In honor of the release of season five of HBO's simply incredible show, Game of Thrones, we are checkIng out all of the wonderful parodies that have been created over the years.
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The show's opening, in which the camera swoops and pans over the entire continent of Westeros (and in recent seasons, Essos), has become one of the most iconic opening titles in a television that is bereft of titles.
The stirring theme by Ramin Djawadi is still one of the most hummable pieces of television music in decades and continues the long tradition of wonderful HBO themes, from 'When You Walk Through The Garden' and its many renditions for The Wire, and of course 'Woke Up This Morning', which actually charted back in the early 2000s as the theme for The Sopranos.
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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if that is the case, then Game of Thrones should feel very flattered. Here are some of the best parody openings currently out there:
Game of F***in Thrones - no amount of words from creators D.B. Weiss, David Benioff nor George R.R. Martin could properly translate the audience thoughts better than this rendition ever could.
Game of Hyrule - since we may never get that Zelda Netflix series, we will just have to content ourselves with this absolutely stunning recreation of the Hyrule from the SNES classic A Link to the Past
Super Mario World Game of Thrones - well, both include princesses, trees with faces and weird zombie things, so naturally, it had to happen sooner or later.
Game of Thrones: Elder Scrolls - Mario is great, but in terms of similar gameplay, there are few properties that seem better attuned for a mashup than A Song of Ice and Fire and the entire Elder Scrolls series. What began as a way to kill an afternoon a few years ago quickly got out of hand, and the creator would spend thousands of hours meticulously recreating Skyrim's Whiterun, Solitude, Markarth, Riften, and Windhelm onto the map.
Game of Thrones: 90s Version - taking a page from the great adventure shows Hercules and Xena, this mashup (which includes the VHS scan lines) eschews the overworld map for a more 'character' centric opening. Doesn't Westeros look so fun?
The Simpsons - over its two decade run, The Simpsons has tackled pretty much every major pop culture 'thing', and has even created some of their own. It was only a matter of time before all of Springfield, from Evergreen Terrace to the nuclear plant, were animated like Game of Thrones. Well, like Game of Thrones, but funnier.
Peter Dinklage - the award for the most bizarre performance piece definitely goes to this one. There is no world map, just the Tyrion Lannister collectible figure rotating around in poor stop motion. Like 'Game of F***in Thrones', the new lyrics are sparse and consist only of the words 'Peter Dinklage'. We fear if you watch it too many times, you will go insane.
Brace yourselves, Game of Thrones is coming.