25th Anniversary: 'Titanic' Parodies, Ranked
Although it's all about a horrific real-life tragedy in which more than 1500 innocent people lost their lives in the icy depths of the ocean, it's impossible not to poke fun at the movie Titanic. Ever since the film was released back in 1997, people have been parodying James Cameron's bladder-testing blockbuster.
At one point, there were even plans to reunite The Naked Gun's Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley for the feature-length spoof Titanic Too: It Missed the Iceberg, which sadly never happened. And judging from a quick Google search, a lot of people have added sounds of flatulence to that famous Celine Dion track and re-titled it "My Fart Will Go On."
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So in honor of the 25th anniversary of Titanic (and the 26 1/2th anniversary of the time everyone making Titanic ate seafood chowder laced with PCP), here are some of the most notable Titanic parodies, ranked in order of how long our hearts will go on for them.
Back when the internet was way less crowded, some folks entertained themselves with straight-to-video parodies of famous movies starring literal human thumbs with faces superimposed on top. Created by screenwriter Steve Oedekerk, the Thumbs! series eventually turned its attention to Titanic. Is it good? Not exactly. Is it a thing that exists? For some reason, yes. It is genuinely funny that, in this telling, the Jack character survives, but the Rose stand-in admits that they broke up the day after the shipwreck.
Both of Fox's big animated shows have taken their fair share of pot-shots at Titanic over the years. The Simpsons gave us throwaway bits such as Roger Corman's Titanic (which we 1000% would watch).
And then there was the time Smithers sketched Mr. Burns like one of his Fr– er, Navy buddies.
Family Guy featured an episode set entirely on the Titanic itself, but there were few specific references to the movie. On the other hand, an earlier episode, like Thumbtanic before it, postulated that Jack was a schmuck, and his relationship with Rose would have been doomed if he lived anyway.
“Titanic: The Sequel” From The MTV Movie Awards
A short sketch from the 1998 MTV Movie Awards found Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn pitching James Cameron their vision for a sequel to Titanic. In it, the apparently deceased victims of the shipwreck have secretly survived and formed an "undersea community" called "Titani" – all of which Cameron (playing himself in yet another humorous cameo) blasts as "sacrilege."
OwlKitty, the YouTube channel that digitally replaces actors with a cat named Lizzy in famous movie scenes, released a new version of the Titanic trailer. Rather than Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio instead bonds with a feline passenger. Unlike some of these other parodies, we've watched this one roughly 50,000 times.
One of the highlights of Saturday Night Live's recent seasons was when Bowen Yang appeared on Weekend Update portraying an iceberg – make that the iceberg. You know, the one that caused the fateful disaster that killed, what, 50 people or something?
But more specifically tied to the movie was the time Bill Paxton hosted SNL back in 1999. He appeared in an "alternate ending," in which Rose's prolonged flashback ends with him and his crewmates badgering the senior citizen about the diamond's location after they all had to sit through her "hack romance crapathon" for four hours before straight-up attacking her.
Bonus points for the James Cameron cameo at the end. He urges people to look past how the deleted scene is "stupid and crazy and ruins the movie" and think about "how cool it would have been to see a really old lady get beat up." Cameron then casually lights a cigar with a hundred-dollar bill like he's the king of the world.
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