On the "Road" with HOPE & CROSBY - Bob Hope / Bing Crosby comedies

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2000 by Wes Gehring

The three Wiere Brothers were the most eccentrically entertaining characters to grace a Road picture. Besides their music and dance contributions to "Rio," their dialogue is inventingly amusing. Because the plot defines them as non-English-speaking Brazilians who must pass as American jazz musicians, Bob and Bing teach them several appropriately hip band lines, which the duo trigger with hand signals. The hipster quips are "You're telling me"; "You're in the groove, Jackson"; and "This is murder." Not surprisingly, the lines get used in any and all situations, forever eliciting laughter. Moreover, the Wieres sometimes punctuate their actions with infectious giggles. After one such comic outburst, Hope and Crosby pay them the ultimate complement by entertainingly mimicking this giggling.

Consequently, putting these adventure film travel characteristics to comic use both builds a funny parody and provides a "creative criticism" primer for the action genre, if the viewer is so inclined. It is a standard spoofing experience--entertainment with an educational twist. This "creative criticism" component is important to keep in mind, because parody often has been considered as something less than important, sort of a funny parasitic growth on tree works of art. Yet, it takes just as much creative talent to perceive a given structure and then effectively parody it as it does to create a structure in the first place. Spoofing is simultaneously something old and something new: kid a traditional structure (in this case, the action adventure film); have topical "Road to ..." fun with the content.

In returning to the eight fundamental parameters of parody, as defined by the joint Road adventures of Bob and Bing, the third spoofing basic is that this genre should not be confused with satire. Spoofing has affectionate fun at the expense of a given form or structure (like comically derailing adventure films); satire more aggressively attacks the flaws and follies of mankind. An example would be "Wag the Dog" (1997), a wink-wink take on a presidential sex scandal (a la Bill Clinton) being covered up by a pretend war.

So, why the confusion between parody and satire? Despite the key differences, the two genres are sometimes used together. For instance, while Mel Brooks is generally the king of affectionate spoofing, he also makes pointed satirical comments in "Blazing Saddles" (1974) on racism and violence in the one-time glorified American Old West. While there is nothing quite so biting in the Road pictures, Hope does occasionally make a political aside. For example, Lamour's "Road to Rio" character tells him, "I find myself saying things and I don't know why I say them." He replies, "Why don't you just run for Congress and forget about us?"

The fourth spoofing basic showcased in the "Road" pictures is to continue the "broad parody" tradition so richly established by silent comedy pioneers Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. Their parodies were sometimes so broad, one need not go beyond their titles. For instance, both produced short spoofs later the same year of the 1923 epic western, "The Covered Wagon." Sennett's version was "The Uncovered Wagon"; Roach countered with "Two Wagons, Both Covered."