Old Spoofs of TV Series - why was the name often changed?

Has anyone noticed that in decades gone by, when comedians used to spoof TV series, they would often call them by a slightly different name. I always thought this was a bit strange - weren't they allowed to use the real name of the programme they were sending up?

Examples: The Two Ronnies' spoof of Coronation Street - "Abdication Street".
Ronnie Barker's solo spoof (on The Two Ronnies) of The Sky at Night - "The Stars at Night".
Trev and Simon's spoof of old early BBC kids programmes (on Going Live) - one of them sat at a piano waiting for "Dobbin the Donkey" (Muffin the Mule).

I know that later comics, such as Reeves and Mortimer, didn't change the names of the programmes they are spoofing, as they did spoofs of Food and Drink, Masterchef and Countryfile.

Erm, is it not to make them funnier?

They still change the names of things probably because of copyright/intellectual property rights.

The cleverest one I'd read about was an early Not The Nine O'Clock News skit where it sent up a then-current programme called "On The Move". The NTNOCN version used the same titles as the real programme, except for the final shot which showed 'On The Move' spelt as 'On The Moov'. I wonder how many viewers were fooled by that one.

The joke being that "On The Move" was an adult literacy programme.

Yes it would have helped if I'd explained the joke...

The Two Ronnies' parodies of Top of the Pops were fantastic, mostly because Michael Hurll produced both shows, so they could be completely accurate and use all the same graphics and sets.

I remember seeing some of The Two Ronnies' Top of The Pops parodies and I noticed how the sets were the same.

I always recall Ronnie Barker's "The Stars At Night" that I mentioned - a spot-on impersonation of Patrick Moore although an on-screen caption read that it was "Patrick Moore's Brother"!.

Don't porn films use a similar idea?

'Shaving Ryan's Privates' comes to mind.

It does?

None come to my mind, you saucebottle.

I remember the Two Ronnies TOTP parody presented by Dave Lav Trellis who introduced Boy George (Do You Really want to Squirt Me oo-er ) and Stevie Wonder (I just called to read your meter)

That was a good sketch. I remember the Status Quo mickey-take: "I'm the wanderer, very fond of her, but she goes on and on and on and on and on...."

But who can forget their Mastermind parody, "Answering The Question Before Last".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0C59pI_ypQ

Sheer class.