Anka Radakovich's Sexplorations column originally ran in the December 2017 issue of AVN magazine. Click here for a link to the digital edition.
Porn parodies have existed since the beginning of porn, but where do they stand now?
During the recession in 2009, when adult DVD sales were cut in half, porn parodies were one of the few adult genres that maintained a throbbing erection. New Sensations, Vivid Video, Hustler Video and Digital Playground all had big-budget porn parodies in production. Batman XXX, Zorro XXX, This Ain’t Star Trek and The Addams Family XXX discovered a cross-over audience who never watched porn before.
According to Hustler Video, Star Trek XXX, made in 2009, was the biggest-selling video in the company’s history. Thousands of fanatic Star Trek geeks went apeshit watching their favorite characters getting it on with each other.
And the movies were funny. In This Ain’t The Munsters XXX (2008, Hustler Video), as Herman pulls the monster meat of his pants, Lily looks horrified and yells, “That’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen!” Herman says, “You really like it?” And who could forget Evan Stone’s “acting” in This Ain’t Star Trek XXX (2009, Hustler Video), as Captain Kirk yells frantically to Lieutenant Uhura, as she blows him, “Keep going or we’re all going to die!” then pushes her head down on the Captain’s log.
The “golden age of porn parodies” started in the mid-2000s—one early standout was Will Ryder’s Not the Bradys XXX, released in 2007 by Hustler Video. In 2009, AVN added a parody category to the AVN Awards and soon had to split the award into “drama” and “comedy” categories because there were so many parodies. In the middle of a recession, porn parodies came to the rescue, with some budgets exceeding $100,000.
According to director Axel Braun, whose superhero porn parodies have garnered the veteran director multiple AVN Awards, “My first parody was This Ain’t Happy Days for Hustler, back in 2009. I grew up watching the TV shows, and I thought it was a perfect fit for a sexy spoof. That movie took my career to a whole new level.”
Though Hustler Video got in on the first wave of parodies, other studios joined in, including Adam & Eve Pictures and New Sensations, both collaborating with Ryder and Lee Roy Myers, before the latter went on to start Woodrocket.com. And preceding them was Cash Markman, who wrote his first spoof in 1986. Today’s superhero spoofs can’t compete with the great names of older porn parodies, however, with names like Shaving Ryan’s Privates, Lawrence of Labia, Ferris Bueller’s Jack Off, The Empire Strokes Back, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Poon and The DaVinci Load.
Porn Parodies Lose Their Erection
Today, porn parodies are petering out, especially in quantity. Earlier this year AVN almost dropped porn parodies as a award category, though that decision was revisited when it became clear there was a field of competitive titles to nominate for the 2018 AVN Awards. (It’s worth noting that a new AVN Award category was added, Best Action/Thriller, signifying a genre that the awards committee expects to see more of in the future.)
“I’ll, never do a porn parody again,” director Will Ryder said. Ryder, whose first big parody, Not The Bradys XXX, was made in 2007, said he now making “adult romantic comedies.” He explained, “I like telling an enjoyable story,” and “realistic comedy is what’s new.” His latest, Bad Babes Inc., was released in September by Adam & Eve Pictures. “We shot with three fantastic new-fangled cameras with a lot of doohickeys, bells and whistles, and approached this project with a cinematic, television perspective,” Ryder added.
One Hard Exception to the Rule
While porn parodies give way to comedies, interracial vids and horror movies, Hustler Video reports that one of their parodies is still going strong, thanks to our flaccid president. They report that sales of their Donald Trump porn parody, The Donald XXX—made in April 2016, before the election—are ongoing and that people buy the DVD in Hustler Hollywood stores as gifts.
In one scene “The Donald,” played by the always hilarious Evan Stone, is seen with a Hitler mustache reading Mein Kampf before he does two girls. In the trailer, Britney Amber, who plays Sarah Palin, sits on The Donald’s lap as she yells, “Let’s make America great again!” and feverishly fingers herself to a fake orgasm.
Larry Flynt, who thinks Trump is completely unqualified to be the president, said when the movie was released that “The downward spiral of name-calling in the GOP Presidential campaign is a national embarrassment and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It was also the perfect catalyst for the debauchery that Hustler Video has concocted in The Donald. This parody was my contribution to the most entertaining Republican Party contest in recent history.”
Flynt vowed to send a copy to every Republican member of Congress, so they’ve probably all watched it by now. Flynt most recently offered $10 million to anyone who can help get Trump impeached.
The Hard Future of the Porn Parody
Lee Roy Myers releases one parody per month on WoodRocket.com and Pornhub Premium. “We will keep making parodies as long as people want to watch them,” he vowed. “Lucky for us, that doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.”
Meanwhile, Axel Braun continues to mine the parody field successfully, having won AVN Awards for his big-budget parodies first for Vivid Entertainment and then Wicked Pictures parodies the past six years. His most recent movie, released September 30, was Justice League XXX, a full six weeks ahead of the Hollywood version, which hit theaters November 17.
“Directing these movies is always an awesome experience,” he said. “But I have to say the ones I’ve done with Wicked Pictures have been particularly enjoyable. Having the creative support of such a powerhouse company makes a big difference.”
And what was the budget for this one, we asked? “Bigger than the last one” was all he would tell us. “Wicked can still afford to invest in quality because their movies target a different demographic. I don’t go after people who habitually watch porn; my customer base are fans of the original movies.”
So what’s coming soon? “Batwoman XXX and Deadpool XXX are on my slate for 2018,” Braun said. “Charlotte Stokely did such an incredible job playing Batwoman in Justice League XXX and the character has seen a hugely popular rebirth in the comics, so the timing is definitely right. I’m beyond excited. In the end, that’s really why I still make parodies. I still have a ball doing it!”
Pictured above, from left, Axel Braun with Romi Rain, star of Justice League XXX (Wicked Comix); Will Ryder with Katie Morgan on the set of Bad Babes Inc. (Adam & Eve Pictures); and Lee Roy Myers with Jessica Jaymes
