Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Scott "Scrappleface" Ott gets a "Four-'Dude!'" award

Satire and parody are hard. One tends either to be too ham-fisted (see anything by Mel Brooks) or so subtle as to be understood only by one's mother... and she's just laughing to make you feel better.

Then there's Scott Ott of Scrappleface. His parody ranges from good to excruciatingly good. He so has a line on things that, if you see his articles out of context, you have to double-check to be that it isn't an actual story. Check his archives, you'll see exactly what I mean.

It took a lot of nerve for him to put up Pope Shocks Easter Crowd, Doffs Cap and Gown, on Easter, but he did it. For that, he gets a Four-"Dude!" award from me. Here's an excerpt:
Dress[ed] in casual khaki pants and an open-collared long-sleeved denim shirt, his hair mussed with a self-confessed “bad case of miter head,” the pontiff formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger (TPFKAJR), said that “during a long sleepless night of prayer” he had begun to wonder “whether all the pomp and circumstance sends the wrong message, and directs people’s gaze on me rather than on the one who deserves our worship.”

“It makes good television — you know, all the candles and gold and costumes — but we have gathered to celebrate the resurrection of the only sinless man who ever ever lived, the one we believe is Lord the Universe,” the Pope said, “and that ain’t me.”
Read it all. Think his Roman Catholic readers were offended? Ohhh, yeah.

6 comments:

Nephos said...

That was hilarious. The satire was funny, but I think the comment section may have been even funnier.

DJP said...

Can you imagine Purgatorio and Scott teaming? Though either one, alone, is hysterical enough.

Kay said...

Strange commenters - nothing more confusing than a catholic who tells protestants off for not being catholic.. well, duh.

DJP said...

Well, Libbie, you know that there's only One True Church{tm}, and it's our fault we're not in it. We're in one of the (by their count) 2,476,035,121 Protestant denominations -- instead of being enfoleded into one of the 2,476,035,122 factions of One True Church{tm}!

So it's our fault that we don't accept the plain, simple truth taught by the True Church{tm} -- because it's an unfathomable mystery that critics can never understand!

Dan B. said...

Scott is truly hilarious--and it's too bad that the Catholics took so much offense at it and it degenerated totally away from the spirit of the satire. But I can't say I'm not suprised.

If Scott and Purgatorio teamed up? Wow, Mark could mock the pictures and Scott could do mock stories--awesome!

Dan B. said...

I meant to say that "I can't say I'm surprised".