Notes for Your Inevitable "Da Vinci Code" Spoof

» May 16, 2006 10:52 AM by Awol

With the summer's first blockbuster coming out this week, I thought I'd do you a favor SNL, Madtv, and all you internet amateur satirists. So I present to you my Cliffs Notes for the "Da Vinci Code" parody you are bound to produce.

Of course if you haven't yet picked up the only book adults have been required to read since graduating high school, then be warned I may shit all over some of the movie's plot points. Consider yourself unspoilered.

First, let's talk titles.

You may be tempted to keep it simple and mock the most recognizable aspect of the new film, the title, with some ultra witty word twist like "The Da Vinci Choad" or "The Da Vinci Cone." Best of luck basing an eight-minute SNL sketch on that. I suggest you scratch at the tiredness of the movie's central grail quest with something like "Indiana Jones and the Boring Expository History Lesson" or "Monty Python and the Trip to France." Or by its boring name, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

Of course you could go the other way with it, and make a sketch about Opus Gay's quest to reveal the lesbo-vaginal conspiracy in "The O'Keefe Code." Or perhaps the secret society, Priority of Scions, will stop at nothing to prevent the hidden secrets of advertising being revealed in "The Warhol Code."

Requisite Actiony Stuff

While this is supposed to be a thinking man's action film, it still needs some car chases and excitement. The first half of the film is about tracking down the Keystone, a rare cheap Pennsylvanian beer with a message locked inside the bottle, not to be confused with its ubiquitous Light cousin. Of course, like everything in this movie, the Keystone is closely guarded by an ancient secret order: The Keystone Kops. Handling them will be tricky for our protagonists as they have the ability to speed up time during a chase and drain all coloration out of an environment. They also have Fatty Arbuckle and can fit six guys in one of those tiny French cars.

Characters

Once you've locked in your title, and therefore your main motif, you mustn't neglect the requisite reference to Tom Hanks' professorial mullet. How he, or anyone associated with the visual aspect of that production, thought his Samsonesque mane denoted 'dashing intellect' is beyond me. It'll be perfect for all the bar-hopping, sleaze ball sequences Robert Langdon, the Harvard professor of symbology, has in the movie. I see Michael McDonald in a bushy coonskin cap for this one.

Silas the albino, the violent villainous vicar played by Paul Bettany, is another comic cog in the machine of this movie. Taking out my comedy eight ball, thinking the phrase 'albino monk,' and giving it a good shake reveals... Powder. Perfect! Who better to play Silas than Sean Patrick Flannery as Powder? When the holy man practices his 'corporal mortification' scenes by whipping himself with a cat-o-nine tails then 'strange things begin to happen.' Dangerous psychopath, misunderstood monk, or simply an albino in a movie?

And what sort of symbologist would Langdon be without noticing that Powder was created by a convicted pedophile, bringing us back to the Catholic Church?

Symbolic Puzzle Conspiracies

Which brings me to the focus of any decent "Da Vinci" parody: conspiracy. Lots of dryly-detailed historical fact to bolster the basic fictional premise of a "Holy Grail." Continuing our example from above: So Powder is chasing down our majorly mulleted Chris Parnell in "Indiana Jones and the Higher IQ" then surely the climax of the sketch is the realization that Powder IS Indiana Jones, the young Indiana Jones, et cetera. You get the idea.

Conspiracies can come in visual forms, like symbols and paitings, or hidden in cryptic anagrams that Amelie has to solve, thereby justifying her presence in the film. Otherwise there's no one to explain all the tedious history stuff to. Of course, no matter how simple the anagram or cryptex might seem to you, it will take these characters, the most intelligent and highly respected in their fields, entirely too long to figure them out.

Check Chin Froth. Frame out, you ego lout. ¹

Another one of the major plot points of the film will be the fact that Mary Magdalene is, in fact, the holy grail, as evidenced by the fact that the ancient symbol for 'chalice' also happens to be a "V," presumably for vagina. Which brings us back to "The O'Keefe Code."

That about wraps it up. Feel free to use any of these ideas on your nationally broadcast funny shows, that way I can totally blog about how you stole my ideas. Oh yeah I almost forgot: your parody should have at least one creepy naked dead guy in it.

¹ [For those of you too lazy to bother deciphering these: Hot French chick. Out of your league, Tom.]