Albus Dumbledore - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Dumbledore has been parodied in several sketches and animated series. In the series Wizards of Waverly Place, the episodes "Wizard School Part 1" and "Wizard School Part 2" feature Alex and Justin Russo going to a wizarding summer school called Wiz-tech, in which Headmaster Crumbs is based on Dumbledore. In The Simpsons episode "The Haw-Hawed Couple", Lisa asks Homer to read her Angelica Button book to her for bedtime. Homer, learning that the character Headmaster Greystash will die (as Dumbledore did in Half-Blood Prince), hides the fact from Lisa by inventing a happier ending, though Lisa does read the real ending and decides that Homer's was better. Dumbledore also stars in Neil Cicierega's Potter Puppet Pals, in which he frequently strips completely naked, except for his hat, randomly in the story. Also, in half of the "Potter Puppet Pals" videos Dumbledore is using the exclamation "Alas!" in an apparently incorrect place, parodying Rowling's love for unusual words. In the episode "Ron's Disease", Dumbledore reveals himself to be "a gay android". In the Robot Chicken episode "Password: Swordfish", when the threat of the puberty creature Pubertis is known, Dumbledore gives Harry a stone that might help him fight Pubertis. Upon confrontation with Pubertis, Harry rubs the stone two times, which summons ghosts to punch it. When it comes to the third time, Dumbledore appears and tells Harry that the stone can only be warmed up three times a day (four if he takes a week off) and that Pubertis cannot be destroyed since it lives in everyone.

In 2003, Comic Relief performed a spoof story called Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan, in which Dumbledore is portrayed by Nigel Planer, who wore the beard and costume of late Richard Harris. Dumbledore also appears in the Harry Bladder sketches in All That, portrayed by Kenan Thompson's old character Headmaster Pimpell. After the revelation of Dumbledore's sexuality, the American skit comedy Saturday Night Live featured a sketch featuring Rowling (played by Amy Poehler) showing deleted scenes from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Dumbledore (played by Bill Hader) acts stereotypically gay. In A Very Potter Musical, Dumbledore is played by actor Dylan Saunders.

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