From ‘Star Wars’ To ‘The Muppets’ — Ranking Film Franchises’ Best Fan Made Spoofs

6 The Muppets

U.S. pop culture has been dominated by Jim Henson's puppets for as long as almost anyone reading this can remember. Kermit and friends are more famous than probably every second pop star, and the Muppets' fanbase transcends pesky marketing ideals like “age groups.” This means that, naturally, there will be parodies, and some of those will be good ones too. Example, some diabolical genius took Jordan Peele’s Us trailer and dubbed the audio over an edited video featuring clips of the Muppets — giving us not only an art-house Muppets story but also answering the very important question of what Kermit the Frog would look like with teeth.

Across the pond, it seemed fitting to do a Muppet Show/Tories crossover featuring Liz Truss and her “pork markets.” Seriously, it works almost too well.

And it does seem like fans, in general, find pleasure in successfully using their beloved Muppets to spoof them some politics. Comedian Brent Terhune did a short video lampooning Republicans who were outraged when Big Bird announced to the world that he, too, got the COVID-19 jab. 

In the end, though, the best spoofs seem to come from the Muppets themselves (or, you know, Disney studios). After all, it is their whole shtick.

5 Harry Potter

While there are many so-so spoofs of the Potterverse — because it’s super easy to don your mother’s drapes and wield a stick while yelling, “I’m a cadaver!” or whatever— there are some truly funny videos lampooning the world in which wizard kids get to murder folks and call it a good day. For every 100 supposed parody videos featuring sorting hat house songs to Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus tunes with no real trace of irony, there is one that’s at least somewhat creative. Like this Potter crossover with So You Think You Can Dance that sees Harry and Voldie b-boy to the death (but not really). 

Someone thought it good to explain the entire franchise in under two minutes using only cats (and another nose joke):

But by far, the funniest spoof is this wonderfully literal rendition of the Deathly Hallows trailer:

4 Game of Thrones

Kicking off the parodies based on that show where a necklace makes an old lady look saucy, here’s a parody song about all the characters who met their demise.

There’s this odd Game of Thrones/House of Cards crossover spoof that perhaps works a little too well as it posits that Frank Underwood is probably more ruthless than any other character on that show:

And then there’s a YouTube spoof series that accurately compares the power groups of the Seven Kingdoms to dumb high school cliques.

3 Batman

Also, a franchise that seems to suffer from a high amount of just-okay spoofs, there are at least some good ones to be found among the countless videos featuring people in funny costumes talking real strange to each other. Here’s an animated parody trailer of Matt Reeves’ The Batman that pokes fun at all that duct tape:

Behold the musical parody that asks all the right questions regarding that plot we got in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight:

Of course, who among us can ever forget the gift that is BatDad:

But honestly, the best of the best is this trailer parody of … oh wait, it’s us! Hahaha, we're just the best.

2 Stranger Things

The Netflix hit series about a bunch of nerds who need to fight Russians and mole monsters have some pretty killer fan-made spoofs because, never forget: Fans are nerds, too. The Hillywood Show, a group of YouTubers who do a lot of spoofs and comedy sketches about a variety of big pop culture titles, did a neat skit that basically sums up the entire first season in under 8-minutes. Oh, and they do it all in song to the tune of “Super Freak.”

There's “Seasonal Things,” in which Jonathan walks in on his mother, Joyce Byers, trying to contact her lost son Will not only through those Christmas lights but all things Christmas and other U.S. holidays.

There’s also this take on the gang needing to bike away from the black suits, featuring a funny little cameo:

And then there’s this little gem by the “SUPERFRUIT” YouTube channel that calls their spoof “Stranger Fruit” and goes a mile a second sending up the characters in the show.

1 Star Wars

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the franchise that gave us wookiees, lightsabers, and some good ol’ incest has a gazillion spoofs in existence, thanks to fans obsessed with Darth and golden bikinis. Some of our favorites include Chad Vader, a YouTube spoof series by BlameSociety that made its debut back in 2006, and features Vader as a store manager who uses the force to pick up some apples.

Here’s a music video spoof dealing with the bromance between Han Solo and Chewie:

There’s also the one where fans did a crossover with Cops, in which we follow a bunch of Stormtroopers patrolling Tatooine and, well, being just as bad as your average police force. The short was created by Kevin Rubio, and many believe it to be the spoof that kicked off the internet short film craze. It was so good that Lucasfilm recognized it at the 2002 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

We also can’t refrain from mentioning the very industrious entry by a YouTuber called Paulogia Live who took clips from every Star Wars movie and TV parody imaginable — as well as movies simply referencing the franchise — and edited them together to tell the story of A New Hope.

There’s the one where a Twitter fan named Nolan Fabricius imagined The Mandalorian as a ‘90s sitcom …

But of course, the grandpappy of all Star Wars spoofs must be the 1978 Hardware Wars, a 13-minute short resembling a trailer and featuring toasters and irons fighting in space. It was the first recorded Star Wars parody ever and received the Pioneer Award at the 2003 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

Long live the spoof.