For songwriters, both professional, amateur, and amateurish, a fun challege is to write a parody of the Major-General's song from Gilbert and Sullivan's ''The Pirates of Penzance''.  This can be quite difficult, due to the intricate rhyming schemes and extensive vocabulary found in the original; and nobody (IMHO) has been able to equal the outstanding work of W.S. Gilbert.  However, many have tried--this WikiPage is dedicated to the various brave souls who have undertaken the task.

First and foremost, is the only such parody that has even been sold in record stores (to my knowledge).  I speak of the infamous ''The Elements'', by the noted satirist (and former Harvard math professor) TomLehrer.  It consists of a complete catalog of the elements (circa whenever the song was written), set to the tune of the MajorGeneralsSong.  Of course, that was around 1959 or so... (please correct date).  Lehrer, anticipating that his opus might soon become outdated, ended it thusly:

 These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hah-ah-vahd
 There may be many others but they haven't been discah-ah-vahd

The elements are not listed in order.  Poetic license and all that.
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Another one I've seen is a parody about ''Xena, the Warrior Princess'', written by one KevinWald.  It can be found here ''[NOTE: BrokenLink as of 8 Jul 10]'':

	: http://www.warriorprincess.com/funstuff/heroinebarbarian.html

This one is notable for the author's Gilbertesque vocabulary, and command of Greek language and mythology.  It even comes with footnotes (without which it makes no sense, at least to someone not an expert on ancient Greece...)
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My contribution to this is the PointyHairedManagersSong.
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There seem to be several MajorGeneralsSongParodies on the subject of the ScoVsLinux issue [need to add links here].
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Any others?
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CategoryWhimsy