Wrongfully Accused - Examples of Parody

Examples of Parody

• Many of the character names are based on names of actual places in Minnesota:
  • Hibbing Goodhue — combination of Hibbing, Minnesota and Goodhue County, Minnesota
  • Cass Lake — both a lake and city in Cass County, Minnesota
  • Lt. Fergus Falls — Fergus Falls, Minnesota
  • Sgt. Orono — Orono, Minnesota
  • Dr. Fridley — Fridley, Minnesota
• Many places in the film directly reference Twin Cities-area locations, including Columbia Heights, Wayzata, Hilltop, Excelsior Bay, Stillwater Prison, etc.
• A TV anchorwoman in the film is called Ruth Kimble. Kimble is the protagonist's surname in The Fugitive.
• The police in the bus scene parodies a pre-flight safety demonstration.
• WCCO news is an actual TV station and news program in the Twin Cities, the logo used was WCCO's logo for quite some time.
• The poster for Ryan's concert "Lord of the Violin" is a parody of the 1996 poster for Lord of the Dance.
• When losing his bow during the concert, Ryan professionally takes up another from a sheath on his back after the fashion of famous rock drummers. Nick Mason does exactly that during the famous Live at Pompeii concert with Pink Floyd.
• Ryan Harrison's name is a play on Jack Ryan, Harrison Ford's character in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, and Harrison Ford's own name.
• The picture on the box of the home video is a parody of The Fugitive same as the tagline.
• In the The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, Nielsen's character Frank Drebin mentions how painful it is to land on a bicycle without a seat. In Wrongfully Accused, Nielsen's character does just that after escaping from a bus/train collision.
• During the Cornfield Scene, Harrison is driving a car with hydraulics and the same steering wheel Cheech Marin uses in Up in Smoke.
• The "Machine Gun Jig" scene was a take off of the highly successful show Riverdance.
• The usher gesturing viewers of Ryan's concert to their seats with a lightsaber is presumably poking fun at the Star Wars series of films.
• In one scene, he talks his way out of suspicion by referencing objects in view in a direct parody of The Usual Suspects.
• The entire film is based around a plot called Hylander; the Hylander is the mascot of the high school that Pat Proft graduated from, Columbia Heights High School.
• One scene presenting Ryan dressed in kilt parodies the William Wallace character from the film Braveheart.
• Ryan Harrison's way of throwing the plant pot against Sean Laughrea at the party parodies the 1984 Apple Macintosh advertisement.