Parody Because audiences had seen these classic Westerns, they had expectations for any new Westerns, and when these expectations were inverted, the audience laughed. Perhaps the earliest parody film was the 1922 "Mud and Sand", a Stan Laurel film that made fun of Rudolph Valentino's film "Blood and Sand". Laurel specialized in parodies in the mid-1920s, writing and acting in a number of them. Some were send-ups of popular films, such as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"—parodied in the comic "Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde" (1926). Others were spoofs of Broadway plays, such as "No, No, Nanette" (1925), parodied as "Yes,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 Paramount film) critics in the trade media and in fan-based publications generally gave high marks to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and, not surprisingly, focused chiefly on John Barrymore. The popular trade paper "Variety" described the production as a “fine and dignified presentation” with an “excellent” performance by Barrymore despite what the paper viewed as the absurd nature of the plot: In the weeks following the release of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in March 1920, media reports about the box-office receipts being generated by the film and the exorbitant prices being spent by “movie palaces” to rent it attest to the