A parody video by the South Korean unit of Mr. Pizza restaurant chain has become a viral hit — and for good reason. It’s a clever send-up of all the braggadocio and insecurity that is bundled up in the Korean national character.

And it shows that Koreans can laugh at themselves for more than just a pratfall or slightly risqué joke, the standard comedic fare on Korean TV and in Korean movies.

It’s no wonder that expats who live in South Korea are cheering the development of the video and accompanying advertising campaign even as they laugh at it. For more than a week, various foreign bloggers who live in Korea have been re-posting the video, which Mr. Pizza first put on YouTube on Oct. 3.

Called “The True Origins of Pizza,” the nearly four-minute video is a mock documentary purporting to explore the mystery of how pizza actually originated in South Korea, not Italy. It depicts protesters, historians and bloggers piecing together the clues that Italian explorer Marco Polo took the concept of pizza from Jinju, a small city in South Korea’s far south. There’s even an Italian nay-sayer asking whether Koreans also invented cappuccino.

[Via] Wall Street Journal

[Video] “The True Origins of Pizza”