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Thoughts on Commercial Parodies

A lot of great sketches grow out of everyday annoyances, and there’s nothing quite as annoying as ads. It’s no surprise then that commercial parodies are prevalent enough to feel like a class of sketch all on their own. In fact, it’s one of the few specific types of sketches required in an SNL packet. So what makes a good commercial parody? The secret can be yours… right after this.

You Still Need a Game

The game of your commercial parody should not be: “This would be a bad product.” This is the prop equivalent of “look at this crazy character.” It’s wackiness without a grounding in reality. It’s surprise without truth.

Your commercial parody can have a bad product — in fact, most of them do — but there should be some bigger idea or point of view. These sketches feature bad products but are about something much more relevant to the average viewer, in the same way that any other sketch uses heightened behavior to make us reexamine something real in the world around us.

The sketch below features a bad product: a weird, maybe inedible food. But the sketch is not saying “wouldn’t this be bad?” It’s pointing out that less-heightened versions of this food actually exist. And it invites us to consider fast food’s obsession with wrapping shit in other shit and stuffing it with more shit.

Commercial parodies don’t always skewer real products; they can also address the way products are advertised to us. Ads are inherently absurd. They try to appeal to big things like personal identity and emotions in order to to do something small, like sell a bag Cheez-Blasted Cruncheroos. People in commercials don’t speak or behave like real people, but they’re presented as if they do. Advertising is full of insanity, cruelty, and contradiction… which means its fertile ground for comedy!

The sketch below features a pair of competing grocery stores but there’s nothing weird about the stores themselves. What’s strange is the way they advertise — specifically, the way one company can use puffery to imply terrible things about its competitor without every making a straight accusation. There’s also a dash of “look how effective fear in advertising is” and “big corporations will smile at you while running a local business into the ground.” The form of the commercial is used to poke fun at commercialism.

Commercial parodies don’t have to be centered around bad products or behavior. They might even feature a good product, or a neutral one that merely reflects the world as it is. These sketches suggest an aspirational product: something that doesn’t exist, but it would totally make sense if it did.¹

As always, these aren’t the only ways to do a good commercial parody, but all of these sketches use the fictional products to reveal something about the real world; they’re not just about weird, fictional products.

Pay Attention to Detail

With any parody, the details are all-important. The closer your parody looks and sounds like the real thing, the more effective the comedy will be. But not all commercials look and sound the same.

Think of the kind of commercial you’re parodying and make sure you’re aping the right elements. Does it have voice over? How much? An infomercial might be nothing but voice over while a fast food commercial might have just a bit or none at all. What about language? A toy commercial might have nonstop, fast-paced yammering, while a diamond commercial might only feature music. Visuals? An antacid commercial might use anatomical diagrams and colored arrows to show how the medication “works,” while a car commercial might feature only real footage of the car. Misuse any of these and the parody will feel wrong.

Details can also give you a jumping off point for a sketch. A trope, an image, a specific turn of phrase — any of these things could inspire a sketch. A lot of us have heard a commercial that asked “Has this ever happened to you?” So what if that commercial went on to describe a situation that has maybe never happened to anyone?

Make ‘Em Short

Part of being true to the source material is being true to the length. Commercial parodies should be short because commercials are short. One to two minutes. Maybe even less! If your script is over two pages, take a good, hard look at it. Consider if it would be better with a few cuts. A lot of the fun in the sketch below relies on the long disclaimer at the end, and it’s still under two minutes.

Buy Now and Receive a Free Tote Bag!

Many commercials have very specific important lines at the end. Some examples:

• A call to action (“Buy now and get 10% off!”)

• A tagline (“The world in your wallet.”)

• Upselling (“From the makers of…” “And, try our new…”)

Commercials know the value of the last line, and as a sketch writer, you should too. It’s your last chance to leave an impression and you should make it strong. Make sure the last line of your parody feels like the last line of the kind of commercial you’re playing with, but make sure this last line is a joke: a clever punchline or a new beat. The source material has given you a structure for your last laugh; you just have to figure out how to make it funny.

The sketch below has all the elements discussed here. It features an aspirational product — something that feels unusual at first, but makes total sense. It’s rooted in existing products (Fisher-Price play sets) and touches on something more meaningful about the way things are advertised to us (the rigidity of gender expectations in toy commercials). And it goes out with a solid last line that expands everything that came before.

1. Which is just another way of saying it’s a truth presented in a surprising way.