This is the post that answers the above question. Sort of. Defamer alerted me to the existence of this site only yesterday and already I’ve spent far too much time poring over it, even though I’m still not entirely certain I get it. But that’s part of the fun. What we seem to have here is a parody of the IMDb. Sometimes it’s a very obvious parody. This may also be part of the joke. For example, there’s this entry for 1975’s Ow, That Shark Bites, directed by Thomas Teitelbaum. (You all know Teitelbaum from his blockbuster hits A Boy and His Butt-Ugly Alien and Norris Hellcat and the Watery Tomb.) It’s mildly amusing that the original shark was fired over creative differences. But if you dig a little deeper into the site, you’ll find the not-so-obvious entries and then perhaps you’ll find yourself addicted.
For instance, click on the letter H in the left-hand column and scroll down a list that includes 1939’s Happy Youths Full of Beans, 1944’s The Harlot of Happy Hollow (“Zany comedy about a young girl in a small town who contracts so many social diseases that she inadvertently creates the cure for all of them, which greedy industrialists want to buy for top dollar”) and 2000’s How the Jeekleslaff Swiped Daylight Savings Time. You can also ponder the filmographies of Victor Maresca (Mobsters Are Endlessly Fascinating, Urban Squalor Tonight!) and Preston Victor (Even Death Needs to Get Laid, The Nutty Hostage Family.) Or just hit the “Random page” link repeatedly.
The creator of the site is one Spencer Green, who explains himself thusly. “There are many (many, many) film websites out there in Internetville, U.S.A., so why another one? Because this one is designed to have a little fun with all of those other websites and with the people who take films way too seriously… The Parallel Universe Film Guide is a grand parody of film buffdom and film history. Everything here has specific targets in the ‘real’ world and I hope there is enough to amuse any person who drops by even casually to look. But…the more you know about films, the more you will get all the references in this parallel universe and be able to enjoy matching all the elements in my fictional world with those of the so-called real one with which we are sadly all too familiar.” Fair enough, although I’m a little miffed I can’t go out and rent 1965’s Dr. Feynman’s Electrodynamic Party right now.
