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The Road to ... movies are a series of comedy films starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, usually with Dorothy Lamour. Each of the films is a parody of a particular film genre.
- Road to Singapore (1940)
- Road to Zanzibar (1941)
- Road to Morocco (1942)
- Road to Utopia (1946)
- Road to Rio (1947)
- Road to Bali (1952) — The only one in color
- The Road to Hong Kong (1962) — with Joan Collins
It inspired some other movies, including The Road to El Dorado.
This series provides examples, straight or parodied, of:[]
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- In Morocco, Hope's character gets his hands on a magic ring...
- Hope's magic flute in Bali, which backfires horribly when Crosby tries his hand at it.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bob Hope addressed remarks directly to the audience several times per movie.
- Book Ends: Road to Morocco
- Captured by Cannibals: In Road to Zanzibar, with the cannibals thinking Hope and Crosby are white gods... until, that is, the cannibals decide to test their divinity by having Hope get into a sidesplittingly hilarious wrestling match with a gorilla.
- The Cavalry: They arrive juust after the fact in Rio, although it's not for lack of trying.
- The Cameo: Several, particularly in the last two films.
- Cymbal-Banging Monkey
- Darkest Africa: Once again, from Road to Zanzibar. It uses all the standard Pulp Africa tropes and subverts the heck out of them.
- Demoted to Extra: Dorothy Lamour, in The Road to Hong Kong. She actually wasn't going to appear in it at all after Crosby insisted on (and got) a younger female lead in Joan Collins, but Hope intervened to at least get her a cameo appearance.
- Drink Order
- Dueling Stars Movie
- Early Installment Weirdness: Road to Singapore is a lot more subdued and conventional than the films that followed.
- Fake Nationality
- The Gay Nineties
- Genre Savvy
- Greek Chorus: Humorist Robert Benchley, in Road to Utopia.
- Harpo Does Something Funny
- Heterosexual Life Partners
- Hollywood Mirage
- Identical Grandson: Used to hilarious effect at the end of Road to Utopia. ("We adopted him.")
- Incredibly Lame Puns
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"Like Webster's dictionary, we're Morocco bound" |
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- Invisible Backup Band
- Large Ham
- Literal Genie
- Logo Joke
- MacGuffin
- Medicine Show
- No Party Like a Donner Party
- Oscar Bait: Lampshaded and spoofed in many of the movies, notably in Morocco.
- Overly Polite Pals
- Pardon My Klingon
- Plot Armor
- Road Movie
- Running Gag: "Pattycake, pattycake.."
- Setting-Off Song
- The Smurfette Principle: Lamour
- Sneeze of Doom
- Thirsty Desert
- Those Two Actors
- Throw It In: The most memorable incident involves a camel.
- Title Theme Tune: "We're off on the road to Morocco..."
- Travel Montage
- Universal Adaptor Cast
- Vagabond Buddies
- Vitriolic Best Buds
- We Need a Distraction
- What Could Have Been: Road to the Fountain of Youth, planned in the late 1970s but called off after Bing Crosby's death.
- The first film, Road to Singapore, was at one point planned as a vehicle for George Burns and Gracie Allen.
References in other works:[]
- Spies Like Us
- The Road to El Dorado
- Family Guy episodes "Road to Rhode Island", "Road to Europe", "Road to Rupert", "Road to Germany", and "Road to the Multiverse"
- Taz-Mania episodes "Road To Tasmania", "Return Of The Road To Tasmania Strikes Back" and "Yet Another Road To Tasmania"
- Duckman episode "Road to Dendron"
- The Tale Spin episodes "For Whom the Bell Klangs" and "The Road to Macadamia"
- The Legend of Tarzan episode "Tarzan and the Fugitives"
- The ALFTales cartoon episode "The Aladdin Brothers"
- They Might Be Giants song "Road Movie to Berlin"
- History of the World Part One The "Roman Empire" segment. Mel Brooks and others sing "We're off on the road to Judea!"
- Ishtar