Intentionally unrecognisable celebrity/character parodies

[Tikwid]

Is this a formal comedy trope and what examples are there? CaB will surely know it from THE REAL ROD HULL but off the top of my head I can also think of -

- Jack Bensinger's grotesque Trump, which I've kinda been obsessing over lately - viking braids, vampire fangs, golden penis on head, "swag as always"
- Fake Gabe Newell interview
- The fake slebs that would appear on early episodes of the Eric Andre Show:

[Cold Meat Platter]

Couple of my favourites from the masters of this art:

[Captain Z]

[Jim Bob]

Jack Bensinger's grotesque Trump, which I've kinda been obsessing over lately - viking braids, vampire fangs, golden penis on head, "swag as always"

There's enough visual similarities that I suspect Jack Bensinger was "inspired" by Reece Shearsmith's Silent Singer character.

[samadriel]

That Mash and Peas Seinfeld parody is intentionally shit, right?

[magval]

I never thought that it was, always thought they were just lampooning the general style of US sitcoms or, worse yet, what they though the UK audience thought that would look like.

Were they ever known for their observation or authenticity, those two?

[Dusty Substance]

Couple of my favourites from the masters of this art:

Vic and Bob sprang instantly to mind, specifically Vic's Barry White seducing a length of copper piping, but even that does bear a passing superficial resemblance to the Walrus. 

The one that really made me laugh was when the original pre-Charlie Chuck Uncle Peter played Orson Welles on the Stott's Film Review show from Big Night Out. Can't find a clip of it but he was just a very obese man who sat silently next to Vic, causing both him and Bob to corpse.

[madhair60]

I hate myself for still finding this funny.

[Dusty Substance]

This from CaB favourite Ricky Gervais before he became a mega-cunt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUBi9zlBuls (WARNING: contains him laughing *that* laugh).

[Phil_A]

[olliebean]

[Jumblegraws]

Tv Tropes have a list of this sort of thing:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadImpressionists

[Dewt]

Carrying on from Mash and Peas, I think that Rock Profile does this best.

Prince
Michael Jackson

[Dewt]

Michael Jackson

I love Elizabeth Taylor in this.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Graham Chapman doing Edna O'Brien as a gruff male Irish sports commentator: "Hullo fans. Begorra an' to be sure there's some fine badminton down there in Essex this afternoon."

Another one I love from Python is the end of the executive version of the Holy Grail soundtrack, personally introduced by Sir Kenneth Clark, in a deeply weird strangulated voice: "This is a very nice record, this is. It's a very, very nice record. That's why I like it, because it's very nice." (phone rings: "Ah, no, that was him. Yes, oh, yes. What? Well, well, he had a bit of a cold. No, I promise you it was.")

Stephen Fry did a good Michael Jackson, and Oprah Winfrey.

[j_u_d_a_s]

This is just masterful, keep watching to the end. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiKDfgkyBY

[thenoise]

Talking of Michael Jackson, his incredibly strange 'cameo' in the (now #cancelled) episode of the Simpsons 'Stark Raving Dad' almost counts.
The voice acting by John Jay Smith is spot on, but what were the animators thinking?!?

[willy crossit]

I hate myself for still finding this funny.

fucking hell same

"Are you working lates??"

[Ray Travez]

Mighty Boosh- Brian Ferry, from The Hitcher episode (about 15.45 in; there's a sort of coda with a punchline at 33.00)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6moliv

[alan nagsworth]

Most of Bob's bizarre footballer impersonations in Athletico Mince are among his finest in this vein of stuff. Jonjo Shelvey inexplicably talking like a 1950 vampire (and then in a later episode turning out to actually be a vampire) is fucking hilarious for reasons I will never be able to explain.

[olliebean]

There's Stewart Lee's Russell Howard, of course.