"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen is a really catchy song, isn't it? Pretty much everyone can recognize the distinctive and complex melody, most people know the lyrics (at least approximately), it's a melding of numerous musical genres from rock to opera (thus lending itself nicely to being played with using other genres as well), and it also has a rather famous and recognisable music video. Thanks to its distinctive nature and Small Reference Pools, it's become quite a common subject for Parody.
There are several common approaches. The first is to keep the melody more or less intact but change the lyrics to suit a new, comic purpose. The second is to keep the song more or less the same, but have it sung by unlikely or inappropriate stand-ins for Queen (such as the crew of the U.S.S Enterprise) or in much sillier or inappropriate voices, and a third is to keep the lyrics the same but change the melody from a dramatic fusion of rock and opera to something a bit less... bombastic. Then, once you're done, all you need to do is replace the 'Bohemian' part of the title with something more appropriate to your current purposes so that the title becomes "[X] Rhapsody", and bingo!
Since any of these options allow for endless fun to be had with the song, it's a popular target for fandom parodies. Of the different sections of the song to parody, popular ones include the 'ballad' section ("Mama, just killed a man...") and especially the 'opera' section ("I see a little silhouetto of a man" to "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me for me, for me!").
While the song is subject to numerous parodies, the music video for the song is itself quite well-recognised and thus also subject to frequent parodies and visual homage. The stock visual parody in this case is the instantly recognisable image of four people arranged in a 'diamond' formation against a dark background, with the lighting arranged to suggest that their heads are disembodied (an image frequently used through the video, taken from the cover of the band's second album).
Examples:
- This Mountain Dew ad.
- One that inverts the formula is the commercial for Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, which turns the lyrics into a conversation.
- Cromartie High School uses the diamond formation pose for its soundtrack cover. The manga also features a character who may or may not be Freddie Mercury.
- Briefly in Frozen II. At one point during "Lost in the Woods", there's a shot of Kristoff's head being flanked by three reindeer heads, lighted to resemble the opening shot of the video.
- A fourth variant that is frequently homaged: Wayne's World has Wayne and Garth singing along as the song comes on the radio, most iconically headbanging to the guitar solo after the "Beelzebub" opera lyric. Thus warranting another version of the ''Queen'' video with scenes of the movie.
- Done in one episode of Horrible Histories about Mary, Queen of Scots.
- Done with the British Royal Family in the Spitting Image sketch song "We Are The Royal Family", which is musically a parody of "We Are the Champions", but shows the Royals' heads with the same positions and lighting as Queen's at the start of their music video.
- An episode of Father Ted features the hyperactively annoying Father Noel Furlong subjecting everyone he's stuck in a cave with to an impromptu solo rendition of the song in which he does all the parts himself.
- An old issue of Dragon magazine had "Companions' Rhapsody", sung by the cast of the Dragonlance Chronicles.
Caramon: Brother Raistlin, brother Raistlin, brother Raistlin, where'd you go?
Raistlin: To Takhisis, she's a black robe set aside for me, for me, for me!
- Bohemian Polka from "Weird Al" Yankovic is an inversion in that lyrics are unchanged, but it's re-arranged to be a polka.
- "Rap Soda y Bohemia" by Molotov.
- Nintendohemian Rhapsody by brentalfloss and PatTheNESPunk.
- Bluegrass Rhapsody original lyrics and music, but played as Bluegrass by Hayseed Dixie.
- Bohemian Rhapsody by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine (again original lyrics -more or less - and music but played as Lounge music).
- Jamaican Rhapsody by Ronald Reggae.
- Ninja Sex Party's "I Don't Know What We're Talking About": At one point in the song, Ninja Brian starts repeatedly playing the same note as Danny sings the next verse in a different style to the rest of the song. The music video accompanies this with a shot of 4 different versions of Danny's face on a black background.
- Fictional British Heavy Metal band, Bad News released an intentionally bad (and hilarious) metal cover version, produced by Brian May.
- "Cockroach King" by Haken has its video shot to closely resemble that of "Bohemian Rhapsody"... done by Muppet versions of Haken.
- At a show in Canberra, Australia, Ross Noble was delighted to discover that an audience member in the front row worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics: the government agency that, amongst other duties, conducts the 5 yearly national census. Ross then ad libbed a lengthy bit where he was a census taker asking an imaginary person a series of questions, and then repeating their answers back; the answers gradually building up into the lyrics of "Bohemian Rhapsody".
- Double Dragon Neon parodies the ballad section during the bridge of Skullmageddon's defeat song, "Dared To Dream".
- In Heroine's Quest, the rogue heroine uses this to keep Thrivaldi the troll distracted until the sun comes up.
"Spare we her life from us monstrosity?"
- Rain does this in Mortal Kombat 11 in the form of his second Fatality, with brief cameos of Reptile, Ermac and Smoke, all positioned like the album cover of Queen II.
- In "Art's Dream", the developer-created Story mode within Dreams, the nightclub bouncer's song asking you for the password has him hit the pose from the music video and album cover during the chorus.
- Neversoft spared no time doing the Bohemian Rhapsody performance in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, complete with over-the-top gestures in the operatic section. When the motion capture data from that song got backported to World Tour by the World Tour Definitive Edition team, it did not take long for people to come up with some rather interesting band lineups.
- DK Rapsody, which somehow manages to sentence mix the opening lines of the song from Grant Kirkhope's vocals.
- Star Trek Rhapsody
- Midichlorian Rhapsody
- Battlestar Galactica Rhapsody (warning: spoilers!)
- The Muppets did a version which Kermit says was a videoconference gone wrong. Notable for featuring the original song's actual instrumental tracks, including Brian May's guitar solo and Freddie Mercury's piano work.
- Zero Wing Rhapsody!
- BoHeman Rhapsody
- Wal-Martian Rhapsody by Mr. Wompy narrates an unpleasant trip to a Walmart.
- Lost Rhapsody
- Titanium Rhapsody
- Epic Rap Battles of History referenced it briefly when Freddie Mercury battled Frank Sinatra.
- Not Always Right: A rather spontaneous outbreak of the song in a doctor's surgery waiting room is outlined here.
- The finale of the Super Mario Land flash series at Newgrounds ends with Mario escaping the dungeon set to the second half of the song, as shown here: [1]
- Well, it seems someone has finally done the unexpected... and created the Sega Saturian Rhapsody.
- Bohemian Gravity: A grad student studying string theory explains what it's about.
- Most Popular Rhapsody In School, for The Most Popular Girls in School.
- Google Translate Sings has done a version.
- Ultra Fast Pony has the bonus video "UFP sings Bohemian Rhapsody". Nearly all of the cast sing along (for a given value of "sing"), and they change the lyrics to be more pony-centric. Also has exaggerated Artistic License – Music, with none of the musical instruments in the video matching the ones in the song.
- An episode of Caddicarus- specifically his review of LSD: Dream Emulator features a brief version of the song with 4 of Caddy's heads singing "Is this the real life?" shortly before slowly fading into an uncanny face from the game.
- Zuko-hemian Rhapsody.
- Calculus Rhapsody, where the singer briefly summarizes calculus, while making fun of it.
- Recreating the soundtrack cover with different franchises isn't unheard of - examples include, but are not limited to, Touhou Project (here), Jojos Bizarre Adventure (here) and (here), Kemono Friends (here), and even Transformers (here). There's also one featuring a set of pomeranians here.
- Youtube user and renowned Formula One-based Song parodyist Sim Dane actually did a twofer:
- First is "Bohemian Robsody", with former Polish F1 driver Robert Kubica as the central character;
- Second is "Bonomian Rhapsody", focusing this time on 7-time and reigning World Drivers' Champion Lewis Hamilton and his recurring tire troubles (the name is derived from Lewis' Senior Race Engineer Peter "Bono" Bonnington.)
- First is "Bohemian Robsody
- Bohemian Catsody
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Show Stoppers", which revolves around the Cutie Mark Crusaders entering a Talent Contest, features a brief recreation of the video's opening shot at the start of the episode's main song (which otherwise bears little resemblance to "Bohemian Rhapsody" itself) with the CMC taking the band's place.
- A rather hilarious video created by a young guy from Indonesia made a parody of the titular song, which went viral in 2020. But the real hilarity comes from the lyrics themselves. It turns out he wasn't singing about his lover, instead, he was singing about some kind of random food menu he wants to order such as iced tea and French fries. For some good reasons, everything that he sang is all about food. Talk about Word Salad Lyrics with a fusion of Overcomplicated Menu Order.
