21-05-2025
The Baltimore Ravens Spoofed ‘Severance' for Their Schedule Reveal. They Just Forgot to Make It Funny
I've been writing a lot lately about my lengthy Zoom with The Naked Gun! and Airplane! creator David Zucker. Our interview was ostensibly set up to discuss his upcoming web series MasterCrash, a more-sincere-than-usual sendup of MasterClass, and to provide space for him to gripe about being left out of Seth MacFarlane and Akiva Schaffer's new Naked Gun movie — a classic win-win media & PR collab! The residual impact has been how much I've since thought about parody, and how not everybody knows how to do it right.
Time will tell if MacFarlane and Schaffer's take starring Liam Neeson as the new Lt. Frank Drebin, son of the old one (Leslie Nielsen), strikes the right tone. Considering the IP and talent attached — and even factoring in the talent not attached — Naked Gun (August 1, 2025) has a shot. The big Baltimore Ravens short film released this week, on the other hand, never gave itself much of a chance.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Michael J. Fox Joins Apple's 'Shrinking' Season 3 in Guest Role
As Shoppers Cut Back on Spending, Live TV Streaming Services Aim to Attract Subscribers with Up to 70 Percent Off
'Murderbot' Review: Alexander Skarsgard Is a Droll Delight as a Lethal Cyborg Who'd Rather Be Watching TV in Uneven Apple Series
NFL schedule-reveals have officially become a thing. Major streamers, broadcasters and media companies (think: Netflix, Fox, Disney, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video) got to announce a game or two of theirs to television advertisers in attendance at their respective upfront events earlier this week, and the team-by-team schedule-reveals (brought to you by Seat Geek!) are turning into major Hollywood productions, often borrowing from major Hollywood productions.
This year, the Kansas City Chiefs played Cash Cab, at least two teams did Minecraft, the Houston Texans parodied Scary Movie, the Los Angeles Rams went the Daily Show route and the New York Giants spoofed Love Island. The results are a mixed bag — but this story isn't about those videos.
The first mistake the Ravens made was in the selection process. Baltimore went big for their reveal with a parody of Apple TV+ drama Severance — it's always ambitious to try to spoof the best show on television, especially when your cast is comprised of offensive linemen, football coaches and front-office personnel. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, not all imitations flatter equally. And as they're already well aware of in Baltimore, if you come for the king (of TV), you best not miss.
There are some good pieces in the execution of the video. Certain production elements, like the cinematography, are great. The baby goats as the team's draft picks who are are 'not ready yet' was a clever choice. And it's OK that the players can't act — Adam Scott can't protect Lamar Jackson's blindside — where the video went wrong was in the writing phase.
The actual Severance premise here is unclear. Are the players severed so they don't leak the schedule? Maybe, or maybe I just retroactively invented an intention. Though there are maybe a handful of decent jokes, the video is seven minutes of setups and few punchlines. It's not enough to think 'it'd be funny to have our players and staff read these Severance lines.' A shot-for-shot remake is not comedy — unless, ironically, it's the ones Severance lead Scott did with Paul Rudd.
Perhaps the Ravens should have brought on Severance writer/creator Dan Erickson and/or his partner on the project Ben Stiller as free agents, like how a team signs a player they've since traded away to a one-day contract so they can officially retire where it all began.
Stiller seemed to appreciate the effort — Ravens Productions shot more than 200 hours and spent days editing — enough to retweet the video, at least. (And even if he didn't dig it, the only professional sports team that could possibly draw Stiller's ire this week is the Boston Celtics, who tonight will attempt to push the New York Knicks to an Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 7. Stiller will almost certainly be courtside for Game 6 at Madison Square Garden.)
Look, maybe I'm wrong. I'm certainly biased here — and not just about the proper way to write comedy.
I love the New York Giants probably as much as Stiller loves the New York Knickerbockers. Am I still a bit peeved at the Ravens for the absolute thrashing they put on my team in Super Bowl XXXV? Very much so. And as an early adopter of Severance, I may have overprotective tendencies about the series.
Other people and publications dug the Severance spoof — as of this writing, the Ravens' reveal video had 9,000 likes on X and nearly 3,000 on YouTube (with 70,000 views). USA Today ranked it as the fourth-best schedule out of 32 NFL teams, 9to5Mac called it 'hilarious' and something called Motorcycle Sports (that clearly ventures beyond motorcycle sports) said it was 'epic.' But don't believe everything you read online — except for this opinion.
Nevermore (do this), Ravens.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History
A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained
