Pimp My Ride in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article describes the influence of the MTV show Pimp My Ride on popular culture.
Since the show's debut on March 1, 2004, Pimp My Ride has been referred to numerous times by other television shows and comedic acts; several similar shows, such as Overhaulin', have aired on other networks. Other companies, including MTV itself, have spoofed the series on their own shows, acts, or television commercials.
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[edit] Television commercials
[edit] Gimp My Ride
MTV UK created and showed promos for a joke show called Gimp My Ride.
[edit] Volkswagen "Unpimp My Auto" commercials
In February 2006 Volkswagen released a series of three "Unpimp My Auto" commercials that were an obvious parody of the popular TV-shows and their hosts. The ads feature actor Peter Stormare as the head of a team of German engineers destroying "pimped" cars in various ways while proclaiming that it was time to "unpimp ze auto" and replacing them with brand new Volkswagen Golf GTIs, adding the punchline "The GTI mark V, pretuned by German engineers".
[edit] Bristol My Ride
An advertising campaign created by The Tombras Group in Knoxville, TN for their client Bristol Motor Speedway, to promote the Food City 250 NASCAR Busch Series race Friday, August 25, 2006. Part of a multi-media campaign that includes tv, radio and the Internet.
Known for its rough driving, cars raced at Bristol often resemble those found in a junk yard. In the ad campaign, rather than "pimping" cars, the host and his crew take the "winner's" car—a modern Chevrolet Monte Carlo—and beats it with a sledgehammer, cuts the bumpers off with a chainsaw, busts out the mirrors and glass, and takes a grinder to the paint. They also put NASCAR-like decals on the car. The end result: a car that looks very much like it has been through a race at Bristol.
[edit] Pimp My Wagon
Shown as an advertisement for the MTV Video Music Awards in which Borat pimps a man's wagon with a hi-fi leopard skin and tinsel.
[edit] Television program spoofs
[edit] Pimp My Model
The Harvard Graduate School of Design came up with a spoof that called for a character named "X-ACTO" to come and pimp models in the architecture studio. The refurbishings wound up nearly destroying the integrity of the model, but comments on the longstanding dialectic in architecture between "cool design" and "good design."
[edit] Jimmy Kimmel Live
A PMR spoof appeared in Jimmy Kimmel Live, called Pimp My Bride featuring Xzibit himself and written by Kimmel's team. This short skit shows Xzibit entering a church and excited to see the bride who is getting pimped - after which, Xzibit tells the groom to come to the alley with him and reveals the bride, who, as expected, is done up like a prostitute with lingerie and has a television installed on her back.
[edit] MADtv
The Fox Network's sketch comedy show MADtv also did a segment in 2005 entitled Pimp My Bride. It starred Jordan Peele as Xzibit, who crashes a wedding and takes away the bride. At the end of the skit, she goes back to the wedding dressed as a prostitute. It was done and presented very similarly as the spoof on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and it is disputed as to which came first.
[edit] MAD Magazine
A PMR spoof appeared in MAD #456, called Dump My Ride. The car, "dumped" by "Messed-up Customs", was (apparently: referenced against diagrams from Chilton's Auto Repair Manual 1972-1979: Collector's Edition) a 1977 AMC Gremlin, which was outfitted with purple paint with yellow dots, a 42" plasma telly wieving the miniature race-car track by a camera in the trunk, a u-haul to replace the trunk, a deep fryer, a koi pond, playstation 2 with two LCD's below the car, iPod mini's for doorhandles, racing harness, a colossal supercharger, spoiler, and grill gloves with colors that patched the paintjob. The spoof ultimately ended with the car being vandalized and left on blocks in a parking lot when the owner went into a store, since the car had no alarm.
Mad also ran a parody of the pimping of the Popemobile.
[edit] Chav My Motor
A PMR spoof appeared on VH1 in the UK, called Chav My Motor. Although there was advertising for the show, it was never shown, as it turned out to be an April Fools joke. At midday, a picture spoofing the test card (with the word "fool" written on the blackboard) was shown with an announcement that Chav my Motor would not be shown due to "ongoing police investigations", and would be shown on April 1 of the following year.
[edit] Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken had a spoof entitled Pimp My Sister, where a pimp and his stable turned a kid's nice, average sister into a whore for the kid to pimp.
[edit] Pimp my Fahrrad
German program where a team pimps out someone's bicycle.
[edit] Pimp my Whatever
German program where a team pimps out anything. Recent episodes include a Brother, a Room, and a whole day. The theme song has sparked controversy: It is just the PMR theme song with a chorus of girls, sounding similar to the ones in the PMR song, shout "WHATEVER" instead of "ride".
[edit] The Boondocks
An episode of adult swim's "The Boondocks" had Huey's grandfather get his ride pimped after his other grandson, Riley, sent the Pimp My Ride crew a video claiming Grandpa was blind (betting that their sympathy would guarantee a pimping). This featured authorized use of the Pimp My Ride name, complete with Xzibit (whose name Grandpa could never remember) voicing himself. It also featured Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, who were duped with a similar video.
[edit] Pimp My Bride
MTV did a parody of the show involving taking a bride-to-be in ordinary gown, and "pimping" her out. She came back with a new hairstyle, high-heeled boots, and a shorter, more-revealing white dress. To top it all off, she had a 7" flat panel monitor on her back (as a joking reference to the show's penchant for putting monitors EVERYWHERE on a car). A sketch was also used with the same name and similar plot in the first episode of Bo' In The USA.
[edit] The Simpsons
In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer aquires an ice cream truck after he is fired (again) from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. When he shows Bart and Lisa the modified version of the truck, it is revealed in the same fashion as seen on Pimp My Ride, complete with the camera zooming in on certain parts of the truck. Bart then finds out that Otto is the one that helped out, stating "Wow, Otto! You totally pimped our ride!"[1]
[edit] Internet websites
[edit] Sniff Petrol
Automotive satire website Sniff Petrol created a fake advertisement for a PMR spoof entitled "Spud My Ride" in issue 65. The advertisement features a quote from a "happy customer": "I had my Citroën Saxo turned into a massive potato. Now I look like a fucking idiot. Thanks Spud My Ride." Later, in issue 74, an advertisement for "Minicab My Ride" appeared, supposedly hosted by "Crazy Dave Coulthard", and featuring pictures of a Bugatti Veyron pimped into a crappy minicab.
[edit] YouTube
YouTube has numerous Pimp My Ride parodies, often sending up the campy excesses of the cars and the style of the programme and its hyper slick post-production and presentation style.
[edit] The Skidpad
TheSkidpad.com is a young website featuring Onion-style satirical news stories.
[edit] Weebl and Bob
The Weebl and Bob episode joust2 features the car belonging to the character Bob being "pimped" for a joust, by a jar of jam and a talking blind fried egg known as "Eggsy Bit".
[edit] Internet Comedy
[edit] Pimp That Snack
An Internet site devoted to people applying the concept to popular snack foods to make huge versions. Formerly called 'Pimp My Snack,' but now changed due to legal reasons. [2]
[edit] Pimp my OpenBSD bootfloppy
A howto describing step-by-step the customization of an OpenBSD installation floppy. [3]
[edit] Print
[edit] Wizard
An issue of Wizard featured an article in which superheros and their "supermobiles" (e.g-Batman and the Batmobile, Wonder Woman and her invisible jet, Optimus Prime) were pimped.
[edit] Music
[edit] Xzibit
Xzibit references Pimp My Ride In the song Hey Now (Mean Muggin') on his 2004 album Weapons of Mass Destruction:
- What you know 'bout me?
- I'ma self-made man from poverty (yea)
- Now I own a lot of property
- I pimp rides, lifestyles, and companies.
[edit] Movies
[edit] Date Movie
The film Date Movie features a part where Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), the main character, gets "pimped", complete with gold teeth.
In the film Four Brothers where they are at the bowling alley, in the background above the bowling lanes are large tv's. An episode of Pimp My Ride is being shown.
[edit] Artwork
[edit] Pimp My Heart
Pimp My Heart is an Installation by Takehito Itani that uses custom electronics to amplify the heartbeat of a car driver in real time through an interface with a beefed up car audio aftermarket system.
[edit] Indirect references
[edit] Comedy Central's Distraction
The final round of this game show often involves the winning contestant having to save his or her grand prize car from vandalism by the losing contestants; on several episodes, getting a question wrong led to said contestants being allowed to throw cans of paint onto the car, to which host Jimmy Carr referred jokingly as "pimping [the contestant's] ride".
[edit] Shark Tale
After painting a shark, a kid said, "I just Pimped your hide!"
