cow (like Vicki Carr), I'll take the opportunity to learn something about him and make fun of him. I have not posted a story in over a week (no time), so he should be a good, available topic for me tomorrow.

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Quote: carina-eta

Read the posts again while thinking of us as a pool of pirahna and Ethan as a lone tadpole whose wandered in by mistake, it's a lot funnier that way.

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"Sniffle...Sniff...I'mm so proud to be a pirahna with you guys, wahhhhhhaahhhaaaaaaaaa!!!...Okay I'm fine, that's out of my system.

Hello all. It is nice to see that you all love your site. I was underwhelmed by your responses in which you misunderstood my original post. I was accused of being against the 1st amendment, of being Ron Paul's butt buddy (as a catcher only of course) and that I was offended because you are spoofing Ron Paul.

I am not offended that you are spoofing Ron Paul, I am offended that you aren't funny. I was told to stay the hell off of the site. I would like to. The problem is links to the site keep popping up on Google News and I occasionally click on them by mistake. It is simply an annoyance. I thought I would ask that you stop. Of course you have the right not to. I have the right to ask.

Also, I have never taken it in the patootie from Dr. Paul. Give me a second while I think about it. mmmm, 72 year old constitutionally friendly man-meat. You realize how much pussy a 72 year old OB-GYN has had access to over the last 45 years? You think he would be satisfied with my fat rump?

Also, I find it kind of funny that one writer suggested it is funny to imagine Ron Paul as King and another thought it was funny to imagine the writers on this forum as a bunch of piranhas attacking me. Neither of those things are funny. This is the problem. You guys don't know funny. If you want to see good satirical writing, try this: http://www.theonion.com. It is like thespoof.com, only funny.

Have a nice day.

........yakkity yak! yakkity yak!.........

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Quote: Ethan

Hello all. It is nice to see that you all love your site. I was underwhelmed by your responses in which you misunderstood my original post.

I am not offended that you are spoofing Ron Paul, I am offended that you aren't funny. . . . The problem is links to the site keep popping up on Google News and I occasionally click on them by mistake. It is simply an annoyance.

Also, I have never taken it in the patootie from Dr. Paul. Give me a second while I think about it. . . .

Also, I find it kind of funny. . . .


that one writer suggested it is funny to imagine Ron Paul as King and another thought it was funny to imagine the writers on this forum as a bunch of piranhas attacking me.

Neither of those things are funny. This is the problem.

You guys don't know funny.

Have a nice day.

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Gosh. I wish ETHAN would make up his mind. First, he's underwhelmed. Then he's misunderstood. Then he's offended The Spoof is not funny. Then he thinks it's funny. But, then it's not funny to imagine Ron Paul as King, or to imagine the writers as a bunch of piranhas attacking him.

And personally, I think BOTH those things are sorta funny . . . but ETHAN thinks 'you guys don't know funny'!

And, his problem is that he so discombobulated by all this he keeps landing on The Spoof by mistake! Darn! I wish I had simple problems like that.

Then, he protests he has never taken it in the patootie from Dr. Paul. . .

But, then he wants a second while he thinks about it. . . .

Methinks ETHAN doth protest too much! And, methinks that ol' ETHAN ought to get a life.

Have you ever noticed that political supporters get all hot and bothered over their 'man' (or woman, as the case may be)? Thin skinned as the dickens they are, and get all exercised for the silliest of reasons.

Another eager Ron Paul supporter (Cal-el) hasn't published in quite a while now either . . . of course he did say his computer was on the blink. Maybe ETHAN's will catch the same virus. One can hope.

Gnarly

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Quote: Gnarly Erik
Gosh. I wish ETHAN would make up his mind. First, he's underwhelmed. Then he's misunderstood. Then he's offended The Spoof is not funny. Then he thinks it's funny. But, then it's not funny to imagine Ron Paul as King, or to imagine the writers as a bunch of piranhas attacking him.

And personally, I think BOTH those things are sorta funny . . . but ETHAN thinks 'you guys don't know funny'!

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To be clear, I think the Spoof is not funny. I never waiver in this opinion.

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Quote: Gnarly Erik
And, his problem is that he so discombobulated by all this he keeps landing on The Spoof by mistake! Darn! I wish I had simple problems like that.

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It is occasional. I search for Ron Paul about once per weekday on Google News. There is always a new article on this site about him. It is never funny and often nonsensical.

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Quote: Gnarly Erik
Methinks ETHAN doth protest too much! And, methinks that ol' ETHAN ought to get a life.

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I have a life. I have even read Shakespeare as you apparently have. Well done Gnarly. Methinks you should develop your own style.

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Quote: Gnarly Erik
Have you ever noticed that political supporters get all hot and bothered over their 'man' (or woman, as the case may be)? Thin skinned as the dickens they are, and get all exercised for the silliest of reasons.

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My opposition has nothing to do with politics. No one here is offensive towards Dr. Paul. I just noticed that the articles are not funny and I thought I would share my opinion. I gotta give it to the posters here though, there is a lot of passion for this drivel.

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Quote: Gnarly Erik
Another eager Ron Paul supporter (Cal-el) hasn't published in quite a while now either . . . of course he did say his computer was on the blink. Maybe ETHAN's will catch the same virus. One can hope.

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I would suppose he realized that he was too bright to post on this site.

OK, this has been fun. I'm done now. You can feel free to respond but I won't be reading it.

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Quote: Ethan

An open letter to the writers at the spoof:

Furthermore, it seems like you should simply stop writing the spoof. I have never found a funny article here. Not once. You are wasting your time and embarrassing yourselves.

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Ah, like most Paul supporters, Ethan dreams of the perfect world... a world in which nothing exists except that which he approves of.

He doesn't find us funny... we should go away. He doesn't appreciate Ron Paul stories, we should not write them.

What a wonderful world it will be when educated, open-minded individuals like Ethan take power.

To be clear, I think the Spoof is not funny. I never waiver in this opinion.


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i see you've never read a Chester story, years, centuries ahead of conventional humour.

Fergus McCarthy

Ethan: It is occasional. I search for Ron Paul about once per weekday on Google News. There is always a new article on this site about him. It is never funny and often nonsensical.


"nonsensical" That is a key word! Many things in this world are nonsensical and many of us enjoy taking things in this world to nonsensical extremes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, sometimes we go to far one way. But since it is so easy Mr Ethan please write, "Please Tell Us A Story Grandpa!"

Here's a list of some examples to help get your creative juices bleeding...err...flowing, and horrors it even includes the Onion:


Contemporary examples
Latkelicious - a Hanukkah parody song of Fergie's Fergalicious.
Airplane! - parody of airplane disaster movies (namely Zero Hour!).
Austin Powers series - parodies of spy films, especially the James Bond series, and a broad range of popular culture.
Barry Trotter - parodies of Harry Potter books.
Blazing Saddles - a movie by director Mel Brooks, parodying American westerns
The Boomer Bible - a book by R. F. Laird, which parodies contemporary society and mores.
Bored of the Rings - a parody of The Lord of the Rings
Bus Driver's Prayer - parody of the Lord's Prayer, using British place names. Recorded by Ian Dury.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) - a parody of all of the plays of William Shakespeare.
Clubbo Records - a record label and related website parodying various popular music genres
CNNNN - an Australian parody of 24 hours cable news networks, such as CNN and Fox News.
The Colbert Report - a parody of pundit programs, particularly The O'Reilly Factor.
Crazy Horoscopes - a website which provides satirical (and often non-sensical) horoscopes
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace- a television show that parodies hospital dramas and 80s television
Date Movie- a movie that parodies romantic movies
The Daily Show - satirical news show on Comedy Central hosted by Jon Stewart.
Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood - A parody of coming-of-age 'hood movies' such as Juice, South Central, Higher Learning, Do The Right Thing, Menace II Society, Poetic Justice, New Jack City, Dead Presidents, and most prominently Boyz N the Hood.
Drawn Together - parodies the various genres of animation, along with TV reality shows.
Epic Movie - a parody of epic/fantasy films
Hot Shots! - A parody about the war film Top Gun (film) and other movies.
Hot Shots! Part Deux - A parody about the war film Rambo and other movies.
"Japanimation Movie" - a spoof of the majority of the most popular anime' movies and shows; written/animated by Brian R. Bondurant.
The Kentucky Fried Movie - A parody of kung-fu movies, courtroom TV shows, women-in-prison movies, pornography, etc.
Kung Fu Hustle - a movie by Steven Chow parodying Chinese wuxia films, as well as gangster films in general
Landover Baptist Church - Parody of Southern Baptist hyper-religiosity.
Laryngospasms - song parodies of medical humor.
Lazy Sunday - a music video parodying hardcore rap and The Chronicles of Narnia film
Life Support (TV Series) - a television show parody of lifestyle television shows.
The Legion of Net.Heroes - a Usenet shared universe that parodies the Superhero genre, the Comic Book industry, and the Internet.
Lush For Life - parody of newspaper and magazine journalism, similar to The Onion
MAD Magazine - magazine that features parodies of movies, music, video games, and television shows.
The Misprint - similar to The Onion, parodies politics in India
Moral Orel - parody of Davey and Goliath
Chris Morris's The Day Today and Brass Eye - parodies of high paced self-important genre of TV news programmes
The Naked Gun series - A parody of police movies and TV shows (based upon the Police Squad! TV series).
Not Another Teen Movie, a movie that parodies teen flicks such as She's All That, American Pie, The Breakfast Club, Bring It On and various others.
The Onion - parody of newspaper and magazine journalism
Parodius - parody of the side-scrolling video game Gradius as well as other Konami franchises
Perfect Hair Forever- an anime parody on adult swim.
Pokéthulhu - a roleplaying game combining the fictional settings of Pokémon and the Cthulhu mythos as parodies of each other.
El Privilegio de Mandar - is a Mexican politic parody. It's also the most popular parody in the country.
Radio Active - BBC parody of poorly funded rural local commercial radio
Real Stories - a parody of Australian current affairs television.
Restart - theatrical parody of British politics by the UK's Komedy Kollective.
Ripping Yarns - television tales penned by Michael Palin and Terry Jones to parody heroic stories/comics aimed at British boys during the 1920-1960 (?) period
Robin Hood: Men In Tights - a parody about Robin Hood and a few other movies by Mel Brooks.
The Rutles - parody of The Beatles
Scary Movie (Quadrilogy) - Parodies of horror movies such as Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Exorcist, The Haunting, Signs, The Ring, The Grudge, Saw etc.
Scream a parody of the slasher horror genre
Second City Television - parody of North American network television programming.
Sledge Hammer! - Alan Spencer's parody on violent cop thrillers.
Spaceballs - Mel Brook's parody of Star Wars, Alien, Planet of the Apes, and many other Sci-Fi and fairytale movies.
Stinkoman - A parody of anime (especially Megaman) created by Strong Bad in his SBemail episode "Japanese Cartoon".
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes - A cult favorite parody of monster movies and musicals that spawned three sequels, a video game, and a TV series
Soap - soap-opera parody
The Twelfth Man - Australian parody of Nine Network Cricket TV coverage.
The Sunday Format - BBC radio parody of vacuous lifestyle journalism
This Is Spinal Tap, a spoof of the heavy metal music business, by Rob Reiner
Underneath the Bunker - An online cultural journal, parodying all kinds of arts
Uncyclopedia - Online parody of Wikipedia.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's, Tom Lehrer's, Cledus T. Judd's, Bob Rivers', Allan Sherman's and Steve Goodie's innumerable song parodies
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series - Parody of the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! made by Youtube member LittleKuriboh.
National Lampoon -series of movies.
Watch the music video of a parody written about SLAC, "Takin' Care of Business at SLAC" as performed by Ryan Auer at SLAC's Family Day 9/16/2006

[edit] Visual example

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Original painting from circa 1503 - 1507. Oil on poplar.
Duchamp's parody of the Mona Lisa adds a goatee and moustache.

Marcel Duchamp's Dadaist painting LHOOQ parodies DaVinci's Mona Lisa by marring it with a goatee and moustache. In keeping with his Dadist practices, which called artistic conventions and aesthetic assumptions into question, DuChamps paired his visual parody with a low pun; in French, when the letters "L.H.O.O.Q." are pronounced one after the other, the phrase sounds like "elle a chaud au cul", or "her ass is hot", and that is probably due to the long time she has been sitting on the chair.


Yakkity Yak! Yakkity Yak!

I did it. I killed Ron Paul. No I don't know who Ron Paul is. Guy has two first names. Sounds like he's a gay dancer in "La Cage aux Folles."

Motive: Writers who have done Ron Paul rank above me in the rating. So I killed him, kinda. It was all done in the name of hits. But here's the thing; I use Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9a6) Gecko/20070629
GranParadiso/3.0a6 so I did not see any ads on TheSpoof.com site. I thought Mark was paying for this out of the goodness of his heart.

Recently, I had cause to visit the site with Opera 9.2. Now I see the ads. So I'm thinking the more hits the better, not just for me, but for Mark's hip pocket. So, Mark, why keep shoving my provocative mega-hit stuff in 'Articles', where few hits go, apparently. Crikey, I'm flogging my guts out here for nothing.

You can get up the list if you have 1000 stories more than 100. Just figure 10 hits a week on those numbers.

I mostly work the entertainment beat where things can get ugly. Fights in carparks, nudity, sex, porno pictures taken by ex-boyfriends of every sheila. And that's the real stuff, not a spoof of it! So what's wrong with Megan Fox naked at
Pink Taco? There's only so much Paris to go around! Another reason to kill Ron Paul. Nothing else to do.

Let me get some hits!

What am I to do with Lindsay Lohan's pussy? I'm not her British ex-boyfriend, Calum Best.

And as for onions, they only make you cry..

The person claiming that the Spoof never is funny is reading every word in the Spoof. I used to hear this same
kind of stuff on radio talk shows and it was always understood that those who complained were people who never missed even as much as one word of every show.

People listen most to talk shows they passionately hate.

Hate is just the other side of the coin from love.

I love writing for the Spoof because the Spoof is sending all of us writers a big fat paycheck for every story written.

Thank you.

Proof's in the pudding as they say.

And no, I haven't written a Ron Paul yet myself.

To find out if ANYTHING ever posted on the Spoof by ANY writer is funny or not all you have to do is Google it up on Google News or Web.

That's where you'll find Spoof stories re-posted on blog sites, web boards, discussion sites etc with commentary.

Judging by the feedback plenty of others get a kick from what's written here and love reposting it because it gives them pleasure.

Personally when I saw that white supremacist site's posting of a J-Man story it just added to the bizarre humor of his original post.

But there's bound to be a few sour grapes among readers.

Maybe Ethan is a paid cheerleader for the Onion.

Who knows.

Sometimes when I look at who's reading my own stuff or reposting it on their sites it can be baffling.

One Iranian site that reposted my Pentagon spy arrested at Israeli embassy made me wonder what the hell was going on after someone told me they'd seen it translated into Farsi on a Tehran-approved 'comedy' site.

Still if it gave them a laugh then what the hell.

Ultimately Ethan's argument is no more than sour grapes because so many Spoof stories get well deserved thumbs up if you ever bother to check up on the feedback.

Ethan,

If you will take this entire thread and read it from top to bottom, you will get more than a few chuckles. It is funny!

All politicians are fair game (except, apparently, your candidate). We will roast, lampoon, and skewer them all. If (maybe I should say "when") they say or do something stupid, we'll have it posted up here in a variety of forms within hours.

If you look back through our library and read all of the stuff on Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy, Clinton, Gore, Hillary, Obama, Romney, Kerry, and many others, you will see that we rip on all politicians from all parties. Just because you ask "please don't insult mine" makes us want to insult all the more.

Cal's stuff, by the way, has always been in support of your candidate. He is almost as rabid a fan as you are. While he is not in the Ron Paul "butt buddy" club, he endorses this man.

One final note: make sure you keep up a good supply of vaseline (and knee pads). Most politicians are in and out so fast or flip flopping so much it can leave scorch marks.

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Quote: ChillerBaggins

I did it.

What am I to do with Lindsay Lohan's pussy?

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Just how old are you, Chiller? Don't know what to do with it?

We'll send our buddy around to tell you the in's and outs on all this. Mr. Filbert can give you the bottom line on all of this sex stuff. He's more experienced with Britney, but I'm sure he can fill you in on Lindsay also.

Buck, this one belongs to you! He's a virgin, so keep it simple!

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Quote: Jalapenoman

Just because you ask "please don't insult mine" makes us want to insult all the more.

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I thought I'd get in here before Ethan does. He wasn't asking us to stop insulting the Ron Paul campaign. An open invitation to all